Is everyone, everywhere ND - I seriously am confused.

I know. I'm annoyed at myself for letting it upset me. Bravo OP. Still 'confused' are you?

I knew everyone on my street when I was a child. There were about thirty kids on the street. None went to a special school. The only child I knew who did was a sister of a girl in school whose sister used a wheelchair and had serious learning difficulties.

Children were told no in the 1970s!
They also did not have everything over-explained to them and every scenario mapped out for them. This, in my opinion, creates unnecessary anxiety.

What is classed as autism has changed over the years. People are now diagnosed with autism who wouldn't have been previously because the diagnosis has widened.

My son has severe autism and as such I follow groups and people on social media who have kids of all ages (adult and children) with severe/ profound autism. There is a movement to have these type of people separated out so that they have a diagnosis which reflects them rather than the catch all that autism seems to be at the moment. Hopefully there will be a revision to the dsm.

I have noticed over the years that there are more people with severe autism out and about in public which is great. Why shouldn't these people be included in society? I think they were hidden or put into asylums in the past and to some extent this still happens today due to funding. There are people locked away in hospitals (dire circumstances not fit for purpose and away from their family) currently who have done nothing wrong but have autism.

The chanel 4 documentary on adhd is worth a watch.

I also have a relative who had 'ADHD' and takes Ritalin. He used to take coke but his wife wasn't happy with that but because the Dr. gives him Ritalin then that's fine... even though it's just like the coke days! manic and then down... yay! big Pharma!

Considering over half of my university year have some kind of disability allowances / adjustments I’d say it’s very common. I’m the only one of my friends on the course who doesn’t have some form of additional needs/ learning needs/ disability/ MH condition.

It likely doesn’t help with the view of it all that all of that is wrapped up into one system. So some have anxiety others have autism, adhd, one is partially deaf. Makes it seem more common.

Really? You can't recall any of it?

I'm going to assume you weren't one of the kids being kicked for being different.

There were no 'special needs' kids when I was at school.

We only had bad kids who threw things around, got beaten up by the teacher and told they were thick, dragged home by their parents and probably battered by them too.

Disabled kids went to special schools if they were lucky or were dumped in institutions for life.

Thankfully we're getting more civilised but still a long way to go.

Look back at films and tv shows from decades ago and they are all there to see, they were just the “weird” kid or the “difficult” child

I totally agree and the same people fall for it everytime. Usually the people who are up in arms about apparently everyone and their goldfish being diagnosed...

I admit I used to get rage baited by it until I realised just how many threads have been popping up a lately...

Same with other topics if you look carefully.

@ThisWiseRobin

So there were no 'naughty ' children in your school? No one who was teased or bullied? No one who you thought was odd or had problems making friends.
I went to a tiny primary school, less than a 100 children, in the early 1970s.
I can remember 2 boys who were constantly in trouble, getting caned or the slipper, who I think now are more than liked to have had something else going on, rather than just being the 'wrong uns'

It's rage bait. They also show a depressing level of total ignorance.

I fully agree OP. My daughter has a friend who was totally fine, doing well at school, socially etc and her parents pushed and paid for all sorts of diagnoses to get her into private school.
Now the child is horrible, mean, spiteful and unkind... says things to peoples faces to hurt them and we all have to tell our kids "oh be kind... she has xxxx - she's allowed to be a total c**t - you have to go to her birthday as she needs friends because she is 'special'... no you can't be mean - your normal" WTF

I want to take this at face value because I think if someone is interested and willing to engage it can be useful to see another perspective. (I will probably disengage if it seems like it's just rage bait though).

Bear in mind that the title is going to attract both people with personal experience of neurodiversity and also people in agreement that it is a "fad" which has "gone too far", and not many people in the middle.

if the child is overactive, let them swing from the washing line, run around in circles on a field, or dig a hole.
Not every child is going to be at the top of their class; please let your children be children.

What about when children have more severe problems? The reasons that we sought diagnosis were not to do with academic performance or hyperactivity, and true hyperactivity also isn't satiated by things like swinging on a washing line and digging holes anyway (also bold to assume many parents these days have access to a garden!) - it can lead to some really dangerous behaviour which is almost impossible to curb with consequences.

We looked for help because there were some really serious social difficulties which were affecting DC making/keeping friends and also causing conflict between DC and adults, both within the family and in educational settings. He could not cope with any kind of after-school activity, which meant he was missing out.

And isn't the point of school to try and achieve the best potential for all students? Not every child will have equal strengths in all areas, but I think it's wrong to just write certain students off as "oh well, they're not as good as the other children". Shouldn't we be celebrating the strengths and achievements of all children, not pitting them against each other in competition? Education should move on in this respect with the ultimate aim being finding ways to support and encourage all students regardless of natural ability.

But when the teacher walked in, all went quiet. No one threw furniture, no one had trouble calming down, no one screamed or threw tantrums....it simply did not happen. We all seemed to be able to control our emotions and get on with things.

I've read plenty of anecdotal reports on MN and other places that children who were struggling with behaviour or communication or social understanding in nursery school simply did not make it to mainstream primary schools, or a story of a child behaving in this way one time in a classroom and being escorted out by the headteacher and never seen again in that school. In the 1970s there was a lovely expression "Educationally Sub-Normal" and these children either did not go to school, or they were sent to special schools, sometimes institutions.

Just because you did not see children struggling with these difficulties, it does not mean that they did not exist.

i’m a fellow ‘old’ person and (1) I am diagnosed with ADHD and autism (2) I take ADHD meds and they are life-changing (3) the behaviour in my school in the 1970s was definitively not as you describe in your school (3) the world has changed and is far more complex so you cannot expect other things not to change too.

Neurodivergent people have always existed in the same way that stars and planets have always existed but it was only after telescopes were invented that we discovered most of them and learnt about them.

Both ADHD and autism are neurodevelopmental disorders or differences and run in families. DC2 has both and I am pretty sure DM and DB do too.

YABVU because you must be the millionth person to suggest everyone is ND now. They are not. It is thought to be 5ish%. It is not hard to find this information.

Also as a person who works in a pharmacy YABVU not to understand that ADHD medication has been around for decades and is incredibly effective. Why are you not pleased that people are finally getting some of the help they need?

Behaviour in schools has got worse since the pandemic, according to my teacher friends but I don’t see what that has to do with Nd.

And no, stop with the faux confusion. It isn't cute.

Agree. I think whilst labelling people ND seems like a good thing, in reality it cements some people into an identity. It means poor behaviour is tolerated rather than challenged, limiting opportunities for personal growth.

Children can have adhd and autism and be verbal and read and write and have meltdowns and throw chairs. Why do you think they're mutually exclusive?

I always wonder about what the point of these threads are and why the sheer number of them?

What does anyone's diagnosis has to do with you? How does it impact you? Do you ask the same about other disabilities?

You are VERY unusual if you can barely remember a day.
If a kid had thrown a chair or a desk it would have been big playground gossip. I never heard of primary children behaving like that and I lived in a very deprived behaviour.

At primary school, we had one who threw chairs and couldn't sit still, three who never managed to read, and one who offered to poke pencils into your eyes "to see what would happen". His parents would ask everyone to "respect his personal space", which got a lot of mockery in the 70s.

I learnt to read at two but was mute at school till seven, and have reports saying "We are concerned about PF's complete lack of social contact."

Any diagnoses leap to mind?

That's in one primary class of 35 children, so 10% neurodiversity sounds a conservative estimate to me.

yes everyone everywhere where is neurodiverse, hth.

So you had a great childhood in the 70’s? Lucky you!

I was also a kid at school in the 70’s who was academically gifted and could achieve top grades with zero effort, but had no friends because I was considered messy and weird and I didn’t understand how friendships worked. I took things they said at face value and didn’t understand why the other girls (like you?) were so mean to me.

I dropped out of school at 15 as I felt lonely and isolated and couldn’t face staying on with the girls who bullied me. Thankfully, I went to evening classes as a young adult and got 2 degrees by working f/t whilst studying p/t.

I only learnt about Autism after my teen son was diagnosed. The pattern of him being very academically able and bullied was exactly the same.

Looking back, it’s pretty obvious that my dad was also likely Autistic. He was born in the early 1920’s and was in the RAF ground crew during WW2. He was an electronics engineer and invented useful things relevant to the war effort. He was also very untidy, fussy with food and a bit of a loner and rarely socialised. He wasn’t a bit like the other girls’ dads.

I’m hopeful that as more people understand the condition, more support can be made available and the weird kids will be able to achieve greater success in their lives instead of being sidelined for not fitting in.

So many of this is inherited from adults who were children in the 70s…

My dad is dyslexic, he spent his whole time in school being told he was stupid and would never amount to anything. Even though back then his dyslexia was severe enough to warrant a diagnosis in the 70s.

I’d much rather be around today where children with SEN are supported to achieve their potential and on the whole aren’t written off by the education system.

Yes I agree if we are talking about very complex autism.
But we are not talking about kids with ADHD and autism who are verbal, learning to read and write etc, but having meltdowns and throwing chairs.