To think that the ADHD label is masking other things in society?

[comoatoupeira]

Disclaimer this is NOT about being skeptical ADHD is a thing, my brother is diagnosed with ADHD by a doctor as well as a close friend of mine.

Through my job I have been doing a lot of research about the impacts of tech and social media and so on on young people, and also on the elderly who are becoming the first generation of elderly people who are high technology users.

It has all been making me see so many parallels between behaviors associated with ADHD and behaviors that are becoming more and more difficult to control because of the attention-stealing environment we are in, and other aspects of society today like consumerism always available in your pocket, long working hours and both parents working, the difficulty of taking those restorative breaks that are what helps us focus and take a step back.

I'm just feeling like we are looking at some milder cases of ADHD too much as an isolated medical thing rather than a wider societal ill.

I feel like the same thing has happened with depression, framing it as some sort of imbalance that can be fixed by drugs, when it's so much about the societies we live in.

I feel uncomfortable about all of these labels being used especially by young people with mild cases of things, it seems to imprison them in a fixed identity or frame them as having something wrong with them, when none of us a perfect and we all have strengths and weaknesses, and life is about living with them and being open to change.

What do you think?

Yes it is, and it isn’t my experience in 25 years of teaching.

If my DD’s and Dh are outliers. So are his 3 brothers and sister all of whom have great jobs, his sister’s 2 ds, and his Dm.

They aren’t outliers. The outliers are the ones in court.

No, but I do have ADHD and I'm addicted to my phone. The phone enhances my life massively. It's an acceptable form of stimming which simultaneously satisfies my brain's need for information and connects me to the world. My ADHD child is similarly hooked on a game on his phone, again, it's stimming. I remember a time before phones and my habits were a lots more destructive.

You're doing what many others do, observing a symptom and attributing a cause.

No I'm not. Unfortunately I've become acutely aware of the treatment and prevalence of ASD and ADHD in the criminal justice system in the UK. Just another example of society failing the most vulnerable.

I can link many many papers on this, it's far more than anecdote.

I obviously didn't mean that all people with ADHD suffer trauma or enter the CJS.

My family must be outliers as well.

My DC have had till recent bereavement two sets of married grandparents as well as married parents. Wider family no courts or family courts and frankly tend to buck wider societal trends and be stable two parent families in the main. DSis has most chaotic family life in wider family two ex but while they've been total arses been no where near family court.

I think you are mixing up the overlap between criminality and childhood trauma and incorrectly overlaying ADHD.
Actually, it is quite offensive.

I agree with this.

blog.govnet.co.uk/justice/moj-recognising-the-link-between-adhd-and-crime#:~:text=One%20is%20that%20individuals%20with,in%20aggressive%20and%20violent%20outbursts.

So this Govt blog points out that there is a correlation between ADHD and criminality - ie a higher percentage of ADHD population may engage in criminal acts than the non ADHD populations. But it is a correlation, not a causal link. Depending on the study there is a 1.6 - nearly 3x risk of criminality compared to NT population. However, the reasons for this has yet to be determined and may be societal, familial, cultural and/or due to co-morbid diagnoses (eg ASD+ADHD+depression which presents highly together) that are unsupported and untreated in a time when CAMHS/ACMHS is severely lacking.

Most ADHD folk are as law abiding and moral as their NT counterparts.

There's a tonne of data.

my area is so overwhelmed with requests for ADHD assessments with a 5 year waiting list, that the criteria for referral is much higher and would require the person to have the sort of difficulties described here eg lifelong poor mental health, addiction and criminal justice involvement.

I believe data shows there are more dyslexics in prison as well -

He concluded that dyslexia is three to four times more common amongst offenders than amongst the general population, with an incidence of 14 – 31%. The general agreement in prison-based studies is a rate of about 30% dyslexia, though rates of serious deficits in literacy and numeracy in general reach up to 60%.
https://prisonreformtrust.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/oldfiles/Documents/No%20One%20Knows%20Nancy%20Loucks%20prevalence%20briefing.pdf

I wonder if it's because they don't do well in school system - do tend to get excluded more and are thus more vulnerable generally with fewer options and opportunities in life generally so lose their way more frequently.

Doesn't change fact many dyslexics like me still do well educationally and go on to live perfectly normal lives.

It’s not about smart phones per se.

Its about the introduction of a much more connected system is raising the pressure in schools. It’s all data data data. And this is what’s driving the horrible educational environment which is breaking ND children. It’s a school problem created by the advent of computerised tracking. This is a stick to beat every kid with. And every member of staff. Then they beat the kid because there jobs depend on it.

Thats what’s causing it. The drive in accountability for staff and students in schools.

People get so angry when you say anything against ADHD diagnosis. People love a label!

The fact is, kids are overstimulated - that awful EE advert tells you all you need to know about modern society.

ADHD may be a real thing but all the parents pushing for diagnosis for their kids who are quite frankly and literally, left to their own devices. I tell my son often, you need tech free time, time to read, time to think, time to ponder, time to be bored, time to reflect, time to plan tomorrow. Kids are absolutely overloaded, constant iPads, phones, social media, headphones playing constant music, videos, doom scrolling through nonsense. Need the TV or music to get off to sleep, resulting is seriously poor quality sleep and little to no time to relax.

Then parents wonder why their child can't come back into a quiet room and struggles concentrate on one thing like their homework or their school work and of course they jump onto what is being pushed around them. Must be ADHD, must medicate the poor buggers.

External factors in A LOT of these cases, not all but a lot. Modern life is making people ill.

A tonne of data showing what exactly? I'm sorry I've lost what you're driving at. Are you saying there is data that shows that schooling was more appropriate for ND people 40/30/20 years ago?

I beleive that there's defintely a connecrion between the prevalence of ADHD and job/life expectations.

In my parents and grandparents generation, it was common to leave school at 14/15 and go into a manual trade, especially if you didn't do well at formal schooling - a symptom of ADHD. Many women left school, worked for a few years, and then became housewives. However expectations of child rearing was nothing like we have today, there was no management of children's social lives, mutiple after school clubs and activities, older children were expected to help out a lot more with childcare and chores.

For those with lower levels of executive function there were plenty of options to get by in life and so ADHD didn't have as much of an adverse impact.

However nowdays, the requirements for high levels of executive function are prevalent across all walks of life, schooling is mandatory until age 18, all apprenticeships require passing a formal qualification alongside work, everyday tasks such as management of household finances, managing appointments and children's acitivites and playdates alonside fitting in work and exercise and socialising requires huge amounts of cognitive flexibility.

I have a theory that we've lost sight of what normal childhood behaviour is. I do notice that children are never ever just bored or unstimulated. I have a policy of not using my phone to distract my DC when we are having to wait anywhere. Cue them being loud, disruptive, embarrassing quite frankly. Their natural inclination is to be climbing over the chairs in a waiting room, running about, singing or talking complete rubbish loudly. Even watching a film they will be jumping around or climbing over the sofa. I look around and all other children are sitting in silence because they are all gaming or watching YouTube shorts. Now when those children don't have those devices (such as in school) I'd wager they act like mine and it becomes a 'problem'. It's essentially an addiction
The withdrawal leads to what society has now labelled problem behaviour.

Most ADHD folk are as law abiding and moral as their NT counterparts.

True, but ASD should also be included. I'd suggest there is very likely a correlation; poor impulse control, emotional disregulation, poor communication etc. then through in poor understanding and even worse treatment by the CJS and it gets increasingly toxic.

I'm not placing blame on the NT person BTW.

I agree with this. I know plenty of ND adults who went in to trade jobs and have done fine in life without formal education..I wonder if the drive to stay in education or training until 18/19 is not ideal for many as even in vocational course they are expected to do several days per week in the classroom.

Those with a genetic predisposition to ADHD present as having ADHD as they have ADHD. The trauma they experience is often due to their parent's undiagnosed ADHD/ASD, which is turn is due to their parent's and so on. Experts are understanding this more but ADHD/ASD is not caused by childhood trauma, chaotic homelives and trauma are sometimes caused by ADHD/ASD though.

ADHD isn't caused by childhood trauma but symptoms of childhood trauma can be mistaken for ADHD, which is why the diagnostic process can be extremely challenging.

I have a policy of not using my phone to distract my DC when we are having to wait anywhere. Cue them being loud, disruptive, embarrassing quite frankly. Their natural inclination is to be climbing over the chairs in a waiting room, running about, singing or talking complete rubbish loudly. Even watching a film they will be jumping around or climbing over the sofa. I look around and all other children are sitting in silence because they are all gaming or watching YouTube shorts.

I did not use smart phone to distract my children (late teens)- however I did teach them how to behave appropriately in different settings - which I consider basic parenting and wasn't uncommon in their childhoods with other families.

I did try and set them up for success - so they often had walks before period of sitting still or were taken to playground before hand - they were aware of expectations that they were to sit still- drinks/food/books/comics/colouring or just parental attention were all potential distractions if appropriate to location and as they were often complimented on their good behavior must have worked.

I think it's a false argument to suggest that it's either distract with phones or ignore kids running riot and acting inappropriately in settings and tell everyone it's normal childhood behavior.

Not sure about ADHD but to this day am reading here some women believe that depression is caused by brain chemical balance, when the news media actually made the announcement how this story was fabricated by big pharma to sell their drugs and tests cannot be done on a brain to show anything in terms of depression, even ADHD

anyway. The amount of side effects people put themselves through believing all this is staggering

@Reugny

ADHD has two subtypes- inattentive or combined

I just want to say my dd was born in 2006. I didn’t even have a mobile then.

She was never given phones or stuff to be quiet, it wasn’t as much of a thing 18 years ago. But she is still ADHD. Irrespective if phones. She hardly uses hers now.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326475#:~:text=It%20is%20a%20popular%20myth%20that%20chemical%20imbalances,imbalances%20are%20the%20initial%20cause%20of%20these%20conditions.

Agree. There was no requirement to pass maths & English and vocational CSEs were offered alongside academic O levels.

Most pupils left at 16 and got jobs. ADHD wasn't supported as such, but people could find education and jobs they could manage. An important question to consider though, is whether some of those students would have succeeded in a different way with a diagnosis and support.

The way society acts in adhd is likely through something called epi- genetics. Genes exist but they are switched on under certain circumstances. I think the stress of mothers can up grade the expression of genes in a foetus. ADHD is a useful mindset in times of change stress and turmoil. Think hunter gatherer rather than farmer. It’s natures way of making sure your offspring are well prepared to survive the environment they are born in to. ADHD can also be very similar to trauma so always worth working through anything like that first.

@Grandmasswagbag that's really interesting actually.