ADHD is all in your head....

Making children sit still for 6+ hours a day is ridiculous, as far as I'm concerned.




But, then, I was a dreamer as a young kid and disruptive as an older kid, so I might be biased.

With out reading too much of the article, I side with PD on this one.

I think we ask too much of kids and want them to just STOP being kids all together and have them sit still and study all day.

Too many people are worried about their kids being dirty and loud , and dont worry about their kids having fun and being happy. It is almost as if a clean quiet child is some kind of status symbol.

I think ADD+ ADHD is over diagnosed and alot of times just a result of a bored, over sugared kid.

I would be willing to bet that most hard to handle children would benefit tremendously from a sugar and sweetner free, veggie heavy diet.

But that is just me..

We recently struggled with this one. Sozlet had (yeah, past tense) a kid in her class I'll call Mike who definitely had issues but it wasn't clear what they were. (Since then it appears that it might be a form of autism, though maybe ADHD -- still being diagnosed.) He had a full-time assistant who would do things like scratch his back while he did his school work, which helped him focus. He had a special, weighted vest that served a similar purpose. Lots of things like that. But he was disruptive in a deep and ongoing way even with an assistant and all of these devices, and just couldn't seem to function within the classroom.

Sozlet -- who never sees a problem she doesn't want to help solve -- helped him when she could and was a favorite of his (one of his high points was when she showed up after having been out sick and he said "Welcome back, sozlet," which was unusually social of him). But she was really stressed out by it all, and frequently if she was acting weird and moody after school I'd ask her what was up and she'd say "Well, Mike..." and would explain some other big drama that happened. It got to the point where it was shorthand... "Are you OK?" "Well..." "What's up...?" "Mike." "Oh."

He wasn't outright violent or anything, though... it was mostly that there was no way the teacher could teach the rest of the class when he was around. He was spending most of his time in the principal's office, which wasn't good for anyone.

So, after who knows what, it was announced that he was moving to another school that could teach him better. (It was phrased something like that.) I felt so badly for him and for his parents. He wasn't happy about it. Sozlet was sad for him.

But... as she admitted sheepishly at first... her school experience has been totally transformed. She's having so much more fun, and is so much more relaxed. The classroom functions the way it's supposed to. Heck, it functions.

I don't really have a firm conclusion on all of this. I'm very glad it wasn't my decision to make, and that I can just sit back and allow conflicting opinions to co-exist. On the one hand, I believe strongly in the promise of mainstream education, especially for non-Deaf disabilities (Deafness is its own, separate thing, because of the language component). I think there are major benefits for the kids with disabilities and also significant benefits for the other kids. However, I think that somewhere there is a line, where a disabled child -- especially one with behavior disabilities -- is too disruptive to the class. I'd place that line further to the disruptive side than most, probably -- even with everything I described it wasn't obvious to me that Mike should go.

When I student taught at the Deaf institute, I had about 1/4 "normal deaf" students and about 3/4 students with multiple disabilities. (Deaf and then also ADHD or other behavioral or learning disabilities.) These days, that's often the case -- premature children that would have died 20 years ago now live but with multiple disabilities, for example. It made teaching, even in a small classroom, so incredibly complicated, and I really felt like I was shortchanging the kids whose only disability was deafness.

I hate the idea of disabled kids lumped together and ignored, though.

One thing I'm comfortable saying is that I think kids with ADHD are over-medicated, as a group, and that's one thing I admired about Mike's case -- there didn't seem to be any medications involved, just various innovative approaches to dealing with him. Everything I've heard about the school where he's going (another mainstream school) is that it's more of that concept -- assistants, back scratching, that kind of thing -- but with more resources to devote to him.

Mo's school is pretty cool in that the get three recess' each day and have P.E. plus they dance in music class so they get to move around quite a bit.

I think ADD and ADHD is way over diagnosed, shewolf, but I do think it's real and that some kids suffer, really suffer, from it. I think this study goes a long way in showing that it is biological -- nature and not all nurture. As I deal daily with a RAD kid, I know how hard it is to make sure people understand difference in brains. I also suffer from depression -- something which a lot of people don't "believe" in. Would changing my diet make me undepressed? Would changing Mo's diet make him able to make friends?

So yeah, I think it's over-diagnosed but I think that for some kids it is a real problem.


Soz, that is exactly what I was getting at. I wonder sometimes if mainstreaming kids doesn't do them a disservice, and do a disservice to the other kids in the class. It is so hard to know where to draw the line.

It sounds like Mike's parents learned that they had to draw their own lines. Good for them. It is hard to watch your child struggle and doubly hard to watch them fail. I hope they found the right place for him.

And BIG hugs to the sozlet for liking him and thinking of him. I love that little girl.

I have met children and adults who suffer from both ADD and ADHD.
I know what it can do to people, and its pretty sad to see.

Im not saying it isnt real for some. I am talking about children who are mis-diagnosed because they 'bother their parents'
And the parents who dont make a few accomidations for active kids yet complain about their restlessness.

Over the past few years, I have met parents who truly brag about getting their child on ritalin and other ADD drugs , and call them the babysitter drugs . Mostly because their kids just sit down, quietly and do nothing all day. They loved it. Some even told me how they would add padding to their stories of their children to their doctors to get these medicines.

Of course, they are an extreme

Diet doesnt effect everything, or there would be no need for drugs.
When I say that diet would help, Im talking about the children who have the ADD diagnosis and dont really need it. There may be a good chance that they could be a little less ' high strung' if you will, with some modifications in basic diet.
But it is just a thought.

The problem as I see it is that in medicine land, response to treatment is viewed as diagnostic if better diagnostic tools aren't available. So kids get tagged as suspect cases of disease, they are treated, their behavior "improves" (because don't most people become more docile on these drugs?), and, voila, they've been shown to have ADD (or whatever) because the ADD drug improves their "symptoms."

Fact of the matter is, we're physical beings, and it's unnatural for people to work at desks all day. Which is fine (or not) for adults who have a say in the matter, but when you make kids do it they get screwed up.

To my mind the problem with mainstreaming is apparant in the term itself- it reminds me of mainlining- as if there's a way to mainline education (get it in there the fastest, most direct way) that's supposed to work for every kid.

That's my biggest problem with public education in the US- it's just supposed to be one size fits all or something. I noticed this with my own daughter. When we came back to the US, they asked for her transcript- I told the lady, "It's being mailed, I'll get it to you as soon as I can." She says to me - "I can't call her a sophomore based on your say-so; until I have the transcript in my hand - she's a freshman." I'm like, "Lady you can call her whatever you want---what's the big deal with these stupid labels...(I didn't say it, because I didn't want to embarrass my daughter, but I was thinking it - along with "Oh Jesus- another concrete thinker that can't get past the surface bullshit..." but then I thought, "Give her a break -you know, she's just doing the job they gave her- and that's to label and categorize and be suspicious and demand proof so they can put your kid on the one-track shute through this system."
But what's the net result for these kids? A friend of mine was telling me about his kid who just dropped out of college after struggling through twelve years of public education. This is a very intelligent, educated man and he said, "You know- I'm happy for him. He's got a great job managing a gym with a climbing wall - he gets paid enough to make a living- he'll probably end up happier and healthier than I am."
And I said, "Yeah, it's like he ESCAPED." And that's the way I feel. When I hear that someone gets accepted to Harvard, I think, "Oh ****....poor kid..." because what does that prepare you for but a life of more and bigger pressures?
I'm trying to figure out how to help my daughter escape. She's too good and creative for this...

I think mainstreaming's been pretty much an abysmal failure. If I had a kid with special needs- I'd find a school appropriate to his or her needs with people who indicated their desire and willingness to work with children with those specific needs by their choice of specific training. More often than not, with mainstreaming, the people who are teaching these kids don't want to, didn't train to, and the results for the child end up bearing that out.

Study suggests medications have no long term benefits in treatment of ADD/ADHD


For your interest.


It is an audio report.

Like boomer said, kids at my daughter's school aren't actually expected to "work at desks all day." I recently volunteered at her school for a couple of hours and was pretty pleased with what I saw. They have groups that rotate amongst several activities over the course of about an hour, then a break/snack/recess, then another hour, then long recess/ lunch. Then in the afternoon they have art or gym or music.

When I was there, I was in charge of playing a game in the hallway. It was a reading game that the kids seemed to have fun with. We were all sprawled on the floor... there was a lot of wriggling, and a couple of kids started to play hockey with their pieces while awaiting their turn, but since they paid attention when they needed to, that was fine.

The last "group" was made up of kids who are still learning how to read (the game requires some reading ability) and so someone else (a specialist) handled that and I went back in the classroom to generally help. My kid's group was working on a thing about turkeys -- draw the turkey, describe it a bit. They were all trying to come up with funny things about their turkeys. One described her turkey as "very, very silly" and said that it did backflips on its trampoline. Sozlet drew a picture of a very WIDE turkey and said it was named "Tiny," and that he was "very big and fat and loved food," and that he was unlike other turkeys (the worksheet prompt) because he could "read wiete & also he was magic."

Anyway, they all were having fun talking about their turkeys, and nobody was sitting in their chair, exactly, (some were perched on it, some were standing, some were in and out), and there was a lot of goofiness but as long as they were doing their work, the teacher didn't seem at all concerned. That was true of other tables too. (Lots of laughing kids.)

All of that said, point taken about how often it happens that regular, restless kid behavior is pathologized. And also that the kinds of schools that DO require that kids just sit there quietly all day are messed up.

Where I really get stuck though is if we say that mainstreaming is a bad idea... then what?

I was mainstreamed, and I think that was the best thing for me at the time even though they didn't handle it well. (Oral interpreter with a cleft palate, etc.) I was not culturally deaf and did not know ASL in high school (I started losing my hearing in middle school but didn't get an IEP until high school, as my hearing continued to worsen). I shudder at the idea of having the options that were given to me removed -- no oral interpreters, no FM loops, just taken out of the environment I knew and was comfortable in (with many, many peers who had known me since kindergarten) and plonked into a Deaf institute.

I think mainstreaming is a patently good idea when it comes to physical limitations -- wheelchairs, cerebral palsy, visual impairments, that kind of thing. I think it's a good idea for minor hearing losses that can be assisted with technology (FM loops and the like). I think it's not a good idea when it comes to culturally deaf children, or even children who have been deaf since birth even if they are not yet culturally deaf. And I think it's very, very tricky when it comes to behavioral disabilities.

Yes. It tends to be spoken of as though it is always good.


Usually without good resourcing.

Without getting into the ADHA debate and commenting on only the information from this article, I think that the study could well be flawed.

whats an FM loop? izzat somethin I should take offense at?

Hey look at all the colors in that banner ad

Until I see solid medical evidence to prove ADD/ADHD exists, I won't buy it.

With the exception of twins, tripplets, etc, we are all different with our very own DNA pattern and I didn't appreciate the schools labeling my son with something, which to this day, has no proof of its existance.
My son was a very confident, normal, smart little boy until the schools gave him this label, which in turn, handicapped him emotionally.
He lost all confidence in himself and he wouldn't even try to do things anymore, using the excuse (well mom, it's because of my disorder ADHD).

I'm still angry to this day!

Soz has made excellent points about mainstreaming kids with time-requiring mental problems.

Yes.




No. It's a thingie that I could have explained thoroughly about 20 years ago but now I don't really remember. The loop works with hearing aids, and basically anything that's looped -- like a teacher, wearing the thing like a necklace, and speaking into a tiny microphone -- is much much easier to hear for someone wearing a hearing aid that has a receiver thingie attached to it.

Hearing aids haven't been of any particular use to me in a while now so I haven't used a loop in a long time -- but I loved the thing when I had more hearing.

I guess I should have been more specific about who mainstreaming fails abysmally. My own daughter actually wears hearing aids and uses an fm unit in the classroom, and I don't think of her being a mainstreamed child at all - because she doesn't have learning difficulties or disabilities-and to be honest- the skills and abilities she's developed to cope and compensate for her hearing deficit are so honed at this point that I have to remind myself sometimes that she's even got what others would consider a special need.

And in fact, if anything, she's a better student because of her disability, because- as is true for many bright students who have a sensory deficit and want to learn- she focuses so intently on the instructor and what s/he is saying (to help her read lips) that I've often been told she's a role model of attentiveness for the other students in the classroom.

I certainly wouldn't want to institutionalize and separate all children with differences, and I think it would be wonderful if all students were loved and welcomed equally into every classroom. But that's not the reality.

I've observed people who have no training working with children with autism trying to cope (and I say cope, because there was no opportunity for any actual learning to take place) with a nonverbal, volatile and unpredictable five year old in a kindergarten classroom with twenty others. It's an exercise in futility. The teachers don't have or get the training they need, the child doesn't get the education s/he deserves, the other children are afraid or amused by the strange behaviors they see (I was there when one little boy pulled a little girl by the hair so hard that she fell off her chair) and it's just sad and frustrating for everyone involved.
The parents of one little boy in such a situation were friends of mine (my son was in this kindergarten class and the little boy was in the cub scout den my husband led at the time). Finally, after entering the school one day and finding the little boy with his one-on-one sitting in a carboard refrigerator box that'd been placed in the room for him in an effort to filter sensory stimulation- his parents sued the school system for not providing an appropriate though least restrictive educational environment. They won, and within months of leaving the public school system and being placed in a school specially staffed with people trained to teach children with autism- this child was verbal- and the change in his affect was astounding-I will never forget it. And I know it was all around being able to verbalize, communicate and connect. Imagine if he'd spent another year sitting in the back of the room with his one-one-one who was just trying to keep him out of everyone's way?

And socially, it just gets harder as students get older- would that everyone was kind and welcoming of differences, but the reality is that's the exception rather than the rule. These children tend to be and feel very isolated. At the highschool I worked at, there was a brilliant girl with CP, whose motor function was so compromised that she couldn't speak intelligibly, was confined to a wheelchair and couldn't toilet herself. I overheard- many, many times-her aides arguing (in front of her) about whose job it was to toilet her. Can you imagine the humiliation of listening to people paid to take care of you, argue with each other about who would have to do it? When I was available, I'd help her, and I tell you- I just used to almost cry when she'd struggle to thank me for helping her...It'd be nice to think that these students get the emotional and social support and companionship and friendship they need - but as an insider looking on - I can tell you- the majority of people involved would rather not have been bothered.

But who can blame these teachers for very understandably balking at accepting one more impossible task to add to the litany they already face everyday? Essentially what they're being asked to do - especially now with NCLB- is take children who are starting from different set points with differing skills and abilities and somehow miraculously have them arrive at a predetermined finish line at exactly the same time. It's just not feasible or efficacious. And I think the children with disabilities are adversely affected and less than effectively educated. Their needs are NOT met.

Hmm... would your daughter be disabled if she didn't have hearing aids or FM systems? What if her school refused to use the FM system?

It wasn't that long ago that schools could choose to provide accommodations or not -- and that they often chose not to. I think it's good that they are required to do so.

So while I agree that there are situations in which mainstreaming is not the answer, I stop well short of condemning mainstreaming in general. Whether you want to call it that or not, your daughter IS being mainstreamed -- she has a disability that is being accommodated so that she is able to function well. I'm glad she has that opportunity.

I don't think I condemned the idea or thought behind mainstreaming at all-I said that from my front row seat-I thought that in practice it was failing most of the children it was put in place to help-maybe not even through lack of effort- maybe because the public schools have been given an utterly impossible task.

And from what I've observed as a special needs teacher in public schools in Maine, North Carolina, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania-in grades kindergarten through twelve- since 1984- viewing lots of children with lots of disabilities- (even though I myself was not mainstreamed and don't have a physical or learning or behavioral disability)-I still firmly reiterate: if I had a child with a problem that was educationally disabling to the point they had to rely on the kindness of strangers who were busy and frazzled, I'd put them in an environment where at least those strangers were trained and willing to deal with their specific problem.

But yes- thank god for public education- because that opportunity certainly is not open to everyone with a disability. ..more's the pity.