Q. I have two granddaughters with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). They are lovely girls, but a big handful for their parents. Will they still have problems when they grow up?

A. Most children with ADHD become normal adults. The disturbed behaviour settles as they mature, and even when some of the problems last into adult life they are usually less troublesome. In some very severely affected children there may be an underlying illness that causes the behaviour to last into adulthood, but that is relatively rare, and the paediatrician will have already told the parents about it. Presumably that doesn’t apply to your granddaughters.