Most parents send their children to school without questioning, but what happens when things go drastically wrong?Eleanor’s son Oliver was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of seven. Having had four sons prior to her youngest, she was well aware of the trials and tribulations of having children but Oliver presented in a way she had never experienced before. Her account covers the period from babyhood to the age of twenty-one. She talks through the issues that manifested at school, the diagnosis and dealing with a co-morbid anxiety disorder which resulted in Oliver leaving mainstream education at the age of eleven. She describes the impact on the family, extended family and friends, the different therapies that were trialled, some successfully and others not so. She discusses her experiences of medication, cognitive behaviour therapy, drama therapy, parenting classes, neurofeedback and the implications of ADHD on the brain as demonstrated by EEG. She talks through the support provided by schools and the pros and cons of having a child labelled as ‘special educational needs’, the discovery of home-schooling, self-directed learning and a more radical form of schooling known as ‘unschooling’, and compares her son’s experiences with those of the students she worked with in her capacity as a teacher. More importantly, she demonstrates how mainstream schools are grossly unsuitable for students with ADHD and underlying co-morbid conditions whilst they remain in their present state and offers an alternative approach, one that embraces the ADHD personality and in doing so can foster self esteem, resilience and success rather than feelings of shame, failure and anxiety.