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

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

impulsive child with poor ability to judge risks - yes, I can see that tree climbing would be just the thing....

daftpunk - it is possible that you have no idea how patronising you are being.

Obviously parents of children with ADD or other behavioural problems never let them run on the beach or play sports. Do you think that these parents just drug their children willy nilly? For an easy life? Do you think it's easy to get children to take their medication? Most parents i know can barely get their kids to wear their glasses!

You have made me so fecking angry with your comments on here, your ill-thought out, DM-inspired crap that you spout. It's not just been on this thread but many others, and you need to either do some fucking research about conditions like AS and ADHD or shut the fuck up because you know nothing other than what you read in the media.

So you're saying they just scan them now and know for certain they have ADHD. That's interesting. I thought they examined their behaviour and made a diagnosis.

People with ADHD have a particular pattern of brain activity that researchers can recognise as being typical of ADHD. Strngely enough a similar pattern is seen in people with frontal lobe damage. They also behave simialrly in certain expeiments designed to measure impulsive behaviour and the ability to weigh up short term gains over long term gains.

lots of people wallow in their own self pity and call it depression
lots of parents have kids who are a bit boisterous and call it adhd

not all of these people need to be on drugs for it

obviously many children benefit by being on the medication
my sister works with kids who have s/n and behavioral problems, she tells me that many parents choose to drug their kids for a quiet life, rather than try other options first
some of them change the dosage themselves without consulting doctors. i dont understand how or why, but it happens

No of course they don't scan them to make a dx. It's research into ADHD- not used diagnostically.

scroll down for more info

A dx requires a lot more than just a look at their behaviour.

IME (though it's Dyspraxia not ADHD) they have to rule out a lot of things before they can say for definite that it's something else. Like with DD, they checked her over for signs of cerebral palsy etc, looking for anything which could be the reason behind her symptoms.

"my sister works with kids who have s/n and behavioral problems, she tells me that many parents choose to drug their kids for a quiet life, rather than try other options first"

Some people really need to find themselves a different job...

Brain scanning does not indiacte a cause and effect though, diagnosis is through behavioural observation.

Your environment could cause your brian to develop in certain ways.

Well, after having things thrown at me repeatedly and bearing the brunt of much agressive behaviour from DS2's imaginary and made-up RAD condition, we decided to drug him and he calmed down a great deal with Risperidone. Oh yeah, it was on the advice of several clinicians, including psychiatrists and paediatricians. It was a last resort and it helps him not to disrupt the education of other children too. I don't see this as a bad thing.

And yes, in his case it was his early parenting to blame for the neurological and psychiatric problems he developed and deals with now -- but I wasn't his parent then.

Well the areas that are unusual in ADHD (such as frontal lobes) is not that surprising given that frontal lobe damage leads to impulsivity and lack of inhibition.

excuse me coppertop?

Brain scans are expensive and have certain dangers assocaited with them so no they do not routinely scan children in this way nor do they use a brain scan as a tool for dx. This is resaerch into trying to undertsand which parts of the brain are involved in ADHD and its still at the early stages but the fact that there is a distinctive pattern does show that there is a physiological perspective and that this has to be considered if ADHD is to be properly understood.

I think we may have read some of the same papers CT

Sorry I meant jimjams

I haven't read them in detail, but kind of come across them iyswim. Frontal lobe stuff always interests me as ds1 is so bloody impulsive & it's a total nightmare.

You beat me to it SuburbanDryad. I was just about to congratulate our resident expert on child development on coming up with a solution that thousands of caring families with children with ADHD had never thought of...letting them run about! And climb trees. You genius daftpunk, do write to NICE and tell them all about your solution.

Oh and just to clarify the runnung on the beach and climbing trees thing - yes of course we let him do all that. He also goes to karate, swimming and has drumming lessons. And when he's not doing one of these things he is invariably racing around the garden or the house. I just count myself lucky that unlike many parents with a child with AS or ADHD he actaully sleeps quite well at night.

jimjamshaslefttheyurt, interesting link, but scary!

Why have the prescriptions skyrocketed? Part of the reason may be pressure--pressure from teachers for children to behave, pressure from parents for their children to do well in school and to succeed in other pursuits, and pressure from society for children to do more and better, at a younger age.>>

Ritalin has side effects that include irritability, decreased appetite, inability to sleep, depression, and personality changes.>>

Ritalin affects the brain in a way very similar to cocaine>>

Rats who were exposed to stimulants were more likely to help themselves to cocaine>>

We've also got the frontal lobe issues in RAD and it is often misdiagnosed as ASD and ADHD or co-morbid with it. This stuff is not made up and the more they research it, the more concrete it appears that these disorders are physiological in origin.

Diagnosis of ADHD, varies hugely around the country and from authority to authority depending on practice and indiviusl paediatricians.

In fact within one large authority, numbers of dx varied hugely from east to west due to just one paediatrician who dx quickly and advotcated drug traetment.

Some thought this was very beneficial for children and families, others thought it was dangerous.

It definitely needs debating.

At least it rules out the sodding too much TV hypothesis

Bythesea- my son can't talk. He's 9. His condition is biological not psychological.