AIBU to think ADHD bashing is plain ignorant?!

[Emily34austin]

My DD has ADHD .She struggled through primary academically and slipped behind her peers .She struggled to concentrate , organise her self and her belongings and her concentration really held her back in terms of progress. She was never "naughty" well not never but not anymore than other children the same age. After two long years of observations and endless meeting's she was diagnosed with ADHD .

The first reaction I got from teacher was "Oh how unusual she is so polite". Since then it's been endless not always directly to me but comments like " ADHD another word for spoilt brat syndrome " "ASBO disorder" "Bad parenting". Then there have been the well meaning parents who tried to advise me it was caused my sugary foods and if I cut those out her symptom's would vanish.
Don't get me wrong now she is a teenager her behaviour has been an issue but isn't that the way with most teenagers (stompy,eye-roller,shouty etc!!) nothing to extreme .
DD won't tell anyone she has ADHD she has become ashamed due to ignorance and assumptions in the past .

Why do people not talk like this in regards to depression , anxiety etc.?! Why does ADHD have such a stigma ?!

I've given up on Libraries - not worth the misery

Thank you recall and Bertie (dang - I bought that book).

recall she is at dance school - so the passion and focus is there. Unfortunately I very much doubt the money will follow

I find it troubling that so many people think you just walk into a Dr's office complain about a kids behaviour and they say "here you go love have soe Ritalin for them" it really is not like that.

I also find it troubling how few parents who are complaining about their precious child's education being disrupted by the ADHD or ASD kid realise that chances are there lovely child joins all the others in playing the "lets wind up the ADHD kid" game because it is such good fun just lighting the fuse then sitting back and waiting whilst looking so angelic. It really is a surprisingly common occurrence

Tell me about it the girls DD is accused of disrupting start I DD just finishes it! So they start singing an inappropriate song for instance then stop just before the inappropriate bit DD continues and off she goes to isolation ! The teachers know they do this they just say DD needs to learn to ignore ppppffftttttttttttttttttt!

Hare the workbook was useful in other ways but not as much as I had thought it would be. Give it a go, it's still quite handy for portioning out issues and giving thought to them one at a time, even if you don't respond to the "self reward" technique.

Agreed that does sound like bad classroom management. It's not always easy though for teachers to see what's going on.

Its hard for teachers to many kids, to little time to many targets etc.
It is frustrating for all involved.Its difficult as DD is not severe enough for local SEN schools but maybe to severe for mainstream no middle ground .
I occasionally think of home education but she is so sociable I think she'd go stir crazy !

Thanks Bertie I will. DD quite stressed at the moment so will have a go at a few things, one at a time...

Isin I don't know how I missed that website in my searching but I did - it looks very good, thank you!

I think the workbook could be good to work through with someone else, BTW :) If the someone else could be in charge of rewards, or even just holding you accountable it helps. It's the self directed nature of it which stumps me. I find that if somebody else is expecting me to report back on doing something, then I'm much more likely to do it than when it only affects me.

Emily, there are lots of opportunities for socialisation with HE, I think it's a bit of a myth that it's isolating. It might be worth a look around locally if you are genuinely open to the idea.

And I don't need a threat or reward, just the idea that someone is going to ask me "So did you...?" seems to spur me on a bit more and prevent the slide into procrastination.

Emily34austin I went to school with a girl who was labelled as 'naughty' though I suspect if she had been at primary school now she may have received a diagnosis. People used to wind her up because it was entertaining and wasted a bit of lesson time when she acted out in response to provocation. I remember one day she spent half a day locked in a cupboard because the teacher believed she had locked herself in there, when in fact it was one of the 'best behaved' girls who had done it and then hidden the key.

A neighbour's DGS has ADHD so severe it looks partly like Korsakov's, the short term memory disorder.

Underneath the shouting, destructive, unsleeping whirlwind was a kind and loving child who regarded the world with confused despair. He was unfailingly gentle with animals and smaller children, hardworking if he could finish a job in 10 minutes and quite dextrous. Fearless in all the wrong ways though, and undersized so much in demand by older burglars.

The real damage was done by his secondary school, who pocketed his SEN funding and let him rot until he got excluded.

Bastards.

Bertie that is interesting as I think that is a major part of the stress for her - the scaffolding of support for everyday via timetabled activities and parental involvement has gone, and she has not had any assessment feedback yet though she started in October (think it's due this week). I've just written her an email outlining all her organisational jobs for the week and she is much happier, so I think we might give the workbook and rewards a go.

Yep, and work towards her writing her own lists eventually, even if you call her to check on her list. It's a useful skill to have, to break things up into individual tasks which she can tick off (as long as she doesn't lose the list!)

You are right Op it is not always understood or taken seriously enough by some schools I think though that there is an awful lot of misinformation out there.

There appears to be no compulsory or legal requirement for schools to access training on ADHD. Considering it is the most common syndrome to be diagnosed, that might explain some of the ignorance.