I hate being bi-polar. It’s AWESOME!
I started reading this article but then I got distracted...what was it about again?
A couple of weeks ago, when my daughter and I were out for ice cream, we were recognized by a young boy who also goes to my daughter’s (private) school. He was also out for ice cream with his mother. As I talked with the boy and his mother, it became obvious that he was a young man of superior intelligence, as well as social confidence; in fact, he mostly carried the conversation, which seemed to embarrass his mother a bit. When he casually mentioned being on medication for his “ADHD,” I was amazed and dismayed, although I said nothing. I do not believe that the school had any part in that diagnosis. I think it may have more to do with the fact that he is being raised by a single mom (whether divorced or widowed, I don’t know). I am a single mom myself, but I have a daughter, which I think is easier. My heart weeps for boys who are drugged for being boys.
There is no simple solution to this question. We live in an overbooked society where things are supposed to work. According to experts, teachers are supposed to be everything and anything in their classrooms. A teacher who isn’t must have a problem. A child that doesn’t fit in must be fixed, immediately. Parents have been made to feel that they should both be able to work, have children, be active in their churches, and communities or they are slackers. A child that doesn’t shut up and do his or her homework, etc. must be fixed, immediately. Drugs like Ritalin offer an instant fix but may cause problems down the line. Until we stop pretending that we can be all things to all people, we will keep blaming children for the problems that adults are causing.
It’s the Age of Inventions, whadya espek?
ADHD was invented by public schools. Why you say? Because for every child they can claim has a learning disability the Feds send them a bucket of extra cash!
The commie pubic school teachers are trained by their union to tell parents their child needs to be tested, and they just happen to have a list of approved doctors to do just that.
The entire scam is as simple as that, more money for commie teachers!
Well, then you’re ignorant. I had ADD undiagnosed for 30-something years. Stimulant drugs don’t make me hyper; they actually help me settle down, relax, get my thoughts together, and get busy. When they combine stimulants with anti-depressants, that can be a problem since (1) anti-depressants can make NORMAL people respond like ADD people to stimulants, (2) depression also causes inattentiveness, (3) being depressed and coming down from a high is a really, really bad idea.
How come Asian kids don’t have any of these trumped up maladies?
Also: If he was co-valedictorian, he obviously didn’t need ADD medications.
While I agree with almost everything he writes, after 29 yrs. of working with children I still believe that there are some children for whom the ADD/ADHD diagnosis is valid. If anything, the bad parenting (with which I heartily agree has been occurring) and the liberal psychobable explanations that have encouraged the lack of disciplinary action and abdication of good parenting may be masking the real deal. When one considers all the women that are on some type of birth control (that directly effects the hormonal system) and the increase in drug use in our nation - both over the counter and illegal - it’s not too great of a stretch to believe that those things are having an adverse effect on prenatal development.
It's grossly overdiagnosed, because everybody wants a quick fix, and if somebody really has ADD or ADHD, the correct drug in the correct dosage is indeed a miracle.
But for every kid who actually has the specific brain condition that is remedied by medication, there are probably 100 with various difficulties and problems - some intractable and heartbreaking - that their parents and teachers hope will benefit from a quick fix.
I've seen it even in parents who should know better (e.g. a physician).
I avoided any kind of drug treatment and found an eye doctor who specialized in a form of brain remediation. My son went through his program and that did the trick.
Come to find out when he went into the first grade the principal of the school decided to switch reading programs without letting any of the parents know. So, my son was taught "look-say" and those reading exercises made it impossible for him to read correctly.
He's alright now, but I did have some experts tell me all he needed was drugs to "cure" his problem.
When there is a problem parents need to do their homework and figure out what's wrong. Drugs are usually a bandaid but the problem is still there.
My kid has ADHD. Her shrink said it is a problem with the underdeveloped pre-frontal cortex, which pertains to impulsivity.
Daydreaming was not a problem. She could do that, and follow the lesson in class at the same time, while sneaking peaks at a book she was reading under her desk! It was rather that she blurted out and acted out, without any self-awareness or situational awareness. It’s like a piece of her puzzle was completely missing. The medicine made it possible to do things that normal parenting includes, like going over homework, or helping her organize her things. She stopped running to the knife drawer every time she perceived a challenge, and could actually listen to instruction, begin to calm down, and respond. Her best self could emerge— with her humor and empathy and motivation, and better social skills.
I’d like to have her wean off of the meds, now that she is
older and can see the big picture a bit better and is motivated to manage herself.
I have no knowledge of whether the medication is over-prescribed or the condition is over-diagnosed, except to say that I know that happens because it happened to me on a dental condition that was the trendy condition-of-the-moment.
Healing is an art as much as a science, and mental health professionals have a lot to learn.
I don’t think my daughter’s treatment is great, but it has been better than nothing.
Judge if you must. I know many FReepers enjoy that. But let’s learn a bit from others’ experience, also, please.
it’s not a medical issue but it is a mineral deficiency issue. give a kid magnesium (the right kind) and add, adhd, and a plethora of other maladies will go completely away.
ADHD is certainly over diagnosed, that I know for sure. We have a provisional diagnoses for our son who is five. We have chosen to treat him with diet and exercise and not drugs. We now eat a clean diet; i.e. no artificial colors, flavors, preservatives, sweeteners, etc. We make almost all of our food from scratch. We are so much healthier as a result. When my son does get exposed to these things, especially artificial colors, it sets off his issues frighteningly badly. We’ve even experimented with him: His teacher gave him gummy worms a few time one month and noted the dates and his behaviors. We journaled his behaviors as well, without knowing which days he was exposed to the poison. His very bad days at home correlated to the days he had gummy worms.
True ADHD cannot be disciplined out of a child. For those who think it can, perhaps you can take that special knowledge to a cancer treatment center and insist that the patients be spanked until their body’s stop producing abnormal cells. It can be treated therapeutically by loving parents who don’t want zombie children.
We are treating our son’s diagnosis as a gift: Like many true ADHD people, he has a higher IQ. We take advantage of that and expose him to more information than a typical five-year-old.
I’m not a single mom trying to drug my kid into submission because parenting is hard. As already stated, we don’t give him drugs at all. My husband and I have been married for 11 years now, and our five-year-old is our oldest child. Both sets of grandparents are still married. We were raised in church and are raising our children in church. Corporal punishment is used when appropriate, and TV time is greatly monitored and limited.
ADHD - The malady also known as masculinity.
Thank you, mom. Thank you, dad.
I picked him up on Saturday morning and took him fishing to a spot that had no fish. I taught him how to bait his hook, and cast and retrieve. He sat quietly for about 2 hours focused on his bobber.
Took him home and told my sister that he was just bored and that they could test him for ADD/ ADHD if they gave him an IQ test first.
She called me a week later and said they now wanted to skip him a grade.
I told her that was the opposite wrong reaction.