Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk

Back to thread
Original poster

Hyperactivity label? [titled edited by MNHQ]

5 replies

Flojobunny · 24/07/2013 11:43

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.

Go to post
MNHQ

KateSMumsnet · 24/07/2013 16:01

Afternoon all,

Thank you to everyone who brought this thread to our attention.

We feel that the OP has every right to ask about her DD's possible diagnosis. However, we do have an issue with any posts that infer having a diagnosis is something bad, or to be avoided. It is this sort of thing that our up-coming campaign "This Is My Child" is going to tackle, and we can see that there's already been some great myth busting on this thread.

We're going to go through this thread and remove posts that break our talk guidelines, which included disablist posts. As ever, please do report anything you'd like us to look at.

Flojobunny - we wish the very best for your DD

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 24/07/2013 16:42

@tabulahrasa

"We feel that the OP has every right to ask about her DD's possible diagnosis. However, we do have an issue with any posts that infer having a diagnosis is something bad, or to be avoided."

I'm assuming that doesn't include the OP? Because I agree that in general that is disablist, but obviously when it's a parent trying to get their head around something then that's completely different.

Hi tabulah - yes, that's it - we were posting slightly in haste because our inbox was filling up with complaints about posts on this thread (understandably).

As you say, parents' ambiguities about receiving a diagnosis for their child are perfectly understandable.

What's really not on is to imply that children's diagnoses are the result of bad parenting, or a failure to adhere to alternative therapies.

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 24/07/2013 16:49

@PolterGoose

Kate whilst of course the OP has every right to ask about assessment, the way she has worded her title and general posting style is inflammatory and dismissive of ADHD as a medical condition, thus rendering it inherently disablist.

We've had a good look at this, and we do think that the wording of the title and the OP are understandable, given that this is a parent discussing something that could have enormous significance for her own daughter. (Sorry to talk about you as though you're not here, OP!)

While we understand that expressing misgivings about 'labelling' can in some ways feed in to damaging narratives about behavioural disorders, we don't think her post was dismissive of ADHD in its entirety - it reads to us more like an expression of her discomfort at the idea of that diagnosis being applied to her own child.

Had it been a post explicitly expressing scepticism about the very existence of ADHD, that may well have been different. (We've nixed several posts on this thread for that sort of blanket statement.)

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 24/07/2013 17:00

@Rulesgirl

Is this not an open forum. You have removed posts because you don't agree with the rest of the thread. No one has been rude except the lady who told people to "fuck off" but that is still there. Mumsnet has been very biased here and I am quiet surprised at the way you have handled this and hope that you don't censore all your threads in this biased unfair way.

Gosh, we're sorry to have upset you Rulesgirl.

We're not quite sure though what you mean by 'open forum'. Mumsnet does have a set of Talk Guidelines, which clearly state that we will delete posts that we consider to be disablist.

We try our hardest to be fair in our deletion policy; we're sorry if this isn't coming across. Do please report any posts that you think we ought to look at again.

MNHQ

KateSMumsnet · 27/07/2013 11:37

Hello all,

We're just going to move this to Children's Health, at the request of the OP.

Watch this thread for updates

Tap "Watch" to get all the latest updates

End of posts

There are no more MNHQ posts on this thread

Back to thread