My son was never on meds. He's almost 19 and attending college at our local community college now. He's doing great, but it's always been a lot of work from the time he was little. We had to ALWAYS be consistent, schedule things, write things down. We had a buzz phrase, "Use your references!" He kept a journal of things that had to be done. And I mean it was detailed! It had everything written in it from "Project due on Friday" to "Change your underwear"! He was always a very intelligent child but an average student. I had a lot of pressure to put him on meds because so many of his teachers thought he could be an A student. I wanted him to find ways to compensate for his ADHD, if at all possible. We managed to give him a lot of tools to do that, and now that he's older, he thanks us for that, and feels empowered when it comes to dealing with ADHD. He told me today, in fact, that he was thrilled to find that his physics class now cushioned swivel seats in the classroom. It's a three hour class, and the simple physical motion of turning slightly in the chair back and forth, back and forth, helps him to concentrate. (He made sure he chose a quiet chair!)
If you're going to do this, you have to spend lots and lots of time educating yourself about non-medicated ways to deal with ADHD. We never did herbal remedies, we did eliminate a lot of "bad" foods, too. I don't know if it helped with ADHD, but hey, getting rid of refined sugars and food additives is good for everyone! Learn and work hard!