Diagnosing ADHD in children

Go to work in one of the local jails and you will meet the results of a medicated childhood. Perfectly healty young people who can't seem to function without being medicated to the hilt. They claim they can't (won't) work, because they suffer from ADHD ADD Bopolarism, etc. I ask them when they were diagnosed and most say in elementary school.
Now I ask you, how many psychoanalysts are there and where do they find the time to properly diagnose this number of children?
You may wonder why the parents don't object more. IMO it's because the parents are 2nd generation parents being raised on Ritalin and other mood altering drugs. It's only going to get worse.

Instead of people getting upset that their children might hear about gay people in school, they might start telling their schools to stop pushing drugs on to their children. Is it any wonder the welfare roles are climbing and the number of people, who never worked in their lives, are claiming SS disability?

Just to sound like an old geezer. When I went to school we never heard of kids being given mood altering drugs to make them behave. When we started getting antsy in the classroom our teachers had the common sense and the latitude to kick us out into the playground for recess so we could burn the unspent energy off. Seemed to work ok for us. Plus they were allowed to mete out discipline as needed.

patom wrote:Go to work in one of the local jails and you will meet the results of a medicated childhood. Perfectly healty young people who can't seem to function without being medicated to the hilt. They claim they can't (won't) work, because they suffer from ADHD ADD Bopolarism, etc. I ask them when they were diagnosed and most say in elementary school.
Now I ask you, how many psychoanalysts are there and where do they find the time to properly diagnose this number of children?
You may wonder why the parents don't object more. IMO it's because the parents are 2nd generation parents being raised on Ritalin and other mood altering drugs. It's only going to get worse.

Instead of people getting upset that their children might hear about gay people in school, they might start telling their schools to stop pushing drugs on to their children. Is it any wonder the welfare roles are climbing and the number of people, who never worked in their lives, are claiming SS disability?

Hmmm. As someone who suffers from ADHD/Dyspraxia/Aspergers tendencies I can say that not all parents accept drug treatment for their children. My mum refused to let me be put on ritalin. ALthough I genuinely wasn't just a misbehaving child, I was born 3 months premature and had 3 bleeds on the brain. I've also worked since I was 15, (EDIT - Was still at school when i started working and worked through both years at college) except the last year (I got fired last september). I'm 24 now and have put alot of effort into being able to deal with society and working.

Entirely possible that drugged-up parents produce drugged-up offspring. My fathers family were farmers, he left that lifestyle to join the RAF, where he served 22 years, my mum was a stay at home mother until my sister started school at 5, my mum then started working part time at the local school, after I left school and my sister was doing her GCSEs (aged 15/16) my mum started workign full time and has done ever since. Maybe thats why they chose not to put me on drugs, maybe its why i'd be extremely negative to the idea of my son having them?

First the problem in this country with ADHD and ADD is largely over diagnoses. WAy too many normal kids who happen to be male operating in a system that is dominated women - US elementary schools in this case - are diagnosed as having ADD or ADHD not by psychiatrists or psychologists but by ffemale teachers who frankly, through no fault of their own, lack any real reference as to what constitutes normal male behavior at a given age.

Boys are slower to mature than girls and most of what is currently diagnosed as ADD or ADHD would quickly disappear if boys delayed entry into the public schools by around a year.

I can somewhat agree with delaying entry by a year. I know I was somewhat immature in school. Still am for that matter. The difference being that when I was in school the teachers had a sense of when we were getting restless and would turn us loose in the school yard to burn off the excess. Today they are too worried about someone getting hurt.

When you and I were kids if you got in trouble at school the last thing you'd do is tell mom or dad because you'd catch twice as much hell at home as you did in school. Now days mom and dad go hire a lawyer and sue the school the school board the city and anyone else they can think of tha tmight have a dime. One of many reason school teachers ranks just behind cop and crab fisherman in terms of danger these days.

When I was in elemetary school, the school was 400 feet from my front door. Parochial school. The nuns would whack you then send a note home, so when I got home Mom would get me. Then when my dad got home I'd get it a third time.
Didn't stop me from getting into trouble if the trouble looked like more fun. I alway knew the ramifications for my actions.

Part of the problem now days is that too many kids don't understand that there are consequences for their actions and they have parents that are bound and determined that they never make tht discovery. You get to deal with some of them when they grow up. If it can be truly ever said that a child so sheltered from reality ever truly can grow up.