To think no one was allergic to nuts in the 1970's or kids had that ADHT or whatever it is

[ipodmama]

I don,t remember anyone with these 'problems' , I only remember the odd smelly kid?

It is possible that allergies and even behavioural disorders are more prevalent now. But instead of saying that it is a parenting issue perhaps the environment is different both socially and physically?

I have always had vile hayfever, as does my MIL and DS1 - so it isn't as though that is new.

Well Baloonslayer said what I think in one post than it has taken me in 4 rambling posts.

This thread is very hurtful to those whose kids have ADHD or allergies. What are you trying to say OP? That it's all an invention?

YABU.

My mum had various reactions to wasp stings between 1945 and 1975, fainting, spots in front of the eyes etc and it was put down to time of the month or too much sun.

Then she got stung again in 1975 and had a full anaphalactic reaction, blocked windpipe and a heart atack. I think allergies have probably always been there, it's just no-one knew what they were.

I'm 40, DH is 45.
He is allergic to strawberries, apples, hazelnuts, peaches, nectarines - and was as a child.

We had a number of asthmatics in my class, plus one girl with a severe nut allergy - I remember her accidentally biting into a nut flavoured corn snack (does anyone else remember those - shaped like a peanut in it's shell?), and a teacher having to give her an injection.

I can also think of a few kids who were probably ADHD, but undiagnosed, sadly.

yeah it's just PC gone mad.
No immigrants back then either... think about it.
Our kids are catching adhd and nut allergies of these immigrants while the government sits back and watches, giving them houses and cars while god fearing british families starve.
makes me sick.

I had eczema and hayfever and asthma in the 70's, and coeliac disease that wasn't diagnosed until much later.

In the 70's children who would most certainly be in mainstream now were in special schools, so if you were in mainstream, you wouldn't have seen them. My cousin is learning disabled, born in 1972, and my aunt was strongly advised to put her into care - she didn't.

I was at school in the 80s and looking back yes there were children with ASD/ADHD back then but they were not diagnosed and often shipped into special schools because they still existed in significant numbers.

Children with severe autism would have been in institutions - probably with another label.

There were definitely children with Aspergers & ADHD at both my primary & secondary schools looking back. One boy with fairly severe behavioural problems ended up in prison at the age of 16 for murder. Maybe if he hadn't just been labelled bad, stupid and useless by the age of 5 another teenager wouldn't have died.

My dad & brother both had severe hayfever and I had fairly severe eczema as a child.

But in the early 60's?
I went to school in 1965 and I honestly don't remember any of what I would now know as ADHD.
One little boy got the slipper once in our classroom, he had disrupted the lessons on and off for a while and annoyed us children, especially some boys who had to sit with him.
We were 9 I think and all absolutely petrified as he was walloped with a plimsoll, so it wasn't used often. I can't remember any other instance.
He behaved at school for the next two years so it certainly was effective.

I never saw an inhaler either.

you dont just thin the ability to diagnose these things was a lot more limited?! You dont think those kids with ADHD were just labelled as "troublemakers" and failed in school systems?
You oddball

BalloonSlayer Now you come to mention it there was a lot of fuss about not giving children nuts incase they choked, so that may well be it!

Actually, in a class of 15 there were at least 3 kids with an asthma inhaler, and thank God there is help for the ASD or AHDH child now, becasue I would hate to think of the lives of the kids who got walloped by teachers, repeatedly, or ridiculed by teachers, or, in one instance, hauled up by the neck of his jumper so much that it caused a burn!

Hopefully, people are also more likely these days to see that there is a DIFFERENCE between clinically observable behaviours and naughtiness, but perhaps not.

Well, for asthma, Che Guevara was famously asthmatic and was dead by 1967, pre 70s. My grandmother, born in 1914, was allergic to tons of stuff - mostly man made. Though, on some things we did suspect that she made it up ...

Colliecross, the "bad" boys would have been sent to an industrial school, or just wouldn't have gone to school.

I think growing up in the 70's/80's was far more enjoyable than today. No worries about wearing the right clothing label, playing out all day in the summer holidays without parents fretting, more respect for adults (who would reprimand a group of noisy kids on a bus nowadays), no computer games...

Colliecross, if corporal punishment stopped the naughty boy misbehaving, then surely that means he didn't have ADHD? If he did, he wouldn't be able to help himself? Or am I missing the point?

People with serious allergies (ie anaphyllactic) or serious asthma probably just died before you knew about them.

No fortunately there is far more life saving awareness. And of course the increase in pollution and detergent usage has increased the number of allergies and asthma.

I remember several children at school with undiagnosed behavioural/psychological problems. They just got labelled naughty or backward and weren't given much help.

Thankfully times are changing.

now not no

Well, I guess you weren't at school with me

I got sent home from school at least half a dozen times a year after swelling up massively & passing out - cause never diagnosed at the time, but later discovered to be pesticides (primary school next to fields, lot of overhead spraying). I also had bad eczema & got teased dreadfully about it (that more in 2ndary school). My dad missed most of every summer term at school (1940s) because he couldn't leave the house as a result of severe hayfever which often triggered asthma attacks.

I'm also allergic to some nuts, but there weren't a lot of chestnuts & hazelnuts (which is what I'm allergic to) in 1970s midland homes, so that might have limited the nut allergy thing - simply fewer foods available in a lot of homes? I suspect also much less use of peanut/sesame oil in manufactured products?

I think I had a far more carefree childhood in the 70s - less traffic, less worry about "stranger danger" but I am bit less nostalgic about the lack of hot water/heating/nylon sheets.... When I was tiny we had an outside loo and a tin bath tub in the kitchen!

i only knew one girl with alergies.

I agree with the OP actually.

Same as depression. People used to just pull their socks up and get on with it in the good ol' days. Course, there were institutions for those who were a bit tired but I spects those were a bit like Butlins, no?

My Grandad's sister 'choked to death' in 1931, aged 3. My Grandad always said it was weird, fine one minute, strange the next, struggling to breathe. Of course she may have choked but I've often wondered if it was an allergy. My Dad is v allergic to many things- food, penicillin, stings, bites etc and has asthma, excema, hayfever. I have inherited some of it too so think there may be a familial predisposition to it.

oh just static nylon clothes - they were hideous!

I think it's more that things weren't given "labels" in the 70s & no one collected stats, than they didn't exist.

DH & I have both had the same skin problems since we were babies according to our mothers & it now confirmed as eczema in my case & psoriasis in DHs - but were treated as "rashes" when we were children.

A friend of mine has had a tree nut allergy since childhood & is now in her 40s (luckily not an anaphylactic reaction as a child just vomiting, but it has got worse now & she carries an epipen)

So yes things did exist IME, but the ability/mechanism to diagnose/lable/count did not