Do you believe ADHD is a real disorder?

Question

I see so many kids come through my daycare with the most horrible eating habits at home- pop tarts and chocolate milk for breakfast, kool-aid instead of juice, fast food 4-6 times a week....on top of that, 90% of parents I meet do not discipline their kids at all.

I had a little boy one time (from age 2-5) who's teachers were trying to label him with ADHD because of his hyper activity and naughty behavior.

What they didn't know is that the child wasn't disciplined at home(this causes great confusion in children, when their 'at home' behavior is suddenly not ok in public)

and it was compounded by letting him eat whatever he wanted. This kids diet was appauling, yet it never came up when the school was investigating and testing him. When it did come up, the parents were not truthful.

I guess because I know first hand how difficult it is to be a GOOD parent, it makes me mad that parents want the easy way out. It seems they 'create' monsters and then want someone to fix them? I don't get it- how hard is it to discipline?

Answer 1

My son was diagnosed at the age of 7 with ADHD, they used a 'Glass Anaylsis test' to determine this. That was back in the mid 80's. I imagine they use more sohpisticated testing, now.
I chose not to put him on the Clonadine or the Ritalin. I chose, instead to go to a more 'natural' diet. Veering away from a lot of the pre-fab foods and sugar laden snacks.
I could always tell if he had been given something that he was not supposed to eat. His behaviour was often erratic, 'off-the-wall' and uncontrolled.
If he stuck to the diet that we had a dietician help us with, his behaviour was fairly stable.
We took parenting courses and attended meetings, regularly, for parents of children with ADHD. We learned a lot about the link between this and learning disorders. My son really needed boundaries and limitations. Routine and structure. Outside of structured play or activities he had no direction and would often get into trouble. We tried to engage him in different activities that required concentration and in areas that he had interests in.
No doubt, parental involvement and changing our attitudes went a long way to assisting his teachers in dealing with this problem.
It exists, of this I have no doubt, but I also think that too many parenst rush to the doctor for a prescription to 'fix my kid!' before they exhaust all avenues. Classic 'path of least resistance' thinking. Education and behaviour modification works WAY better than the drugs do, believe me.

EDIT: I know what you mean. Why are they discouraging parents from using the word NO. The new philosophy is that saying no stilts creativity...prevents them from being free thinkers. Have you seen the 'free thinkers' we have here in Yahoo Answers?

Answer 2

I think it is a real disorder (not a disease, that's something entirely different). I do think it is over diagnosed though, as in, it's sometimes just slapped on any kid who has trouble paying attention. But some people really do suffer from it and can't function without the medication, my sister has it and she's a complete mess sometimes, I can talk to her for 5 minutes and she will have been staring into space asphyxiated by some little object, or she'll walk in circles around the house just thinking about something and forget to go to work. Either way, if your kid has issues paying attention, it's not intentional, if all you're going to do is yell at her to listen more and call her a brat, you're going to turn her into something worse and make her hate herself, that's not parenting. Try getting her involved in something she can focus on and put her energy into, if she likes dance get her in a dance class, if she likes art, do an art class, anything that she will love, especially a sport. Help her get into good habits of learning and doing her work, be consistent and find out what gets her attention. She needs organization and something to let out her energy. EDIT: If you're going to be "brutally honest" then don't be upset when people are honest back. You clearly say in your question, in all caps, that psychologists should stop giving disorder labels to children and tell them "LISTEN TO YOUR PARENTS AND STOP BEING A BRAT", so I can only "assume" that is how you go about your parenting style. But obviously you already have your mind set that you don't believe ADHD is a disorder, so this isn't really a question, it's a rant. And a disease and a disorder are not the same thing, if you don't understand that then that's probably why you can't understand you daughter's problems. Of course it wasn't heard of 60 years ago, neither was high-functioning autism, which many people have. Just like people in the dark ages used to think mental retardation was a child infected by a demonic being, doesn't mean people weren't mentally retarded in the dark ages.

Answer 3

ADHD is in fact a real... Hey! Let's go ride bikes!

I'm sorry...
ADHD is a real disorder. I have known several children that have been correctly diagnosed, and treated for it.

And, I have known a lot of kids that the parents do not want to be bothered with disciplining, and who do not care what levels of sugar and caffeine addiction their kids have, they just want a little pill to make their child a perfectly behaved child. And, those are the folks that are making ADHD look like a made up disease.

I remember when I was young. Boredom at adult events was expected. The parents did not require us to sit there while they chatted after dinner, the told us to go outside and play. Going from one activity to another as child was expected, AND encouraged. It was how you learned. Putting up a fuss when bedtime came, that was normal for kids.

Unfortunately, the solution for all human problems is expected to come out of a pill bottle, instead of from hard work, discipline, and doing what is right because you will appreciate it in the future.

Answer 4

I do believe it is a disorder... but I believe it is being used as a catch all excuse now days. I think a lot of the kids just need attention that they are not getting at home. They are not being cared for and like you said they are not being taught any discipline or respect at a young age and that it doesn't become a problem until the kids get some age on them and then its too late. The parents lack the ability to deal with it or the want to deal with it so the easiest thing to do is drug the child. We are an over drugged nation.

Answer 5

Yes ADHD is a real disorder. Not all kids dx with it are spoiled brats who eat horrible diets. That's a HUGE generalization.

My husband and dd have ADHD. Neither are medicated but both have had to learn (my dd is still learning) coping skills in order to deal with attention problems, impulse issues, etc. We have tried meds but for the most part they haven't worked well enough to continue.

However, it is way over-dx. So many teachers and schools want every active kid labelled with ADHD for a couple of reasons -

1. Everyone will sit and not be "kids" in the classroom
2. The schools get more $$ for every kid that is special needs

Answer 6

I do beleive that ADHD is a real disorder for some children and have worked with children with this ,however I also believe that in a lot of cases it is just a label given to children who do not behave very well and parents do not discipline their children. Quite a lot of children have terrible diets, terrible daily routines,no discipline, no role model and parents then wonder why their child is naughty

Answer 7

I think that it's way over-diagnosed. See, teachers don't want to put up with active children (boys tend to be more active--that's why it's mostly boys who get drugged), so they figure drugging them is easier.

Below a certain age one should expect a child to be really active.

Get children off the high-fructose corn syrup, get them off the artificial sweeteners. I pack my child's lunch every day, so I see to it that he gets good stuff--he has trans-fat-free peanut butter and jelly (with sugar instead of HFCS) on sprouted grain bread, applesauce with nothing added, and a banana or raisins or something like that. They like for the children to have breakfast there (he's in all-day kindergarten) but as I don't want to pay for that, I give him breakfast at home and send off a breakfast "snack" with him--such as an organic pop-tart without all the junk added. He gets juice that doesn't have HFCS added.

Also avoid soy if possible. I've heard about soy potentially causing bad behavior.

And yes, discipline is also a factor.

Answer 8

That's sad. I don't really believe in all these kids having ADD and ADHD. It's a cop-out for the parents say they can't do anything with their kids, when really they just don't want to.

Every kid has bad moments. I have a two year old, so I know. But it takes all of me to not give in to her, which is what parents do. But once the damage is done (by the time they are in school) there is not easy reversal...it's already their lifestyle, so parents turn to someone else to fix this problem.

No doubt, there are kids with this disorder...I grew up with a girl who had ADHD...and you could tell something was wrong with her. And it wasn't discipline, or bad habits, or too much energy. Something in her head wasn't right where she thought the world was out to get her or something, so chemically her brain needed medicine to balance her out. But all these kids with it now days, no. It's called 'lack of discipline' or 'bad parenting', and there is no medicine for that.

Answer 9

I think it's a real disorder, but it is over diagnosed. Nowadays ever child that has discipline problem has ADHD, but in reality, more than half of those kids are fine, they are just not disciplined. Parents would rather say "my kid has ADHD" than to say the truth "my kid is a spoiled brat with no discipline, because i am a bad parent"

Answer 10

I'd say its a real disorder, but over-diagnosed by adults who as you describe don't want to discipline or want a shortcut to raising their children. I think at some point they also broadened the definition of the illness, resulting in many more children being diagnosed that heretofore would have just been viewed as hyper or a discipline problem. Its just so much easier to give Junior a pill than actually work on his behavior.