The great ADHD myth (Psychiatrist who identified ADD admits many may not be ill)

The Daily Mail (U.K.) ^ | March 9, 2007 | Jenny Hope

[wintertime]

She further said that about 1/3 of the kids in her practice have ADHD and are being home-schooled.

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I am willing to bet that they were not homeschooled from the beginning.

[AD from SpringBay]

Just another label for the 'professional educators' to use for categorization purposes. Zee leetle vons must remain unter our control! Zey must be medicated!

[Gabz]

And don't forget the kids that were continually being sent to the principal's office, or to stand in a corner :)

[SoftballMominVA]

All children are home-schooled from the beginning. When a parent brings a 2, 3, or 4 year old to the doctor with attentional concerns, the parent is the concerned 'teacher' not the public schools.

[SoftballMominVA]

Your link does not say what she was being treated for and what medications were used. Any ideas?

[Just another Joe]

At some point, we all have a common Grandma. ;)

You better take that back!

I got NO family in common with Michael Moore!

At some point, SOME of us have a common grandma.

;^)

[gracesdad]

"It didn't exist in my large parochial school classes of the 1950s and 60s."

Oh it existed all right.

[wintertime]

And lest we forget, why for hundreds of years, children had recess

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Institutionalizing children for their education is a very **recent** phenomena. The institution of wide spread and universal compulsory government schools are little more than one hundred years old. In some states compulsory schools were not mandatory until the early 1900s.

Certainly, the factory-like schools that we see dotting the landscape are **very recent**. My own mother and father, who are 93 attended very small neighborhood schools, walked home for lunch ( as I did), knew the parents of their classmates,,,,,and,,,most ( being still rural) of their contemporaries were educated in one room school houses.

It is amazingly, but my parents' generation won WWII, built the interstate highway system, put a man on the moon, discovered viruses, unraveled DNA, conquered polio and smallpox, invented transistors, built the telephone system, invented open heart surgery and antibiotics,,,etc.

[Raycpa]

He theorized that the behavior was either inherited or the result of an injury at birth.

Our daughter, who has ADHD was born not breathing and blue. Her APGAR scores were 0. Her brain was without oxygen for a period of time. She did start breathing and had no symptoms until she was supposed to be reading.

In 2nd grade she was in remedial reading and in danger of being placed in special education classes because she was unable to meet minimal reading required for her grade.

We suspected ADD in spite of the fact her behavior was exemplary. One month after she began medication, her reading skills were two years ahead of her age. She continued medication and finished HS with honors and was inducted into the honor society. We never needed to remind her to take her med's. She knew the difference had too dramatic an effect. In fact, her friends and teachers never understood how profoundly she is affected by ADD until they experience being around her on a day she does forget.

Was it Brain damage, hereditary or some other cause? Who knows. Is it real and does medication work? Absolutely.

[SoftballMominVA]

..and unfortunately raised the most spoiled generation that will most as likely undo all the good they did. It will be up to a future generation to undo the sociological damage done by the baby boomers - all raised by the 'greatest generation.'

[gracesdad]

"I cannot wait to read the clueless ignorance that this thread will attract of folks who think this article is proof ADD doesn't exist and doesn't devastate many who suffer from it."

Haven't been disappointed, have you?

[longtermmemmory]

Dr Robert Spitzer said that up to 30 per cent of youngsters classified as suffering from disruptive and hyperactive conditions could have been misdiagnosed.


How many people would volunteer to fly on an passenger plane with a 30% falure rate? IOW an airplane would 100 passengers would have 30 die before their destination.


this is not only insance this is culpable negligence.


look for the lawyer commericals next week.

[Gabz]

Is it real and does medication work? Absolutely.

An issue you and I are in complete agreement on.

[longtermmemmory]

typos:

...an airplane with 100 passengers would have 30 die before their destination.

and

..this is not only incompetence, this is culpable negligence.


sorry to the spelling nazis.

[xsmommy]

parents of kids who are legitimately diagnosed and medicated for ADD cannot help but reel from the sheer ignorance on these threads.

[driftdiver]

the point is that many doc's are over eager to pills as the answer and dont consider environment.

its common throughout our society to look for quick easy fixes.

[jacknhoo]

And, they target babies for drug therapy, too! Isn't it peculiar how physicians are qualified to be psychiatrists and prescribe psyvchiatric drugs with not psychiatric evaluation and also how psychologists will soon be able to subscribe the drugs, too? Somehow we've got to get a grip on the drug companies' irresponsibility.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/OnCall/story?id=2640591&page=1

[gracesdad]

"parents of kids who are legitimately diagnosed and medicated for ADD cannot help but reel from the sheer ignorance on these threads."

Indeed.

So far it appears that 1) I did not spank my daughter enough; 2) I'm a bad parent; 3) Our school system FORCED us to put her on drugs; 4) My daughter's teachers just wanted a roomful of drugged children; 5) Our pediatrician was in cahoots with the drug companies; (Strange thing that those same teachers and doctors never demanded that my son take medications); 6) My daughter (5'7", 107 pounds, 12 high school letters for running) would have been thinner, more active, and better behaved if she had been homeschooled; and 7) There were no people with ADD in the 1960s or none took Ritalin, which means I must not actually have existed back when I was supposed to have been in 3rd through 7th grades.

[SwedishConservative]

I'm sure there are kids out there with 'real' problems, just as I'm sure that the majority of ADD/ADHD etc diagnoses is just cop-outs for bad or absent parenting or teacher who fail to realize that children are children, not machines.

[wintertime]

All children are home-schooled from the beginning. When a parent brings a 2, 3, or 4 year old to the doctor with attentional concerns, the parent is the concerned 'teacher' not the public schools. ( Softballmom)

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Are these kids in daycare and pre-schools? Are there moms working outside the home from early ages?

The NEA is pushing for universal pre-K and full-day kindergarten. I predict an explosion of ADD and ADHD.

Let's look at how children are raised by the members of our church.

1) A mother in my congregation taught me how to get my newborns to sleep through the night. She told me that I should not talk or play with the baby when he woke up during the night, and to use only the smallest light needed to change his diaper and feed him. She said that in this way the baby learns that it is boring a night and more worthwhile to sleep.

2) When infants cry in church, the moms leave and take them to a quiet and boring area of the church ( such as facing the wall). The moms do **not** entertain the child by talking and playing, but change diapers and feed the child in silence. In this way the infant soon learns that being quiet in the congregation is more interesting than being noisy facing a wall.

2a) As the children get older ( in my children about 2 1/2) if the child misbehaves during the service, another member ( NOT the mom or dad) will take the child out of the service. The mother and father then retrieves the child after 2 to 5 minutes. The child is told, "Quiet children can stay in the service with their family."

3) The mothers being teaching their children in infancy how to be quiet. Every day they line their children up on the sofa. They teach their children how to fold their arms or hands, and encourage them ( sometimes with small rewards) how to sit still and be quiet. They do this for about 5 minutes every day and explain the behavior needed during church.

4) They establish a routine of morning, evening, and mealtime prayer and daily scripture reading. ( During these times the children are expected and encouraged to be quiet and non-disruptive.)

4a)They have set meal times and no snacking between meals.

5) These children have regular nap times.

6) Unless the family is desperate, the mothers do **not** work.

7) The mothers and fathers are continually sharing gentle but effecting disciplining techniques.

Isn't it amazing? These children can sit quietly in a physician or dentist's office! They can stand in line at the bank. They don't go "nutz" in the supermarket. And,,,,there teachers LOVE these kids in school!

The children of our members are in gifted and talented programs far more often that statistics would dictate.

Do we have ADHA in our congregation. Yes! It is **only** with older children who have parents who have converted to the religion. It is amazing, but the behavior ( and school work) of these children improves the longer they are active in the church.

Ok,,,I am waiting for an ADHA/ADD defender to call me abusive!