The rise of criminalizing boy’s behavior in school is frightening to be sure. Boy’s making guns with their hands and shooting at other boys should not be cause for suspension. However, what is even more harrowing is the over/mis diagnosis of ADHD, bi-polar disorder etc going on among our kids. That does not mean that these conditions do not exist among our youth, but if I were a betting man, I would say at least 85% (if not higher) of these diagnosis is B.S.
Kids in society today are over medicated. I work in a youth group and it is frightening how many of these kids are on medication. It scares me and makes me worry for the future of our country. I was a perfectly normal little boy growing up, but I’m pretty sure that if I grew up in today’s environment, I would have been diagnosed as ADHD and been medicated for it so I would stop playing cowboys and indians etc...
When my son was four, the kindergarten pre-screener in my town tried to tell me he had ADHD. He was a very active boy, big for his age, and loved to rough house and play with his friends.
I never told my wife about it (she didn’t attend the screening) but I told the screener, to say it politely, that she was in error and I was taking my son home without any kind of referral to a doctor or anyone else.
The boy is now a committed Christian, an Eagle Scout and a soldier in the United States Army and is one of the most magnificent young men I’ve ever had the pleasure to know. And he was just being a BOY at the time.
You are quite right. A large percentage of these diagnoses are just flat out wrong.