Is everyone, everywhere ND - I seriously am confused.

My son is definitely autistic and diagnosed. Interestingly he probably got it from his dad who is undiagnosed and born in the 70s. These kids were around.

I was a child of the 70s too and the kids at my school who were very likely ND, were just written off as 'odd', 'weird' or 'daydreamers'.

But like you, I never witnessed any meltdowns or violence at all.

Those kids existed but there wasn't the tools to diagnose then. It was largely thought autism was just severe mentally Impaired children.
Wasn't till later on they reliesed ND existed in various different forms but those children went to have their children and so fourth under the radar so now ND is largely recognised there seems to be more people with it when reality they always existed.

The 70s is very different to now though. We have a lot more stimulating things going on.

Can I share the taxi? People do love a label these days.

And they make kids violent?

I find that interesting.

What sort of stimulation causes this?

Im from a family where ND has been rife for generations. We all behaved well in school, although the most challenged left at min school leaving age. The most disabled kids never went to school in the past.
There is a lot of poor parenting round, and IMO ND being misused as excuses for not teaching children basic skills.

It can do, but it can always cause shutdown. Its things like noise, crowds (obviously population is much larger now), lighting can set it off lights are different now to what they were in the 70s. Things like that.

Constant screens, scrolling and access to things they shouldn’t see inc violence and porn
too much screen time leads to disregulation and poor sleep
it’s not a big leap that in some CYP this leads to lashing out and violence

In 1970 many children were deemed “uneducable” and were not permitted to go to school.

https://www.allfie.org.uk/resources/inclusion-now/inclusion-now-68/origins-of-1970-handicapped-children-education-act/

so these children literally were not allowed to go to school.

it is now the case that every child is entitled to an education.

I believe you will get torn to shreds!! But just wanted to let you know my mum born in 1945 would 100% agree she said in her day classes of 40+ zero nonsense you listen to the teachers you respected elders etc, she’s equally baffled where this has all come from but strong believes my sister is on the spectrum, but she said back in the day you just had to get on with it.

Im 51 and lucky grew up in a small village and was in school in the times you describe, we had the slow kids the bright kids the naughty kids the sporty ones but always a degree of control and respect, and this was after physical punishment was banned we were still scared of the headmasters room!

You know who I feel the most sorry for are the parents with the life long commitment to children who really struggle, they must be struggling now to get the support they really need.

I have one close friend who’s trying to reverse a diagnosis, they did it during Covid times and now her son is wanting to join the forces as a future career, I feel she gen admitted she jumped the gun to get him support as she was struggling and regrets it, granted he is a handful but I do feel for her now.

Okay, I’ll bite.
Two things to flag. The number of ND folk out there is far higher than anyone used to realise. Stats say about 1/10 I believe but could rise from that. The increase in the number of people diagnosed is due to better understanding and changes to diagnostic criteria. Are there some kids who are badly behaved and not declined? Of course. But you can’t assume that kids are not ND and just badly behaved.
I was ‘well-behaved’ for the most part in school. Labelled as a day-dreamer or overly chatty, distracting people, but still did well academically. Not super disruptive. Had meltdowns as soon as I got out the school gate/at home. I behaved but it came at the cost of my own comfort and self-esteem.
Burnt out by my early 20s though. Late diagnosed ND. It explained so much and I’ve had to learn how to understand myself and my behaviour. I’ve had lots of therapy about undoing the damage of my childhood, forced to behave in a certain way, the negative things that were said to me.
Re-reading your post, I do suspect this is deliberately inflammatory though 🤔

Yes I agree. I am autistic, two children also autistic and it baffles me when parents use "they are autistic!" As an excuse.
One of mine hit someone with a hockey stick in primary, he simply got overwhelmed but your damn right he was punished for it.

I strongly believe a lot of Nd diagnoses are a case of trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. The hole being our current childcare and school system - long hours, lots of testing, little PE and break time.

There's been recent research that shows a child who is the youngest in their class is 40% more likely to be diagnosed ADHD than the oldest in the cohort. That strongly suggests what's being diagnosed is immaturity, not an actual disorder.

Modern life isn't really set up for anyone. Noise pollution, air pollution, long commutes, screens, stressed parents juggling work and kids, bad food (even when trying to eat healthily, a lot of rubbish is sneaked in by companies cutting costs). A sensitive child could easily find it all overwhelming, but it's a problem with the environment not the child.

I imagine the really dysregulated kids or the nonverbal kids would either not attend school (did their parents get taken to court in those days? I have no idea) or were in institutions/asylums, sadly.

My son is diagnosed autistic. My dad is almost certainly autistic and is severely dyslexic. But dyslexia ‘didn’t exist’ in the 60s at school so he was just labelled stupid. Left school with no qualifications. Is really intelligent but has really poor self esteem and a massive chip on his shoulder, understandably. I wonder what he could have achieved with more support at school.

In the 70's, many children with disabilities would have never even made it to school in the first place.

Thankfully all children have a legal right to an education now.

But that’s completely speculative. I work in a school which hasn’t had much upgrading since the 70s. I agree lighting is awful but it is the same it was back then.

What’s different now is family values. Devices. Diet. That’s it but you’re not allowed to tell parents they are making poor choices. Instead you have to read the email asking us to sit yet another child near the exit so they can have a quick escape. Honestly our exit is clogged 🤣

A goady ND thread. I guess we were due, it’s been a minute.

I think often you just don’t know what you don’t know.There is a huge amount of rose tinted glasses in your look back.

Tonnes of sexual abuse of those happy 1970s kids has been unearthed and is now out in the open.

Alcoholism was extremely common, trauma and undiagnosed MH and ND probably played a part. Drugs have taken over in addition to alcohol but the propensities for addiction and the chaos that brings in families and particularly children was always there. Truancy was an enormous issue with those kids in the 70s now they are in the classroom I suspect.

School is still pretty ok where I live and the discipline problems in the UK are not the same where I am so I can’t speak about that.

I get students aged 17/18 plus often lower achievement students and there is ND in the cohort but there always was and I’ve barely had a minutes classroom management issues in decades with them.

I do think screens have an impact but other than that I think human nature is pretty much the same as ever.

I think we probably all need the stop talking in absolutes. It's certainly true that some parents use a diagnosis as an excuse to not parent, but equally it's also certainly true that we are better at identifying ND children and bringing them into the education they are entitled to but which is not set up for them. Equally, the answer lies both with the education system and also with parents. It's not solely one thing or the other!

Yes, call the midwife touched on this quite a bit. It was only around the mid/late 70s things started to change and more and more parents refused to send their children into homes.

My mum was likely autistic, she pretty much stopped going to school at 12 and officially left at 14. She almost certainly had dyscalculia too, they didn't even bother trying to teach her maths for long and instead gave her cleaning jobs. My (older) cousin likely has ADHD he was kicked out of school at 7. My uncle is quite significantly autistic and he wasn't allowed in a mainstream school.
The conditions existed but I think it was combination of the demands were different and people were hidden. Now, everyone is expected to fit into a much more demanding and rigid timetable, in mainstream, and for much longer.

I don’t think neurodivergence is necessarily more common nowadays - it’s always been around, but was frequently ignored or treated as something else (e.g. dyslexics regarded as stupid, or autistic kids labelled as weird/nerdy). I do worry though that it now gets used to excuse behaviours that ARE genuinely rude, naughty or socially unacceptable. For example, a person with ADHD interrupting someone else who is talking, or being late all the time - it’s still impolite to do even if you have ADHD so the person needs to learn strategies to manage those tendencies rather than just shrugging and saying “I can’t help it”.

It isn't a label but a diagnosis that might help get more support.