Children labelled hyperactive really 'just naughty' ?

[Heated]

news story

i would agree with you there, south.

I want to agree with Jimjams, it was very hard t get a "label" for my son who is also 9.

He was diagnosed at 8 with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (basically he is on the Autistic spectrum).

It did not happen on a whim to get him to conform as in school he has less problems as it has a set routine and it sructured.

Everyone around him agreed he was on th spectrum but I was always being told he should not have a label.

However when we tried to get restbite care and out of school support we could not get it and we had to push for a referal to the hospital.

I know Adhd is totally different but I know of parents with children on Ritalin and I do not doubt it helps them for one minute and I have not come across any diagnosed children that I thought were just naughty.

Not a great article.
Teachers are not able to diagnose, so the word misdiagnose is not appropriate.

It doesnt seem especially strange to me that most of these children dont have ADHD, and it isnt as if the teachers would have been prescribing ritalin anyway.

"I taught a young lad a few years back who had ADHD. Nice enough boy, but really struggled with classroom behaviour - he'd fidget, pull faces, shout out inappropriate comments, fall ostentatiously off his chair &/or break wind spectacularly if reprimanded..."

we had kids like this in my schools in the 70's. Back then they were 'naughty' or 'showing off' These days it seems they have to be labeled with some learning dificulty and given drugs. Rediculous IMO.

I wish DS2 didn't have ADHD. I really do. I'm sick of reading that it doesn't exist. What is ridiculous beaniesteve is people who are lucky enough to have children who don't have the condition deciding it therefore isn't real.

I've been arguing with DS2 all weekend because he has decided he doesn't need his medication any more and has stopped taking it, without consultation. His psychiatric nurse has explained it to him and so have I but he knows best. He's currently not speaking to me.

I told him he speaks too loudly and about inappropriate subjects. The nurse backed me up. The the sister he iodolises came home unexpectedly yesterday, and ended up telling him "I want to speak to my mother" and to stop butting in and turn the volume down, and he went off in a strop. It's my fault apparently

(But of course ADHD is just a label as an excuse for a naughty boy so he really could talk appropriately if he tried harder, and I don't need to worry about him not taking his medication )

Teachers cannot diagnose. Only ed psychs/ psychatrists etc can diagnose.

We teachers teach, we don't have medical qualification

CAMHS are shit. I'm having a real battle over ds medication with them. They will not listen to me

My brother had ADHD.
My son is naughty.
the difference is clear.

It's sad that stories like this lead people to believe that ADHD doesn't exist.

My husband was recently diagnosed at the age of 45 (he's had it since childhood but it wasn't known much in those days).

He's managed to carve out a successful career and have a "good" life in spite of the ADHD, but it's only since it's been diagnosed that I've known what he's been going through.

ADHD is VERY easy to mis-identify, as lots of people have some of the behaviours, to some extent.

It's good that his ADHD has been identified at all, but he gets really sad to think how his life may have been different and his self-esteem improved if he'd been helped as a child rather than labelled "lazy", "stupid", "living in fairy land". "Discipline" would not have helped. He didn't choose not to concentrate but couldn't concentrate.

It would be silly to say that ADHD etc doesn't exist. If ADHD is defined as 'people who behave this way' then clearly there are people who behave that way.

Surely the doubts people have are whether it is an illness or just someone further along the same curve we are all on.

It wouldn't be one curve. More like one of those graphic equaliser things with lots of slider bars for aggression, concentration, communication skills and so on.

We now say that if slider bars 3,4 and 8 are above a certain level then that person has so and so condition. if slider bars 2,6 and 9 are above a certain level then they have another condition.

Unless there is physical evidence I don't see why it's assumed that this is not just normal variation within a population.

That's not to say that you don't need more help in coping with kids who fit that description. I just worry about the assumption that they are 'damaged' in some way.

For example there is nothing 'natural' about sitting placidly in a classroom. Most of us can manage it and some (who presumably have slider bars 3,4 and 8 all the way down) are perfectly content there.

To suggest that not being able to do it is 'unnatural' and making it seem like an illenss seems wrong to me.

greyriverside, it isn't just about sitting quietly in a classroom.
My brother was not a normal child. He cried a lot, had tantrums because he couldn't handle any complicated situations, he couldn't concentrate on anything, couldn't tie his shoelaces, couldn't keep anything organised. He was very thirsty, and as he got older, he got increasingly depressed and tired. By the time he was thirteen, he was still doing all the childish behaviour, but his tantrums were going to land him in the police station because they were increasingly violent. My parents tried everything discipline-wise, but they were getting to the end of their tether.

After he was diagnosed as ADHD and treated, he changed within a few days to being a normal person.

Because I SAW that change, from "off the end of the spectrum" to being just a normal person, I can't accept that ADHD is just a classification for normal behaviour.
It is an illness that blights sufferers' lives (and their families' too), and it can and should be treated. In my brother's case, it was treated by changing his diet, not with drugs.

oldnewmummy, I sympathise with your dh. My brother was diagnosed at 13, but he had already lost a large part of his childhood.