ADHD – Med­ical Prob­lem? Par­ent­ing Prob­lem? Teach­ing Problem?

Lis­ten to this inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion on ADHD on BAM! Radio.

Posted in category Resources on January 31, 2010 at 8:53 pm
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3 Comments on “ADHD – Med­ical Prob­lem? Par­ent­ing Prob­lem? Teach­ing Problem?”

  1. Kerry Dickinson says:

    It’s unfor­tu­nate that the last “D” in ADHD is “dis­or­der.” One of my sons was diag­nosed with ADHD when he was in 4th grade and once my hus­band and I knew this we started read­ing up on the sub­ject and have been able to help him and our fam­ily in so many ways. Defin­ing “it” helped us because we learned about behav­ior and cop­ing strate­gies, but I do agree that if you tell your child he/she has a “dis­or­der” he/she may become stig­ma­tized. There are softer ways of telling your child what his per­son­al­ity is and what his pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive char­ac­ter­is­tics are.

    February 2nd, 2010 at 7:00 pm
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  2. Virginia says:

    I can’t afford the san­ity points it would cost me to lis­ten to that radio piece, but here’s what I can say about my expe­ri­ence with ADHD:

    Grow­ing up in the 1960s and ‘70s, my brother was con­stantly los­ing and for­get­ting things. One time he bor­rowed my bike — and lost it. His room and back­pack were always a mess. He was con­stantly yelled at and pun­ished for these things. Other kids thought he was weird. In ret­ro­spect, he obvi­ously had ADHD, but he just thought he was a bad, worth­less kid. Ritalin was avail­able back then, and there isn’t a day when I don’t won­der how much bet­ter my brother’s child­hood might have been if some­one had had the insight and courage to let him try it.

    My son today is a lot like my brother was then, except that he takes Con­certa. He still for­gets things and makes mis­takes, his room is still a mess, but he gets his home­work done and doesn’t mis­place things like, for exam­ple, bicy­cles. He gets pretty good grades and has a big group of nice, nerdy friends who all know he has ADHD. He gets teased (in a friendly way) a lot more about his hair than about the ADHD.

    It’s entirely pos­si­ble that in a dif­fer­ent cul­ture and envi­ron­ment, ADHD might be less of a prob­lem than it is here and now. But, after see­ing the dif­fer­ence med­ica­tion has made for my son and our entire fam­ily, I get really mad when I see peo­ple imply­ing that it’s some­how caused by par­ent­ing or teach­ing style.

    /soapbox

    February 4th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
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  3. Mary Sullivan says:

    Well said, Vir­ginia! I had ADD prob­lems as a kid, like your brother, and was rou­tinely pun­ished and belit­tled for them both at school and home. Over the course of many years I devel­oped a sec­ondary anx­i­ety prob­lem because of this. I’m 43, so ADD wasn’t really known or under­stood when I was young and could have ben­e­fit­ted from treat­ment or at least empa­thy. Two of my 3 kids have ADD (one type i – inat­ten­tive – and one mixed type), and between their expe­ri­ences and my own atten­tional strug­gles, I don’t bother to lis­ten any­more to peo­ple who claim this is all poor par­ent­ing or teach­ing. I know better.

    Hav­ing said that…

    For work once I inter­viewed doc­tors and researchers about depres­sion, and when I asked one if it’s over– or under­diag­nosed, he said, “Oddly, I think some of both.” Some peo­ple who don’t really have clin­i­cal depres­sion are being treated for it, he said, while oth­ers go untreated who truly are beyond nor­mal range and need pro­fes­sional help. I think the same is true today of kids & ADD. Many are prob­a­bly inap­pro­pri­ately med­icated (when really they have a mood prob­lem; are chor­ni­cally sleep and/or exer­cise deprived – hello exces­sive home­work!; etc.), while oth­ers for whom treat­ment would be appro­pri­ate and poten­tially life-changing are not get­ting it. None of this negates ADD as a “real” condition.

    Kerry, I’m finally read­ing Hallowell’s Deliv­ered from Dis­trac­tion, and he argues that the first “D” is unfair, too, as it’s more about wan­der­ing atten­tion than a blan­ket “deficit.” If you’ve seen your son hyer­fo­cus­ing in areas of inter­est – very com­mon w/me and my boys! – you know what he means. Schools, unfor­tu­nately, haven’t pro­gressed much in lever­ag­ing the pas­sions of the ADD mind.

    February 6th, 2010 at 5:17 pm
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