Why so immature, Billy?

No duh. Two words, HOME SCHOOLING.

Also worth noting that half the doctors in the USA graduated in the bottom half of their class.

Who paid for this sh1t??

Wouldn't kids born in August be older than the kids born in September?

Not surprised in the least. ADHD is being over diagnosed period. Worse still, children as young as 4 are being diagnosed as bi-polar.

There is no lab test for ADHD. The diagnosis is 100% subjective based on a list of behaviors that last for six months. Interestingly enough, there is a way to diagnose true ADHD, ODD or CD is kids-a functional MRI, but these are expensive and so almost never used.

While there are some children that have mental health issues, most, I believe, stemming from tetrogenic causes-the main culprits being cannibus, alcohol, and cocaine/crack-the majority of the children labeled with ADHD are misdiagnosed. Premature babies are another cause- these kids legitimately have learning disabilities.

There are a number of reasons for over diagnosis-a few of these are not ever talked about.

Tax breaks and learning assistants. ADHD is one of the disabilities that allows parent(s)to claim an additional significant tax deduction for these kids. They also are entitled to extra one on one assistance in the classroom. Another rarely spoken of reason is Munchhausen by proxy. Where a parent, almost always the mother, enjoys and feeds off of the extra attention afforded to these kids while also instantly become a member of a select group of parents.

ADHD kids get away with behavior that would not ever otherwise be tolerated and also affords the parent(s)an excuse for their child's behavior. In some families all the children have been diagnosed with ADHD.

The truth is, true ADHD, is comorbid. It does not just stand alone. With real ADHD cases there also exists other learning disabilities, usually dyslexia or a FAS or Austism spectrum symptoms. One comorbid diagnosis that is also over diagnosed, based only on subjective behaviors, is Oppositional Defiance Disorder(ODD). It doesn't take much to figure out what the symptoms of ODD are. Conduct disorder (CD) is another one and is always comorbid with ODD.

There are bound to be mental health problems in children given the destruction of the traditional family unit, the complete lack of discipline, and the social engineering experimentation children are undergo beginning in daycare and nursery school. The worst being doomsday environmentalism, criminally imprinted on children's vulnerable psych's and more recently, the gender bending and the sexulization of children at ever increasingly early ages. I think too much exposure to early to technology also plays a role in overstimulating children's brains.

Funny all this disorder stuff, nowadays.

Very little of it back in my school days.

Do you think it had anything to do with the standard discipline formula that was operative back then?

A red arse in school guaranteed another one at home.

I forgot to mention that parent(s) also receive extra child tax benefits each month for kids with disabilities.

The fact that the entry age into kindergarten is such an obvious and direct correlation to ADHD is another strong indicator that this supposed disability is being criminally over diagnosed.

There are serious long term side affects for Ritalin, including stunted growth. There are newer drugs on the market that are not stimulants but we don't know what the long term affects of these are yet.

Interestingly, teachers are usually the first to identify that a child may have ADHD. It only stands to reason that if a large portion of children in a classroom are on drugs that turn them into docile robots, any child that is normal activity wise will appear hyperactive in comparison.

I've heard of many cases where teachers threaten to bring in social services on alleged child abuse charges when a parent refuses an ADHD label for their child. I'm not kidding, this has been going since the 90's and since teachers consider themselves co-parents now more than ever, I suspect it's happening with increasing frequency.

The best thing that a parent can do is, if their children are born in the fall, is to keep them out of the school system for another year. Six months is not a huge age difference if you are a 40 year old, but it is a HUGE age gap when you are 5. Another year of growing up is a gift that parents should give their child - being one year behind your 'school' age group is not big deal after 15 years. But if you start too young, you never really catchup. Unfortunately parents are pressured into starting their kids earlier and earlier. At the demand of my brother and his wife, they had my nephew repeat Grade one - the school was appalled, but they persisted. That extra year made all the different.

Everything you write is interesting and good Lori except the last paragraph of the first post. There is no evidence the kids are psychologically worse off than they were in the past. Given the drop in school violence, the opposite is probably true. The traditional family unit is doing just fine, SocCon hysteria notwithstanding. This is all part of over-diagnosis of our times.

ur sh!tin' me! kids 20% older are more mature? Shocking, truly shocking!

I am convinced that somewhere within the educational system there is a quota requirement for diagnosis of ADHD. When my grandson was in nursery school, one of the aides there insisted that he had it, and was pressing for him to be put on Ritalin. I know what Ritalin does, and both my daughter (the mother) and I would have none of it.

The pressure by this woman putting reports into the school system became so annoying that my daughter and her husband chose to move out of the school district.

She managed to track them down, and started sending reports to the new school district. The situation was resolved by (1) my paying two private psychologists a total of $800 to test my grandson, both of whom concluded that he was not ADHD, that he was gifted, and (2) threatening the teachers' aide and the school district that I would use my considerable resources to initiate a civil suit if this nonsense continued.

Result: my grandson is doing fine in school, no behavioural problems whatever (nor did any exist in the first place), and he is excelling.

And he is not a Ritalin-dosed somi-zombie...

Of course drugging school kids isn't a mistake. Soft heads are easy to program. Kid strays because the teaching narrative is "boring" or he has an issue in questioning authority - whack 'em full of drugs and he'll soome bee like the rest of the unthinking zombies they churn our of the public system.

Lucky Lori

excellent posts

I'm dyslexic with ADD, and find that not only are these sorts of things over diagnosed, but are also given more credit (at being a problem) than they are. Hawking is a dyslexic with ADD, Einstein was dyslexic or mildly autistic, as was Newton thought to have been, Graham Bell, Wright Bros., JFK, Bush, and a truck load of others

BTW Lucky Lori, fMRI's can be used to determine a whole lot of things about humans, including if they are GAY

Yeah, well, I've been saying for a long time that a large percentage of ADD/ADHD kids are simply neglected kids; they've just not had enough parental hands-on and guidance and are thrown into structured learning situations with too many other kids much too early when, instead, they should be enjoying childhood at home -- or, at least, away from a school situation.

Very young kids in kindergarten, including, now, the three-year-olds in Duh-lton McGuilty's all-day kindergarten in Ontario, aren't mature enough to spend time in a structured classroom situation away from their homes and need one-on-one attention from a consistent and constant care-giver, preferably mom but maybe dad or another family member or a terrific, aka engaged, babysitter.

I'm not at all surprised by these findings. I teach in many different school settings and have come to the conclusion that the most serious problem in education today is neglected children -- most often it's benign neglect but it's neglect just the same. Children are having to accommodate adult schedules, when it should be the other way. No wonder so many become edgy and jumpy, unable to focus or concentrate.

Back in the Stone Age in a galaxy far away when I started school, you actually started in the semester after your fifth birthday. That way, all the kids were within a few months of each others' ages and therefore at a similar level of development. Maybe that was too hard for the math-challenged to figure out?

To many Women because of feminism become teachers with the idea boys are evil, or as one said "future rapist". Since girls are more docile they think boys should be the same.Since they are fed the lies there is no difference between girls or boys. They can't handle that they are more active & less attentive along with being not as meek. Hence these male children must be diseased. Besides drugged students make their jobs easier. Like giving babies booze to shut them up.
Its why most guys never even pass high school. Its now a female friendly institution. Hostile to males.

Just follow the money. This video is well worth the time.

http://www.forbiddenknowledgetv.com/videos/bad-medicine/the-marketing-of-madness-2009full-documentary.html

@Bruce - Unfortunately, your not alone in what happened to your grandson. You wouldn't believe the true horror stories I've heard from parents on this.

@NME666 - Don't know anything about whether one can tell is someone is gay from a functional MRI, but I do know they detect a number of learning disabilities and even psychopathology.

Dr. Amem is a pioneer in this field and he has stated that he has a problem with too many kids being diagnosed with ADHD, although I respect and trust most of his work, I also keep in mind that he makes a living diagnosing mental health issues and learning disabilities at his functional MRI clinics that are popping up everywhere.

Something else that is not commonly known about kids who really do have whats been labeled ADD/ADHD, is that they are more oft than not to have higher than average intelligence. They make great engineers and inventors because they approach problems from a completely different perspective than others. It's too bad that its true that only so called weaknesses are focused on instead of their strengths.

Also, kids who really do have ADD/ADHD do not become docile, unless doses are incorrect. Kids that become docile and robotic is a clear sign that ADD/ADHD is not the problem, yet that is what's seen in many classrooms.

ADHD is being used as a catch all diagnosis for any real or perceived behavioral problem.

Batb, I agree with you that neglect is a huge problem. Kids act out in school when their needs are not being met or there are other problems at home. It's really tough for single parents to juggle everything on their own-many do a stellar job though.

I'm not an expert by any means, just a person who has worked as a front-line employee and volunteer with kids that have been diagnosed with ADHD, Autism and FASD in the past and also have done a fair amount of reading on the subject. Many of the terms have changed in the years since I was involved in that field.

Lucky Lori

a few years ago there were some interesting fMRI studies done concerning gays. The study focused on the difference, in certain areas of the brain, between gays and none gays, the results were interesting.

NME666-had no clue, that's interesting. Was this the case for both homosexuals and lesbians? I'm also wondering if the differences were in the feminized homosexuals or in homosexuals that do not exhibit effeminate traits? Do you have a link to the findings?

LAS- Substitute behavioral problems with mental health problems in the paragraph you indicated. Your correct in that behavior problems are now considered mental health problems when they are not. Scaring kids by telling them the earth is dying and so will millions of people very soon is going to cause fear and anxiety. Telling children that just because their parents call them a boy or girl doesn't mean they are is going to be very confusing for them and take away the most fundamental thing they have-their identity. Introducing sexual discussions and describing sexual activities at ever increasingly young ages confuses children and begins the process of sexualizing them much. There is less violence at schools, in part, due to more kids being drugged and what Revnant Dream said-what use to be accepted as boys will be boys behavior is now frowned upon and systemically discouraged against. Three times more boys are diagnosed than girls for ADHD and 5 times more boys for ODD or CD.

In a nutshell-ADHD/ADD are a set of behaviors that are really just symptoms of an underlying problem. The behaviors are highly subjective and can also be caused by 1001 other things-acting out, allergies, infections, and even parasites.

In what is recognized as true ADHD/ADD, the underlying problem is some type of learning disability that is testable or measurable. ADHD/ADD kids will score off the charts in some areas of intelligence and average or slightly below average in others. The intelligence tests are administered orally and/or by other means to these kids because some type of learning disability is present making written tests ineffective and inaccurate in measuring their true intelligence levels and abilities. The problem of over diagnosing started when testing for learning disabilities as a criteria for ADHD stopped back in the late 70's.

Now that its being recognized that too many kids are being diagnosed with ADHD/ADD and there has been an outcry, some of it I'm sure from parents being told their kid is ADHD and pressured to do something when they know their kid doesn't have ADHD, kids are now being diagnosed with depression or being bi-polar instead-the new drug trend for kids. It's insanity.

At least with ADHD a parent could tell it was the wrong diagnoses if the kid remained docile and robotic (some parents could not care less and like their kids that way and the extra money each month plus the extra tax deduction at the end of the year and the fact they can blame everything on ADHD), but with anti-depressants there is no way to tell-those drugs have an affect on pretty much everybody. What's most bizarre is that it's suspected that anti-depressants are responsible for an increase in suicidal thoughts and suicide- especially in children-try to wrap your head around that one.

I have first hand knowledge about ADHD. Early on, the school wanted my son diagnosed with it. My wife and I fought them. It was not until grade 6 when his marks started to drop and the outburst got out of hand that we finally did have him tested. Our family doctor who also is a friend of ours, never once said to us to have him tested. When we approached her about it, she belived he was ADHD as seeing first hand in a non clinical setting. She set up an appointment with specialist and he confirmed him ADHD. After he was medicated his marks did improve and his outburst subsided, but he never did become a zombie.

When he started grade 9, all the teachers wanted him to be placed into the applied(general) stream in school. We almost had to fight to have him placed into the acadamic (advanced) as they said he could not do it. Our doctor was on our side so he was placed in the advanced stream. To there surprise, but not ours, with a little more work to keep him focused he ended grade 9 with a 87% average, (would have been higher, but french class brought it down).

We have seen first had, which we firmly believe to be a child with ADHD. Our daughter who grows up in the same enviroment does not have it. We also see many parents to this day, say my child has ADHD and knowing what it is first hand, can tell if they are right or not, and in most cases not.

Thanks for your knowledgeable comments, Lucky Lori.

Vis a vis the neglect of children, I'm not fingering fatherless homes as I see the effects of parental neglect throughout the spectrum, from low-income to affluent families, from single-parent to two- (or three- or four-, etc.) parent families.

Coming from a single-parent family, I know how difficult it is for one parent to handle all the responsibilities of parenting.

Another thing I've noticed in this debate, however, is how we seem to want to label children's behaviour

Rather than expect parents, who are the grown ups after all, to discipline and be attentive to their children, we let them off the hook by giving their child/ren a medical diagnosis which can somehow be "fixed" using medication. A case in point, is a fairly new label: ODD, which stands for Oppositional Defiance Disorder.

As far as I can see, this label is affixed to children with off-the wall, non-compliant behaviour, aka just plain rude and obnoxious behaviour. When do these labels stop? When do we turn the focus onto what's happened to parenting over the past 50 years?

During six years as a rural GP I placed one child on Ritalin. I did it after seeing the mother and the child (more than once), discussion with the teacher, a double blinded placebo trial done with the assistance of the pharmacist and with "drug holidays" built into the child's regimen. A prescription for Ritalin after a single interview, in my opinion would be very poor (mal?) practice.
The issue of age differences in children in school applies not only to class behavior but interestingly to other areas, most especially athletics. I read an interesting article describing the preponderance of pro athletes with late-in-the-school-year birthdays. Older children have an inherent advantage in getting onto school sports teams with the attendant coaching and skill development which carries over to college and for the the few who make it, the professional level. While I wouldn't for a second advocate pro sport as a school objective for kids, there is something to be said for the physical and social development that comes with team athletics.

I should point out that the late-in -the-school-year birthdays resulted in their starting school the year following and their being placed with a younger cohort.

LAS:

The traditional family unit is doing just fine, SocCon hysteria notwithstanding

Really? In 1972, 73% of kids were living in a two parent uninterrupted marriage. Today, only 52% are. (US figures). If that's your idea of "doing just fine", I'd hate to see your idea of something in decline.

A native once told me that ADD is white man's language for fetal alchohol syndrome.

Thank God I grew up in the sixties. I have an August Birthday and my parents held me back. I was still a bit slow in K, 1st and half of second grade. Then suddenly, schooling clicked, Bang! I was moved from the slow section to the intermediate, to the advanced. 3 different classrooms and teachers in the same school year. By 3rd grade I was hitting 99's in the Iowa Basic skills tests, and never looked back.

If I grew up in today's environment, I might have been thrown in the slow/special ed section and kept there, since the school would not want to lose funding. (Probably not, because my Father would have fought for me and would have done whatever it took.)

I was a late-in-the-school-year kid, as was one of my own kids, and we sailed through school: physically bigger, more developed, more assured, no problems with school work, not to mention being leaders in the classroom.

If you can hold your child back from entering school for a year, do it. When my four-year-old, soon-to-be five-year-old (but not before September), daughter longingly looked out the window when her friends were off to school in September, fervently wishing that she could be going to school too, I thanked my lucky stars that she was a January baby!

It held her in good stead.