Hyperactivity label? [titled edited by MNHQ]

[Flojobunny]

Health visitor wants to refer DD (4 yo) for hyperactivity assessment. What is it with health care professionals trying to stick kids in to boxes.
Yes she's always on the go, yes she doesn't sleep but she's my DD and that is that. No good can come of being labelled surely.

[Sirzy]

If she was asthmatic would you not want that diagnosed as it would "label her"?

What is the difference with something like this? The label you are so worried about can be the difference between getting supported needed to reach potential and not.

[cardibach]

"I am just totally fed up of health care professionals always wanting to slap labels on things rather than seeing the individual." I don't get this at all. Damn Health Care Professionals wanting to find out what is the problem with people. Why don't you think she can be both ADHD and an individual?
I am a teacher, and I don't have lower expectations of ADHD pupils because of a diagnosis.

[fanjoforthemammaries7850]

ADHD doesnt just mean "a bit lively".

[fanjoforthemammaries7850]

I assume if she has it her issues will become more apparent at school ..and I too would aay a diagnosis will get her support and avoid her being labelled as naughty.

[Davsmum]

I just hope there is a lot of research going on as to why there are SO many children diagnosed with ADHD.
My sister's boy was diagnosed with ADHD but she thinks its simply because they have no clue what his problems are. He is NOT particularly hyper-active at all.
Although I agree with many comments about getting these children the right help etc - I still believe labels are often applied too quickly to suit the 'professionals' rather than the children or parents.

[insanityscratching]

A child won't get a diagnosis unnecessarily and so if your dd doesn't fit the criteria you have nothing to fear about having an assessment anyway. So you could then justifiably tell the HV she is just a bit lively rather than hyperactive.

[ImTooHecsyForYourParty]

That's not fair. My two have 'labels' and like all our kids are seen as individuals. They have personalised education plans. Don't get more individualised than that!

Nobody wants to hold your child back in life. But an undiagnosed issue will do exactly that.

Nobody wants to slap a n unneeded dx on a child because its expensive!

Looking at a child as an individual includes looking to see if there are any areas they need help.

What are you afraid of?

An assessment won't give your child a condition she doesn't have. If there's nothing then there's nothing, end of story.

Not getting an assessment doesn't make an issue (if there is one) go away.

[FrussoHathor]

I would much rather have a healthcare profession want to refer my child than not. It is one hell of a fight to get referred when you decide you need it.

We also have access to direct payments and holiday groups especially for sen children. Something we can't access without a label.

[Rulesgirl]

Didn't the man who wrote about AHAD say when he was dying that he had made it up anyway Agree, kids are labelled too much with this generation. We all grew up with all sorts of personalities .....but not labelled.

[fanjoforthemammaries7850]

Davsmum.its not just about that it is also a lack of attention. Maybe you should learn more about ADHD.

My DD displays it..she has concentration span of 2 seconds ..literally.

[IcedCoffeeQueen]

If only they wanted to slap labels a bit more freely! its like trying to get blood out a stone round my way, don't be too sure they will diagnose in a hurry either ds1 has been under 'assessment' since 3 he's 7 now and we are no further forward.

[fanjoforthemammaries7850]

Rulesgirl. If you don't have any personal experience of Sn maybe you shouldnt trot out lines about how it was great when you were young with no labels.

[onetiredmummy]

You OK Flojo? Has something happened to make you start this thread?

[fanjoforthemammaries7850]

Considering many on here live the conditions and have to fight for diagnosis . and support.


MN iS becoming the Daily Mail comments page. .cant.move for these sorts of comments and benefit bashing on here these days

[sparklesandbling]

what most others have said already, its not a label its a diagnosis and without it you may find people don't understand your child's behaviour as you do.

Without my dd's diagnosis I would be unable to access the therapies and specialists that she now sees.

I couldn't give a flying fig if some people think I want my child labelled as I now know she is getting the best she can to help her.

[insanityscratching]

Exactly Fanjo the This Is My Child campaign is long overdue.

[ImTooHecsyForYourParty]

Really? Not labelled?

Well, where I grew up there was the thicko, the dirty old man, the freak, the stinky, and a whole host of people who folks would look at, tap their heads and whisper that they werent quite right.

I prefer the labels my children have to the ones the none nt kids had when I was at school.

Perhwps if the little boy I was at school with had had one of these labels they chuck about these days, he wouldn't have had such a lonely and miserable childhood, trapped in compulsive behaviours while the bullies spat at him and kicked him.

[Justforlaughs]

There is a huge difference between being "a bit lively" (my DS) and having "ADHD". I think it depends on who thinks there is a problem and why. SOME HCPs can see ADHD everywhere and the minute a parent mutters "I wish they'd slow down" or "DC is on the go all day long", they immediately jump to the conclusion that this child has ADHD. However, if the nursery staff and the mother don't feel that there is a problem, the chances are that there isn't one. I refused an assessment for my DS and I have NO regrets about it. If his behaviour had deteriorated then I would have thought again, but he was just constantly on the go and needed to be focused. He's always been excitable and sometimes I could smack him (he's 20 btw, and he'd smack me back harder ) when he winds up younger DCs but I do NOT believe that he needed a diagnosis for ADHD. However, I would encourage you (OP) to keep and open mind and be prepared for a teacher at some point in the future to recommend extra help and support, and if they do I would advise you to take their advice. I was always prepared for this, but fortunately for me and my DS, the teachers always agreed with me.

[LittleSporksBigSpork]

In my experience, these things are better started off sooner than later.

I've been trying to get help and understanding about my DS1 since before he was 2, and kept being put off by professionals (because he could mimic long sentences, he wasn't communicating but he could sound clever, and they thought everything would get better through nursery and peer pressure - that only made things worse, very fast and took ages to heal). I've been chasing for help for years, he's now almost 9 and it is just getting harder. She could just be lively and an assessment would show that, or you could end up with a child almost your size that you're desperately trying to help and understand, getting no where, and trying to cobble things together yourself to help make progress.

I could why you wouldn't want to go through with an assessment, mostly from my experience of assessments, but having professionals on side, whether or not a child needs a diagnosis, makes things so much easier.

[LittleSporksBigSpork]

*I can get why.

[ImTooHecsyForYourParty]

Oh, but a mere generation before that there werent any such people at all

Cos they were locked up in institutions their whole life...

[sparklesandbling]

oh and your blinking lucky that your HV cares so much that she wants the assessment, DD's HV hasn't even bothered to contact us in over a year after being requested to do so by community paediatrician.

[MammaTJ]

Flojobunny I think you need to go get an education about it before you start accusing people of flattening my daughters mood just because she's a bit lively makes me feel sick at the thought.

ADHD is more than a bit lively it is constant and the pressure on a family when one member has it is immense.

Wht medication does, essentially speed, is wake up the 'control' part of the brain, which then does its thing of, um, 'controlling' everything it should have been doing all along. This may seem to 'flatten their mood' but actually it normalises, for want of a better word, an abnormal set of behaviours.

If you are happy to allow your DD to struggle in school situations and be judged as being difficult, rather than get a diagnosis, then that is entirely up to you, but please inform yourself of the options and especially the choices others make for their children rather than spouting uninformed clap trap.

Neglecting to get diabetes diagnosed will not make a person Mother Of The Year and neither will neglecting to get a diagnosis of this, no matter how much you may choose to judge others.

[tallulah]

I would rather my DD was in the little box marked ADHD than I was in the box marked mother who can't control her child and is shit parent. I've been in both and know which I prefer.

As it is I'm the mother of the only child excluded from her ballet schools show. Out of several hundred.

[FrussoHathor]

imtooheavy yes. My dd would have been institutionalised before the age of 4 with some of the behavioural tendencies she's shown. And the older she gets the more noticeable the differences get.
Our diagnosis has enabled us to get her a very sort after place at an over subscribed long waiting list special school, where she will no doubt thrive; with teaching methods aimed at her diagnosis.