Your 2-year-old can and does climb over every baby gate, so you start stacking them one on top of each other to try to keep him safe. Your 4-year-old is fascinated with fire. By age 7, your child struggles with homework, often forgetting to bring home necessary supplies. In class, your son or daughter alternates between staring out the window and getting up six times to sharpen the same pencil.

Is it ADHD?

Mental health experts say 3 to 5 percent of kids are affected by Attention Deficit (Hyperactivity) Disorder, or about one child in every classroom. Those who aren't hyper may simply "disappear" - daydreaming in their own world in the back of the class. The child that not only can't pay attention but frequently fidgets will likely be labeled "disruptive."

All children daydream at times. All children can be antsy. But the ADHD child's symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity are chronic and appear early. Some children are mostly inattentive. Others are largely hyperactive and impulsive. A "combined" subgroup is all three.

According to the National Institutes of Mental Health (www.nimh.nih.gov/public/adhd.cfm) symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity include:

• Feeling restless, often fidgeting with hands or feet, or squirming while seated
• Running, climbing, or leaving a seat in situations where sitting or quiet behavior is expected
• Blurting out answers before hearing the whole question
• Having difficulty waiting in line or taking turns.

Child psychiatrists and psychologists use the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) in diagnosing whether a child does, in fact, have ADHD. The manual states that the inattentive child may:

• Become easily distracted by irrelevant sights and sounds
• Often fail to pay attention to details and making careless mistakes
• Rarely follow instructions carefully and completely lose or forget things like toys, or pencils, books, and tools needed for a task
• Often skip from one uncompleted activity to another.

Guidelines require that symptoms appear before age 7 and continue for at least six months. According to the NIMH, the symptoms must present a "handicap" in at least two areas of the child's life, for example: in social settings or in the community, at home, in the classroom, during recess.

If your child's behavior is interfering with his or her relationships at home or with peers, or is impacting the child's performance at school, your pediatrician should be able to direct you to the appropriate medical professional for ADHD testing.