I truly believe that some children, like the one you talk about are so emotionally scarred because of terrible infantancy and early childhood. However, the kid who has ants in his pants, maybe has alittle too much energy is not a candidate for medication. Some kids are just more of a handful than others, thats their personality. I have 3, none are the same. My oldest, extremely headstrong, will argue with a post, my middle, mellow, goes with the flow, nothing really fazes him, my youngest, lordy he is as sweet as can be but he does not stop moving until his head hits the pillow. All three of them could be considered in need of medication with the criteria that is now accepted. I think medication is definately necessary in extreme cases but, nobody ever said raising kids is easy, its extremely hard and not for the faint of heart.
Seriously, I my eldest (12) has ADD. Not ADHD, he's never been a hyperactivity or behavior problem in any way that we or his teachers (he attends a private Christian school) couldn't handle. He has ADD. He's absolutely on his own private planet with his own private zip code and area code a lot of the time, with a total inability to focus on even the most minor classroom or home tasks and will literally be distracted by a fly on the wall.
We were always the parents who "would die and go to **** before we'd put one of our kids on meds," but after much discussion, much research and much prayer, we did when he was 7. He took Ritalin for several years, but we took him off that because it was causing him to have eye tics. He now takes Strattera, a non-schedule drug that isn't really as effective as Ritalin ... it's not as sedating, the Ritalin was obviously sedating even though that's not what we were trying to achieve with the meds ... but it kind of keeps him between the lines on the road and keeps him on this planet and in our zip code and area code.
We hope he'll outgrow this with time and we can discontinue the meds. We're not there yet.
But other than him taking the meds, he's pretty much a normal child and we encourage him to do normal child things. He's not athletically inclined, like his dad he has six left feet and total uncoordination, but he plays in the band at school, has taught himself piano and guitar by ear, and sings in the choir and is very active in the youth groups at our church.