School when your active and inquisitive child is age 6: “Parent, I believe your son needs to be on drugs.”
School when your ‘checked-out’ non-active child is age 16: “Parent, I believe your son is on drugs.”
I’d probably be okay with restricting Adderall/Ritalin to adults only. Let’s allow the brain to develop first, before we decide there is ADD or ADHD.
And I say the above as someone who definitely had ADHD as a child. It persisted into adulthood.
Fun story: One of my peers in high school gave Ritalin to several of us in the same peer group. At the end of the day we compared results.
Kid 1: “OMG, I was racing up and down the hallways! I was so jacked!”
Kid 2: “You should have seen me in Gym class! I was killing it!”
Kid 3: “I could barely sit still in Trigonometry class!”
Me: “Um.... I found... I found I was able to really pay attention in Social Studies class....”
(Everyone turns at me and stares)