ADHD or Anxiety? Understanding why ADHD and anxiety often show up together in children and teens
- Evonne Jones
- Jul 6
- 5 min read
If you're a parent wondering whether your child is experiencing ADHD, anxiety, or both, you're certainly not alone.
Many parents first seek our support because they notice their child seems worried, overwhelmed, emotional, or constantly stressed. Others come looking for answers about focus, organisation, motivation, or school challenges.
What can be confusing is that ADHD and anxiety do often overlap, and many of the behaviours can look similar from the outside.
A child who avoids starting homework might be struggling with executive functioning difficulties related to ADHD. Or they may be feeling anxious about getting the answers wrong.
A teenager who appears withdrawn may be exhausted from masking and trying to keep up with expectations. They may also be experiencing anxiety about friendships, school, or not fitting in.
ADHD and anxiety frequently occur together, and understanding the connection is an important first step in supporting your child.
Why ADHD and anxiety often overlap
ADHD is often thought of as a condition that mainly affects attention and concentration.
In reality, ADHD can impact many areas of a young person's life, including:
Emotional regulation
Organisation and planning
Time management
Impulse control
Working memory
Motivation and task initiation
Learning style
Self-esteem and confidence
When everyday tasks feel harder than they seem to for other people, children and teenagers can begin to experience significant stress and self-doubt.
They may start receiving messages that they're lazy, careless, forgetful, disruptive, or not trying hard enough.
Over time, this can create anxiety.
Many young people with ADHD become highly aware that they are struggling to meet expectations at school, at home, or socially. They start to worry about forgetting things, making mistakes, falling behind, disappointing others, or being judged.
In this way, anxiety can develop alongside ADHD as a response to repeated experiences of overwhelm, criticism, or misunderstanding.
Signs your child's anxiety might be linked to ADHD
They worry excessively about getting things wrong
Your young person may spend a lot of time overthinking, seeking reassurance, or avoiding tasks because they're afraid of making mistakes.
They struggle to start tasks
What can look like procrastination or lack of motivation may actually be a combination of executive functioning challenges and anxiety about not doing something perfectly. This can lead to task paralysis or analysis paralysis, where your child or teen gets stuck on the overwhelm and worry and that stops them being able to move forward with what they need to do.
They become easily overwhelmed
Small setbacks can lead to big emotional responses when a child is already working hard to manage competing demands.
They avoid situations that feel difficult
This might include homework, social situations, school attendance, sports, or trying new things.
They seem highly emotional or reactive
Many children with ADHD experience emotional dysregulation, meaning their feelings can feel intense, immediate, and difficult to manage.
Parents often describe their child as going from "zero to one hundred" very quickly
ADHD emotion regulation vs anxiety: What's the difference?
A common question parents ask us is: "Are these big emotions part of ADHD, or is it anxiety?".
When a young person has ADHD, the answer can be: both.
ADHD emotional dysregulation
For a child with ADHD, emotional dysregulation refers to difficulties managing and responding to emotions.
A young person may:
Become frustrated very quickly
Have intense emotional reactions
Struggle to calm down once upset
Experience strong feelings of rejection or criticism
Find it difficult to shift gears after disappointment
These emotional reactions are often connected to differences in how the ADHD brain processes emotions, attention, and self-regulates.
Anxiety
Anxiety tends to involve anticipation of future threats or worries. The brain tries to protect us from bad things possibly happening, by trying to anticipate or predict what might happen in the future, often informed and influenced by things that have happened to us in the past.
A young person may:
Constantly seek reassurance
Worry about school, friendships, or performance
Avoid situations that feel uncertain
Experience physical symptoms such as stomach aches or headaches
Struggle with perfectionism
Ruminate on the past or spend a lot of time worrying about the future.
Because emotional dysregulation and anxiety can influence each other, it's common for children and teenagers to experience both.
The impact on self-esteem
Without neuroaffirming support to understand how their ADHD brain works, ADHD and anxiety can start to impact a young person's sense of self.
Many children and teens begin to believe there is something wrong with them.
They notice that tasks seem easier for other people
They receive more correction than encouragement
They work incredibly hard just to keep up
Over time, this can lead to:
Low confidence
Feelings of shame
Self-criticism
Anxiety about failure
Reluctance to try new things
This is why support needs to focus beyond improving organisation skills or managing behaviour.
It also needs to focus on helping young people understand themselves with greater compassion and recognising that their brain may simply work differently.
Supporting your child with ADHD and anxiety at home
While every child’s experience of ADHD and anxiety is different, there are some helpful ways parents can support both ADHD and anxiety in day-to-day life.
Focus on connection before correction
Children are more likely to engage with guidance when they feel understood and supported. Starting with connection before correction supports this. Learn more in my post: Why connection before correction works.
Be curious about what's underneath the behaviour
Instead of asking, "Why won't they just do it?" try asking, "What's making this difficult right now?". We have prepared some self-paced online workshops that dive deeper into this if you're keen to learn more: Explore Parent Workshops
Reduce unnecessary shame
Many children with ADHD already feel like they're getting things wrong. Gentle encouragement often goes much further than criticism.
Break tasks into smaller steps
Large tasks can feel overwhelming. Smaller, achievable steps can help build momentum and confidence.
Support emotion regulation
Helping children recognise, name, and navigate their emotions is often more effective than trying to stop big emotions from happening.
Celebrate strengths
Children with ADHD often have incredible creativity, curiosity, passion, problem-solving abilities, and unique ways of seeing the world.
Helping them recognise these strengths is just as important as addressing challenges.
When professional ADHD support can help
If your child's anxiety, emotion regulation difficulties, school challenges, or ADHD-related struggles are significantly affecting daily life, additional support can be incredibly helpful.
A neuroaffirming approach looks beyond symptoms alone and considers the whole child, seeing their strengths, relationships, environment, experiences, and goals.
Support can help children and teens:
Better understand how their ADHD brain works
Build emotional regulation skills
Develop practical executive functioning strategies
Strengthen confidence and self-esteem
Reduce overwhelm and anxiety
Improve family communication and connection
Most importantly, support can help young people to realise that they are not broken.
They may simply need different tools, understanding, and support to thrive.
ADHD Social Work Support with Evonne Jones
As a Social Worker, Play Therapist, and ADHD-Certified Clinical Services Provider (ADHD-CCSP), I provide practical, neuroaffirming support for children, teenagers, and families navigating ADHD, anxiety, emotional regulation challenges, and everyday life.
Based in Perth, and supporting families around Australia, I work closely with you to help your young person better understand their ADHD brain, build confidence, strengthen emotional wellbeing, and develop strategies for life that work for them.
The goal isn't to change who they are. It's to help them thrive as themselves.
Learn more about ADHD Social Work Support with Evonne or get in touch to discuss how support can help your family.
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