The biggest hurdle for kids to work hard at is school, ADHD makes that way more challenging/impossible. If the parents expects their kid to work hard at school they will be gravely disappointed with their ADHD kid.

> For instance, is it the case that it is prohibitively difficult for people with ADHD to work hard in the skilled trades? That isn't how I usually think of it, but perhaps I'm wrong.

If it isn't interesting/exciting they wont work hard at it without medication. Think of ADHD as people with more of a cat personality while normal humans are more like dogs. Cats gets distracted easily but hyper focus when they find something fun, while dogs can be taught to behave. Cats don't act that way because they hate you, they are just wired differently than dogs. Same with ADHD people.

Another point about ADHD is that they can work hard at school etc with medication, it isn't an unfixable problem. I grew up never studying, everyone being angry that I didn't do the work I should, teachers being disappointed etc. Then I got a diagnose as an adult and got medication and then suddenly I could work as hard as everyone else and life became 100 times easier. So I went from smart and lazy to smart and hard working, suddenly working hard to learn to code, practice algorithms, get into Google etc became possible while before medication I didn't even believe I could hold a job. So to me ADHD is 100% real, there is no way it can't be.

However it might be a bit over diagnosed, I don't support giving kids pills to stay quiet in a classroom. It isn't like not studying in high school or early college hurt me at all (Except that parents and teachers got angry of course, avoiding that would be the main reason to study harder...).