Why do so many children seem to have ADHD/ADD these days?

Question

I'd never heard of this before about a year ago. Did people of my generation not have it?

Answer 1

Very few kids whos parents say they have adhd actually have it. Parents are too quick to wanna label their kids. The food that we eat nowadays have way too many enumbers and additives that can make a lot of kids hyperactive. Thats usually at the root of the problems with behaviour.

Answer 2

It seems that of late more children do grow up with ADHD.

According to research carried out over the last few years it has been claimed that there are numurous reasons or causes for it.

I remember an piece of research which was reported in the News about how it could possibly be related to smoking during pregnancy. It would appear that mothers that continue to smoke during pregnancy have shown a trend for having children with the condition. Obviously, this is a sweeping statement and can not be guaranteed as a sole cause but I guess it certainly could be a contributing factor since it is confirmed it can cause damage if smoking when pregnant.

It is also an opinion of some that poor diets during pregnancy can causes complications and issues such as ADHD.

Also, you need to look at the childs diet as they are growing up. There are a lot of chemicals and the such like being put into foods these days and it is still unclear in some cases as to what the effects of these chemicals may be.

For instance, many products are now appearing with "No Added Sugar". This is now a misconception that it is any better for you. Yes, it reduces your sugar intake and is better for your teeth BUT the replacement chemical they are using in order to make the taste the same (quite often Aspartame) is a produced chemical rather then natural sugar. Therefore, we can not be totally sure on how this will effect the body. What other chemicals are being used and what are there effects?

I don't think there is currently a sure fire answer to this question but it is definately something that is being researched due to your well noted increase in cases of ADHD etc.

Answer 3

ADHD and ADD are both valid brain disorders and need to be treated seriously however I believe that a lack of structure and consistent discipline in a child's life can also contribute to a very similar type of behaviour.

Most parents these days seem to have very little idea of how to give their children structure and consistent discipline. You just need to look at all the new Super Nanny type programmes around to see that parenting skills are not being passed down through the generations as they should. With families living spread over wide distances the social structure that used to support families and new parents no longer exists in the same manner and so parents have to work things out on their own. Not always successfully.

At the moment most health services are under funded and over worked and when parents consistently bring in an unruly child complaining that they have tried everything but without any success then the GP will often diagnose ADD or ADHD without ordering the expensive brain scans to confirm it.

There is a possibility that our diets and environment also play a part in the apparent increase however until diagnosis is tightened up we will not have the proper statistics to decide either way.

Answer 4

It is NOT an excuse for bad parenting. It is a recognisable and verifiable learning difficulty. I have been hearing about it for the last 19 years, as my son has another learning difficulty, dyslexia.

A child with ADHD/ADD does appear to be a misbehaving child. When my mother was a teacher in the early 70's, parents came to her to ask if they should give their child Ritalin (a very over-used and improperly prescribed drug), just because their child was making a B instead of an A.

There may be a connection between the disease and the number of strange chemicals we are all in contact with. But whatever the cause, the educational answer is patience, understanding, and smaller classrooms - and, yes, children without the problem will benefit from the same conditions. Does this tell us something about the quality of public education?

Answer 5

Because our generation trains kids at a young age to have short attention spans. Look at commercials.. they can't even get you to watch the the whole 30 second ad. If you can't pay attention to one thing for 30 seconds how can you sit in school for seven hours. Even sesame street has taken some flack for this, ever notice that they used to feature really short clips, like the letter A for just a minute and then something comepletly different. Now they are being asked to string these things into something longer to make kids pay attention for a minute or two more. No doubt there were people in our generation that had ADD/ADHD, but these were the actual problem kids that were different from the rest of society, not today's overhyped up version of a kid on a media fast track.

Answer 6

ADD and ADHD are only recently recognized behavioral issues. Unfortunately, children are often diagnosed by the improper person(s) and I consider it a "catch all" diagnosis. Parents are too quick to want something to blame a lack of parenting on and when they have misbehaving children, these are easy illnesses to blame. A child really should undergo a comprehensive physical evaluation by a qualified pediatrician to rule out any physical ailment as well as a psychological evaluation. Only the two physicians working together can offer an accurate diagnosis.

10 years or so ago, these children would have been labeled "difficult", "lazy" and "poor students"... even "dumb". The ailments have been around for numerous years (so for those willing to blame it just on foods, sorry) but due to previous generations stigma against labeling, further research was never followed through on it.

One of the sites I frequently visit is CHADD, www.chadd.org, which is an excellent source of information for children and adults with ADD and ADHD. An excellent book is "You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Crazy or Stupid" by Kate Kelly and Peggy Ramundo which is penned by an adult sufferer of ADHD.

Answer 7

Yes kids had it, the only thing was that back before the late 60s it was considred "discipline" for a parent to spank/beat their kids. Corpral punishment was allowed in schools so if a kid misbehaved they were sent to the office where they got spanked by the principal. With the advent of the 60s and later the "Woman's Movement" spousal and child abuse were no longer acceptable. After awhile it came clearer that some children have these problems but "back in the day" these problems were taken care of by attempting to beat it out of the children (which by the way never really worked) Now there are laternatives, thank goodness.

Answer 8

There are many misdiagnosed children, it is used to label many hyperactive but normal children. A lot of parents do not have "time" to spend with there children, causing the child to search for attention, the parents assume that they do this because there is something wrong with the child. I have been a preschool teacher for quite a while and have only run across two children that really had it, even though many parents told me that although the doctor had not diagnosed ADHD they were sure that their child had it, they didn't.

Answer 9

I think some doctors are in a rush to diagnois, sometimes it's based on one's insurance(if they won't cover for one thing they will for something else). Fifteen years ago my daughter was diagnoised with ADD(now it's ADHD), but not before several years of observation and the 1st diagnois was "over active" child. People have always dealt with the same problems but we didn't have the labels or treatments like we do today.

Answer 10

I think ADHD/ADD are over diagnosed. I feel a lot of people want to have a quick fix / pill to handle the child, instead of taking care of the problem themselves. I truly think diet, discipline, structure, and routine can solve a lot. Not to say I dont think ADHD/ADD exist, I do believe there are kids out there that are honestly affected and do need medicine.

Answer 11

i studied this in college, but i have my own thoughts. children are getting diagnosed with ADHD/ADD more and more, children haven't changed that much but parenting has with both parents working, they take their children to the doctor hoping he can help them with there hyper child who can not concentrate on one thing for long, the doctor then gives them pills to put their child on. every child , or most, are hyper. if parents would spend some time with their children teaching to concentrate on things and letting them be hyper while monitering the junk food they eat, i think the child would be OK. another though--- i really hate the pills that parents Put their child on by recommendation of the doctors, it is nothing more then a drug, a drug to come them down and it takes there spirit away, spend more time with ur children, that's all they need.