The short answer: naughtiness is situational — a child who won’t behave for one teacher but is fine at cricket practice is making choices. ADHD is everywhere — the same struggles with attention, impulses, and sitting still show up at school, at home, at family functions, in things the child enjoys. “Can’t across settings” points to ADHD; “won’t in specific ones” points to behaviour.
The three questions that separate them
1. Is it everywhere? ADHD doesn’t clock out. If the school complains but the tuition teacher, grandparents, and weekend coach see a focused child, look first at what’s different about school. If everyone, everywhere, describes the same restless, distracted, impulsive child — including during activities he loves — the picture changes.
2. Does it cost him things he wants? A child being strategic misbehaves in ways that get him things. A child with ADHD loses things he wants — the game ends because he couldn’t wait his turn, the treat is forfeited seconds after it was promised, the friend stops calling. That self-defeating pattern is one of the saddest and most telling features.
3. Can he do it when he genuinely tries? Watch a moment when the motivation is maximal — a promised outing, a favourite game. A child who can hold it together when the stakes are high has the underlying skill. A child who melts down on the way to the fun thing likely doesn’t — yet.
Why the answer matters
Discipline aimed at a child who can’t is not just ineffective — it teaches the child that they are bad at being good. By the time many families reach us, the child has heard “naughty” so often it has become identity. The right frame — skills that need building, not character that needs correcting — changes the home within weeks, whatever the formal answer turns out to be.
What to do
If the pattern is showing up across settings and costing your child, a structured assessment answers the question properly — parent and teacher questionnaires, developmental history, and a paediatrician’s read. Our first 30-minute consultation is free, and if the honest answer is “this looks like a six-year-old being six,” that is exactly what we will say.
