There's a difference between not liking school because you don't like school, and wanting to concentrate on the class but not being able to because your brain can't settle itself into one groove for long enough to figure out what's going on.
Ritalin was patented in 1950. The drug was designed with the original intent of treating the actual disorder--not to be a parental substitute.

The overdiagnosing/overprescription thing is probably true as well. It does not however mean that ADHD is solely an aftereffect of bad parenting.

 

actually no... the drug's original intent was to treat narcolepsy.

ADD/ADHD as we know it today wasn't first diagnosed until the early-mid 70's and only in very isolated circumstances. the disorder gained popularity in the 80's and became "mainstream" in the 1990's.

 

Ya know that's funny because I looked in the National Library of Medicine database and see this abstract to a paper published by one Dr. CK Conners PhD from the Duke Medical Center entitled Forty years of methylphenidate treatment in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

And I quote:

"This paper reviews approximately 40 years of stimulant drug treatment of children with behavior and learning problems. These patients generally fall under the rubric of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), with core symptoms of hyperactivity, impulsivity, and inattention being the most studied and most robust of the targets for stimulant treatment. In addition, the drug effects on other targets, such as cognitive and academic function, are included. The largest selection of studies involves methylphenidate."

Methylphenidate being of course, Ritalin.

Anyway.

To say that bad parenting only existed starting in the 1970s is incorrect. Additionally to say that ADHD--which is not necessarily a problem with obeying one's parents or other authority figures--is caused by bad parenting lacks any sort of factual basis. What about the kid who is really great at home and really great to his teachers but genuinely can't get his head straight for more than 5 minutes at a time?

Have you ever actually dealt with kids that have real ADHD? I can say from personal experience having worked at a summer camp for 4 years in a row and doing a semester at a daycare center that there are some kids who are perfectly fine and have no discipline issues whatsoever but they just can't concentrate.

I had one kid as my camper in the summer of 2002 who was extremely ADHD. He was 10 years old, going into 5th grade, and on Adderal. He was a great kid except for the fact that if you told him anything within a minute he completely forgot about it and went off on some other tangent. He got twitches every once in a while. He would ask us where he put stuff like his baseball glove because he couldn't remember that he just put it on top of his dresser. This is *with* his medication.

He never caused any discipline problems at all, and on top of this his parents were very helpful in letting us know what ways to help him concentrate and remember things. They told us how to tell when his medicine was wearing off, etc. Tell me that kid doesn't deserve a pill that at least makes his problem more manageable.

Sure there are plenty of kids out there that probably don't need to be on Ritalin. But the point is that it's not totally bogus and a crutch for bad or absent parents to lean on.

 

On the contrary. She was a teacher and worked her way up through different posistions in education.. so she was always home when we were. And even if she wasn't in the educational system.. what would you expect her to do? Not work... be home with us even though it would mean probably being on welfair? That makes a WHOLE lot of sense.

 

you know.. it's funny because the document you cite says absolutely nothing about ritalin's original prescribed use.. where are you going with that argument?

and i quote... notice the bold text...

 

I concede you that point.

However while the original purpose does indeed seem to be treating narcolepsy as you say, the fact still remains that it has been used to help with ADHD and ADHD-like disorders for far longer than you are claiming.

Anyway back to the overall issue--what do you have to say about the non-disciplinary aspects of the disorder?

 

Treatment of disorders follows suit with the way we run the rest of our society. We overindulge in the appearance of perfection. Braces and Ritalin for every child. Litigation to wrap up any and every form of injustice. Teaching politically correct thinking in school more than actual subjects. Everyone of these begins with genuine intentions but quickly become less than genuine in result. The Oldman's signature file sums up the solution... personal responsibility. Everyone's guilty so there's no one to persecute; just a fixable issue.

Back on ADD... Is it over-diagnosed now or under-diagnosed in the past? Or is that all subjective?

 

such as? not being able to concentrate? when i was in elementary school i couldn't concentrate(this was before ADD was running rampant through the school systems of america). the principal(who had a doctorate in child psychology) gave me an IQ test. he determined that the standard cirriculum wasn't giving me enough mental stimuation and i was daydreaming a lot because i was bored with it. after that i was given 1 on 1 attention and focus was put on my needs and i did just fine. from my perspective(i'm certainly no expert on the matter, but i make judgements based on the facts that i have mixed with personal experience) i think that there are two types of children with ADHD: the child whose parents don't have the patience to deal with them so they have their child drugged to make them more managable, and the child who can't concentrate because the subject matter being taught in schools isn't put in a format that interests them or just isn't being taught at their level.

this is a point i totally agree on. this society over the past 40 years had rooted it's foundation in excuses. this society as a whole refuses to step up to the plate and take responsibility for it's actions and with that, common sense has flown out the window on most of the things that amercans bitch about. if you're fucked up, admit that you're fucked up and don't palce blame on someone else or some made up disorder. responsibility is key and the general populous doesn't have the nuts to step up to the plate.

 

These are what I would say are the two types of children who don't necessarily have true ADHD but still "benefit" (which is debatable) from the treatment.

What I'm talking about is neither of these: the people who can't concentrate on anything, not just school work. Like I said before with my example of the ADHD camper I had to look after--it wasn't that he was daydreaming and not doing his school work. In his daily goings on he simply could not focus on anything. This is what actual ADHD is like and while it obviously affects a child's obedience and performance in school, it is not limited to those areas. You're not acknowledging that this type of person even exists and I'm saying I've had first hand experience dealing with it.

The cases of over-application of the treatment for ADHD do indeed exist but that doesn't mean the disorder itself does not exist.

 

i can't comment on it.. i've seen and been around many "ADD" kids, but never any that simply cannot concentrate on anything.

from talking back and forth on here you pretty much know that i'm a seeing is believing kind of person and i've never seen any child with that degree of any disorder. i do however think that the child you describe is the exception and not the rule when it comes to this so called disorder.