Parent staying calm and close while a child with ADHD moves through a big emotional moment at home.

The toast was cut the wrong way.

That's all it took. One diagonal instead of two rectangles, and the whole afternoon is gone. Tears, a slammed door, a feeling so big it swallows the room, over something that to anyone else looks like nothing.

If you've stood in your kitchen thinking "how is this the hill we're dying on today," you are not alone, and your child is not being dramatic on purpose. In a child with ADHD, big emotions arrive faster and bigger than they do for other children, and the b...