Daily Mail take on ADHD - 'badly behaved boys need discipline not drugs'

[tortoiseshell]

Article here - I'm posting the link a little tentatively, as it is not a good article - typical DM bile I think!

Of course there are people misdiagnosed.
There always will be. Doctors of all sorts are fallible.

I was diagnosed with 'constipation' and told to take some nurofen for the pain and drink fresh orange juice. When in fact I had kidney failure and was rushed into hospital only hours later. It happens.

The problem is when people who have no fecking idea pull statistics out of a hat and claim to know something, not just misdiagnosis.

I doubt it's anywhere near 99% of children on prescribed drugs for ADHD that don't need them, especially in the UK. It's a bloody long haul to get a dx as it is.

Well, let's hope no child of yours ever has a "made up" condition, Daftpunk.

I was also told that about ritalin.

I do think its over-prescribed and that too many people - not just parents- look at it as a magic bullet that will sort everything out. I think its really important that ADHD is viewed and treated from a bio-psychosocial perspective as thats the only way that all the factors involved will be addressed.

My ds has ADHD and can behave like a little sod. He is very hard work and completely exhausts me but he does not come from an unstable background with no discipline. We are a happy loving family with firm, clear boundaries and consistant, firm but fair discipline. In spite of all this ds can be extremely badly behaved, rude and aggressive. Medication was absolutely the last resort for us - we tried a variety of behaviour management techniques for over 3 years with a varying degree of success before we got to the point where we felt the time had come to try medication.

The stimulant ritalin type drugs didn't suit ds as he has AS as well and his anxiety levels went through the roof. He is now on a non-stimulant ADHD medication which has really helped him. I would say for ds that it seems to work by lowering his baseline level of agitiation and this helps him be less hyper, not to lose it so quickly and also to calm down much faster than when unmedicated. Basically it allows him to respond far more to the behaviour management strategies that are used at home and school and also allows him to more successfully monitor his own feelings and take a time out or ask for help if he needs it.

daftpunk, how can you 'not believe'?
There is nothing to 'believe', it's fact!

I'd never heard of Dyspraxia until about a year ago, and now DD is waiting to see occ.therapy.

Just because I haven't seen pygmys doesn't mean they don't exist.

Daftpunk - my uncle was prescribed Ritalin (or a derivative thereof) after he put the cat through the mangle "to see what would happen". That was over 30 years ago.

daftpunk you have no idea whether some of the children you are talking about have SN or not. From the outside it often looks like these children are just badly behaved. I know that ds comes across as a rude little thug at times which is why i make the point of telling people about his ADHD. We don't use it to excuse his behaviour but rather to explin it. Ds doesn't get away with it and there are always consequences. We don't allow him to say that its not his fault becuase he has ADHD.

I know people myself who abdicate responsibilty for their bad parenting by decalring to anyone who will listen that their child has ADHD but in my experience it is much harder to get an official dx than that article suggests.

Daftpunk do yu believe in autism? 1950's that came about as a dx. Now, I've had the made up thing spouted at me for that too: yet almost every family I know with an asd child has non-asd kids too, usually stunningloy behaved- ds2 was the first to fill his 'reward cahrt' in his class ()

There are kids out there who behave terribly because they have bad lives: I know ne of these and Mum randomy tells him he's asd, adhd, whatever. the dx is the indicator though becuase surprisingly dx's are-

whisper-

rather ahrd to come by

Interesting responses. I wasn't so bothered about the 'ritalin' side of it - it was more the idea that 'actually children with ADHD are just plain old fashioned naughty'.

Do you think people with ME are "just lazy" as well, DP?

x posts dusty lol

when my son was being evaluated for ASD 10 years ago I was told that was a made up condition.
My FIL said it was an excuse for badly behaved children and that they 'didn't have any of that when he was younger'.He also said he and his brother had been wild and they would probably have been diagnosed with something or other 'nowadays' But 'boys should be boys'

But then he is a twat.

I personally never believed in twats until I saw some in the 1990's but now I see them a lot. They seem to be everywhere. Sometimes I think they are actually just berks but have too little structure at home and therefore become full twats.I think there should be more help for twats and more understanding of the difficulties of living with twatage.
I think it may be also be a side effect of the internet.
But I'm no expert

pag that genius

When people uphold the ill-informed notion that these conditions don't exist, it gives society, and by default, the education system, the perfect excuse not to support those children and families that are affected.

of course i would use drugs for my child if they had a life threatening condition or were in physical pain...but this is a behaviour thing, mostly effecting boys..who are usually more "lively" than girls..(so that speakes volumes)...i would sort out my childs behaviour without the use of drugs. ..that's all i'm saying.

It's very difficult to get a diagnosis for full-on Twattery though pagwatch. And even then, there's little that can be done about it, when the person who has been diagnosed insists on wallowing in their Twattery. It's quite tragic, really.

Let's hope you never need anti-depressants or sleep medication then Daftpunk.

You really are talking a load of shite, but then I suspect you know this.

There are lots of conditions out there that affect one sex more than the other. Just because ADHD affects mainly boys doesn't mean it's not real.

Yes, boys can't get pregnant either. Does that mean my morning sickness isn't real? (I bloody wish)

daftpunk - I couldn't agree less with you.

well i'm 35..if i needed drugs for depression thats different...i would not drug my 5 year old.

haemophilia is clearly made up.

Since when did giving a child prescribed medication become "drugging them"?

You are fortunate to have no idea what you are talking about daftpunk. We tried for years to help ds other ways. We had some success but it only went so far. Meds were the last resort for us and thankfully they have helped.

PMSL @ pag

Males are four times more likely to be affected by Dyspraxia than females too, male and female brains work differently.

Thanks for telling me boys are active DP- I'd never noticed, having only 4 myself!

I thought that there was a theory adhd was an offshoot of the asd spectrum, explaining why boys are most affected?

All the boys are active thing means is that there are kids who don't quite meet the dx criteria. like many synbdromes, adhd is a too much thing, iyswim? No different to too much insulin, or whatever