R
rayne89
Guest
Let me start off by saying this is not meant as an attack on parents who have children on medicines for ADD. So let’s all be charitable.
I came across this website and found this doctor’s theories very interesting. I don’t have any children diagnosed with ADD but I have wondered if our daughter had been enrolled in regular school if she would have been. Her first few years of homeschooling consisted of completeing her work everywhere but at her desk including hanging up-side-down off the couch. She was very fidgety and physically active. She’s 10 now and has learned considerable self control, although still very active.
I worry about the stigma assocaited with so many children being medicated. And I’ve heard kids (and even adults) excuse bad behavior with “I can’t help it I have ADD.”
The doctors comments seem to have some merit although I’m not very comfortable with blaming the parent. I wondered what some other people thought. Here’s a partial quote with the link included at the end.
*…ADD/ADHD is a popular diagnosis in the 1990’s because it serves as a neat way to explain away the complexities of turn-of-the-millenium life in America. Over the past few decades, our families have broken up, respect for authority has eroded, mass media has created a “short-attention-span culture,” and stress levels have skyrocketed. When our children start to act out under the strain, it’s convenient to create a scientific-sounding term to label them with, an effective drug to stifle their “symptoms,” and a whole program of ADD/ADHD workbooks, videos, and instructional materials to use to fit them in a box that relieves parents and teachers of any worry that it might be due to their own failure (or the failure of the broader culture) to nurture or teach effectively. Mainly, the ADD/ADHD label is a tragic decoy that takes the focus off of where it’s needed most: the real life of each unique child. Instead of seeing each child for who he or she is (strengths, limitations, interests, temperaments, learning styles etc.) and addressing his or her specific needs, the child is reduced to an “ADD child,” where the potential to see the best in him or her is severely eroded (since ADD/ADHD puts all the emphasis on the deficits, not the strengths), and where the number of potential solutions to help them is highly limited to a few child-controlling interventions. *
thomasarmstrong.com/myth_add_adhd.htm
I came across this website and found this doctor’s theories very interesting. I don’t have any children diagnosed with ADD but I have wondered if our daughter had been enrolled in regular school if she would have been. Her first few years of homeschooling consisted of completeing her work everywhere but at her desk including hanging up-side-down off the couch. She was very fidgety and physically active. She’s 10 now and has learned considerable self control, although still very active.
I worry about the stigma assocaited with so many children being medicated. And I’ve heard kids (and even adults) excuse bad behavior with “I can’t help it I have ADD.”
The doctors comments seem to have some merit although I’m not very comfortable with blaming the parent. I wondered what some other people thought. Here’s a partial quote with the link included at the end.
*…ADD/ADHD is a popular diagnosis in the 1990’s because it serves as a neat way to explain away the complexities of turn-of-the-millenium life in America. Over the past few decades, our families have broken up, respect for authority has eroded, mass media has created a “short-attention-span culture,” and stress levels have skyrocketed. When our children start to act out under the strain, it’s convenient to create a scientific-sounding term to label them with, an effective drug to stifle their “symptoms,” and a whole program of ADD/ADHD workbooks, videos, and instructional materials to use to fit them in a box that relieves parents and teachers of any worry that it might be due to their own failure (or the failure of the broader culture) to nurture or teach effectively. Mainly, the ADD/ADHD label is a tragic decoy that takes the focus off of where it’s needed most: the real life of each unique child. Instead of seeing each child for who he or she is (strengths, limitations, interests, temperaments, learning styles etc.) and addressing his or her specific needs, the child is reduced to an “ADD child,” where the potential to see the best in him or her is severely eroded (since ADD/ADHD puts all the emphasis on the deficits, not the strengths), and where the number of potential solutions to help them is highly limited to a few child-controlling interventions. *
thomasarmstrong.com/myth_add_adhd.htm
I can tell you that it is not a myth, but, and I emphasize this very strongly, too many people are diagnosed with this. I had my son evaluated up and down, even though my gut told me he did have ADHD. I wanted to be absolutely sure before I put him on medication, because I knew that other things can cause symptoms similar to ADD/ADHD.