[Closed] ADHD. Real or bad parenting?

What do you think?

Is it like getting a mountain bike on C2W and never riding to work?

ADHD. Real or bad parenting?

TJ to the forum. He's worked a lot with people with various degrees of mental(?) health issues, or so I believe & he'd probably provide some sensible input.

I'm an ex prison officer & as far as I'm concerned, 95% of prisoners CLAIM to have ADHD, but usually theyr'e just horrible ****s.

yes its real

That is not  bad parenting it is fraud

My nephew has been diagnosed with ADHD. His parents own their own house so it could be there is something wired differently in his head.

adhd and aspergers are real conditions.  What you hear is people discussing fraud.  They will probably be found out and are probably bragging anyway.

Hard to diagnose when its only mild, I feel sorry for people who want to handicap their kids as this is what labelling kids without cause does.

Probably part genetic part environment. Kids spend a lot less time outside these days, which could possibly exacerbate the problem. No one in the 70s was diagnosed with ADHD, it just didn't exist and there weren't that many really badly behaved kids (in the state schools I went to). Even if they had the diagnosis back then I suspect the numbers would be tiny compared with now.

In the catchment for our school (which admittedly is a bit of an outlier demographically), hunting for a diagnosis is also used all too often as a way to 'abdicate' parenting responsibility - 'I can't control/support/understand my child so there must be something medically wrong with them...'

You're not gonna get rich on the "payouts" you get for having an autistic child, I assure you.

Though this has the whiff of BS about it, TBH.

Yes it’s real, it’s always existed just better recognised now. Kids still play outside despite what the Daily Mail tells you and there’s always been disruptive kids at school.

Fireworks being set off in the school corridors was just one I can recall and that’s before we get onto a pupil attacking a teacher.

Inappropriate parenting

Its a label for someone who externalises internal conflicts, thereby shifting responsibility for all concerned.

Ill go as far as to say, snake oil and woo woo.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that George Still, who claimed to have discovered it, when on his death bed, admitting to making the theory up. I haven't looked to check or google, so reference unavailable.

No one in the 70s was diagnosed with ADHD, it just didn’t exist

How do you know it didn't exist?

Hmm. It sounds like fraud, but equally it could be that there's a genuine issue that they don't think is being dealt with correctly so they're "sexing it up" as a result. More input!

There was no Higgs Boson in the 1970s, it just simply didn't exist.

Or alternatively it's always existed and only just proven, a bit like advances in health care eh?

I haven’t looked to check or google, so reference unavailable.

You certainly dont need any facts getting in the way of your opinion

Inappropriate parenting

what they said about autism in the past [ cold mother] - want some references?

It’s a genuine condition and apparently 1 in 10 children are diagnosed with it 😳 (ever increasing and I’m going to be controversial here) but instead of throwing drugs at kids they should concentrate on their diet with regard to the gut microbiome and the kids would show a vast improvement,  stop feeding kids convenient processed utter shite mass produced slurry food and eat real food instead with lots of fibre but with the vast majority of parents working full time who has the time to cook genuine meals these days?, since the 70’s we have been sleepwalking our way into a health crisis due to the changes in our diet.

Or alternatively it's increased in prevalence due to change in environment e.g. I'm guessing that prior to tobacco, lung cancer was a lot less prevalent...

It’s real, i have no doubt about that.

’none in the 70s’?

well it certainly wasn’t widely reported, thats for sure.

as above, what you overheard may have been fraud.

but I’d also agree that nobody is gonna get rich on the handouts for their kid having aspergers, or other similar conditions.

https://everything2.com/title/London+Causes+of+Death+in+1700

Quick reference for the it didn't exist (or rather it didn't have a name) then but does now...

but I’d also agree that nobody is gonna get rich on the handouts for their kid having aspergers, or other similar conditions.

Absolutely not, but when you live in one of the bottom 10% of council wards in the UK in terms of multiple measures of deprivation (as I said, my school is a bit of an outlier socially - about 80% of our catchment falls into this category) it might make a real difference to you.

It's a real conflict for us - we have a high proportion of students with genuine needs (whether Asperger's, ADHD, whatever) who need all the support they can get given their social context, we have a small minority of parents who for whatever reason would like their child labelled whether they have a real need or not, and we have students who might have genuine needs but are not yet diagnosed and so do not receive the support they need. As a pastoral team, we are always caught in the middle between school, parents, social & medical services, and the needs of the student. Not at all helped by the fact that getting a true diagnosis is getting more and more difficult all the time (mainly for political / financial reasons but wouldn't want to derail the thread by making a big deal of those).

No one in the 70s was diagnosed with ADHD, it just didn’t exist and there weren’t that many really badly behaved kids (in the state schools I went to).

Possibly because ADHD as a term came into being in 1987, however it has been recognised as a behavioural condition for considerably longer.

 Kids spend a lot less time outside these days, which could possibly exacerbate the problem.

It could well be.  Alternatively, you could've just made that up.

No one in the 70s was diagnosed with ADHD, it just didn’t exist

So yay for improvements in diagnosis techniques?

I'm sure plenty of things "didn't exist" in the 70s.  Were there many Apserger's / ASD diagnoses back then?  Back in my mum's day teachers were 'correcting' left-handedness with the application of a ruler across the back of the knuckles..

Just because it wasn't described or diagnosed in the 70's doesn't mean it didn't exist.

Kids with ADHD in the 70's were just described as bad'uns or wrong'uns.  We suspended and excluded more kids from school and sent more kids to special school.

Most modern diagnoses will be correct, however there will be some misdiagnoses where kids and / or parents believe there is an advantage to having an ADHD diagnosis so will try and obtain one dishonestly.  There may also be parentally diagnosed cases where the parents want an excuse for their child's behaviour (whatever the cause) and ADHD is a slightly trendy excuse which excuses any poor parenting.

I am sure that if I was at school now I would come out of it with a series of labels.  Would this have helped?  Dunno really - its taken me a long time to come to terms with my eccentricity / oddness / developmental abnormalities and it might well have helped me to come to terms with it earlier - but then it would have made me even more the odd one out.

Medicalising social issues is a real problem - but then so is labelling kids with real problems "naughty"  "thick" a real problem.

I do wonder if the pendulum has swung too far but I am sure that some kids at my school would have been helped earlier and better now than they were and I do wonder about myself.

Nothing a bloody good hiding wouldn’t resolve.

same could be said for the trolls and dinosaurs in here, cause nobody born before 1970 was a ever a problem

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_corporal_punishment

I've worked with kids with ADHD, there are certainly extremes.

Many of them were from very complex, sometimes pretty horrible, backgrounds.

This was in America so there was a lot of medication, for some kids it seemed unecessary.

For the really messed up ones, the ones that couldn't make it through every single meal without smashing a cup or plate across the room (no malicious intent)

after a while I got over my prissy British dislike of drugging kids & soon was greatful for Ritalin time!

Anyway, ADHD is real, ime and no easy ride for the family or carers.

Most modern diagnoses will be correct, however there will be some misdiagnoses where kids and / or parents believe there is an advantage to having an ADHD diagnosis so will try and obtain one dishonestly.

I don't doubt it.  But I'm certain that the fraudulent ones will be a minority, and in any case if it means that kids who genuinely need help get that help then a few fraud cases slipping through as well is a small price to pay IMHO.

But I’m certain that the fraudulent ones will be a minority, and in any case if it means that kids who genuinely need help get that help then a few fraud cases slipping through as well is a small price to pay IMHO.

Absolutely. This is the core of the dilemma for those of us working in this area. Compounded by the fact that even getting a genuine diagnosis is becoming increasingly difficult and lengthy - some of the most genuinely needy kids are waiting months to get assessed, which can have a massive impact on their education and family lives.

Meds work if you actually have ADHD.

Not so much if you're just a naughty little git with questionable parent(s).

Then there's ODD (oppositional defiance disorder) which often gets missed when ADHD is presumed. ODD does not work well with ADHD meds!

ADHD - 99% of the time it’s the kid that drinks pop all day long, they eat shite, all just before they go to bed, they don’t go to bed at a sensible time, they play computer games all day, the parents don’t discipline them properly... it goes on but you get the picture.

I’m sure plenty of things “didn’t exist” in the 70s.  Were there many Apserger’s / ASD diagnoses back then?

Exactly.  My cousin had what would have been ADHD in the 70's and I have had aspergers since the 70's.  While people accepted there was something 'wrong' with my cousin they just thought I was a bit strange...

I seem to recall reading somewhere that George Still, who claimed to have discovered it, when on his death bed, admitting to making the theory up. I haven’t looked to check or google

Not quote what he actually said, but has been widely used by people who don’t believe in it.

What he he was referring to was the idea that environment and social influences can cause the condition.

ADHD – 99% of the time it’s the kid that drinks pop all day long, they eat shite, all just before they go to bed, they don’t go to bed at a sensible time, they play computer games all day, the parents don’t discipline them properly

Considering the general slating that The Daily Mail gets one here, it incredible how many people seem to write posts as if they were trying out for a position as a Daily Mail columnist 🙄

Have a +1 Neal.

You do realise some posters may actually read the Daily Mail (while others would never read it as it is too left leaning)

getting a genuine diagnosis is becoming increasingly difficult and lengthy

Beat me to it. There's about a two-year wait in our area. It's really not something parents can do to make a quick buck.

ADHD – 99% of the time it’s the kid that drinks pop all day long, they eat shite, all just before they go to bed, they don’t go to bed at a sensible time, they play computer games all day, the parents don’t discipline them properly… it goes on but you get the picture.

We get the picture alright sunshine.

Honestly, don't you think you'd be happier on the Daily Mail comments than constantly burdening us with your ignorance?

Our youngest just got diagnosed. I was hoping the school may get a bit more funding to help in classes, but wasn't aware we can coin it in as well. Please can you ask the mums which forms I need to fill in.

its both - in my nephews case it is bad or more accurately a lack of parenting.  The boy behaves so differently with my dad and his great aunty.  unfortunately the root cause of his behaviour will not be corrected because my sister won't listen to my dad and I'm not tactful enough to discuss it with her lol.

When a mate first started seeing his lass a good few years back, her oldest kid was uncontrollable, we took him to the football once and he had absolutely no focus, at one point he was swinging off the railings and easily found something else to mess around with after being told not to do that and dragged off them.

A few months after that Social work were involved due to an incident with his wee brother that saw an A&E visit, the kids being moved to their grandparents and some bizzare statements from the eldest.

It was a blessing in disguise for them as they identified that the kid had no focus, an extremely strong imagination and was borderline uncontrollable, identified what the problems were and got the family the support they needed to shift from just about coping with him to actually being able to manage him.

He still has his moments like getting so worked up about not going on a surprise trip somewhere that he couldn't back down when he found out it was EuroDisney but since the diagnosis and the support being put in place he's been much calmer, yes partly down to Ritalin but the difference is between learning nothing at school to being a top pupil, being able to go to the football and actually watch a match, and not getting fed up of Tetris after 5 seconds.

I was in contact with a number of kids at school (mid-90s) who got learnign support, mostly Dyslexic because learning support tried to help me with my terrible handwriting, but I recognized a lot of the disruptive kids behaviors.

It's not uncommon to hear of kids who were a nightmare becoming rather good in their line of business, particularly offshore and a few of the disruptive kids at my school who's behaviour I now recognize as probably being ADD or ADHD related went on to be pretty successful.

Wow, so many misconceptions in this thread! The situation described is bad parenting and fraud - but I need to clarify some stuff about ADHD as the stereotype is completely out of whack with reality.

I was diagnosed at the age of 36 and being on medication has changed my life. I have great diet, do lots of exercise and have lots of support and good strategy, but the medication is the single biggest thing to improve my symptoms by far.

ADHD is not the same as being badly behaved.

Hyperactivity is one symptom of ADHD, and not significant for all sufferers. There's a lot more underlying issues that have a huge impact, mainly impulsivity, distractibility and impaired working memory.

As for all the people in the 70s that didn't have it - they bloody did, and I teach their children!

Overall ADHD is I think massively under-diagnosed, precisely because people confuse it with naughtiness and miss the kids like me who were trying really hard but still couldn't remember what they were asked to do 30 seconds ago.

Definitely real. I work with plenty of kids who have it.

That said, crappy sugary diets and neglectful parenting definitely don't help.

the idea that sugar makes kids badly behaved or hyper is an old wives tale.

Wow, so many misconceptions in this thread!

I suspect the doctor that diagnosed my nephew doesn't know his arse from his elbow

ADHD – 99% of the time it’s the kid that drinks pop all day long, they eat shite, all just before they go to bed, they don’t go to bed at a sensible time, they play computer games all day, the parents don’t discipline them properly… it goes on but you get the picture.

I look forward to the evidence to substantiate these assertions.

Definitely real, although it is easy to confuse ADHD with Attachment Disorder as they often lead to similar behaviours, but generally attachment disorder is a lot less well known than ADHD and isn't something which is usually 'fixed' with drugs.

The biggest difference between the two is the likely cause, as I understand it, ADHD is generally being down to genetic/medical reasons, while Attachment Disorder is due to inconsistent/bad parenting or mistreatment of the child during its first few years.

ADHD is real, however the term has been hi jacked to now cover some bad parenting, which makes life for the true sufferers all the harder

You certainly dont need any facts getting in the way of your opinion

I've looked it up, apparently it was Leon Eisenberg "the father of ADHD".

On his death bed, this psychiatrist and autism pioneer admitted that ADHD is essentially a "fictitious disease," which means that millions of young children today are being needlessly prescribed severe mind-altering drugs that will set them up for a life of drug addiction and failure.

"ADHD is fraud intended to justify starting children on a life of drug addiction," said Dr. Edward C. Hamlyn, a founding member of the <i>Royal College of General Practitioners</i>, back in 1998 about the phony condition. Adding to this sentiment, psychiatrists Peter Breggin and Sami Timimi, both of whom oppose pathologizing the symptoms of ADHD, say that ADHD is more of a social construct than it is an objective "disorder."

from :

https://www.naturalnews.com/040938_ADHD_fictitious_disease_psychiatry.html

And that looks like a very reputable and unbiased website.

https://www.naturalnewsblogs.com/chemically-altered-homosexuality/

And teh gay is caused by weedkillers?

TurnerGuy - do you cross-reference your findings? Do you have the direct, correctly-translated quote from Leon Eisenberg?  From a quick Google I see that it may be true, partly true, it may not?   Click-conversions don't care so much about facts, only our feelings about which facts we wish to be factual!  Absent the translation then I'd be cautious rather than certain. I have little to no doubt it is over-diagnosed/poorly-treated.  But that does not mean that it is fictitious.

And remember - There is a God: How The World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind

That's settled that then?  But seriously, do you have the original translation/quote as a starting point?

On his death bed, this psychiatrist and autism pioneer admitted that ADHD is essentially a “fictitious disease,” which means that millions of young children today are being needlessly prescribed severe mind-altering drugs that will set them up for a life of drug addiction and failure.

Unless he managed to conduct more research and not publish it why did he change his mind? What state was he in when he died? Was he a known practical joker?

A lesson in believing everything you read on the internet

No doubt it is over-diagnosed.

While I get where you're coming from, I'd put good money on ADHD still being under-diagnosed.

Have you tried to get a diagnosis?

I have a kid with learning "special needs" (mainly struggling with socialization and sensory stuff) who has an Educational Support Plan  (I think that is what it's called) in a great mainstream school with an extra teaching assistant in the classroom.

He does not have a firm diagnosis as he is at the age of 8 too young to know whether it's Autism or something else.  It's not ADHD.

We do get a bit of money (due to filling out a form frankly and truthfully) but to be honest it basically makes up the difference between say group swimming lessons and 1-2-1 lessons.  Not that we are not grateful for it.

Here's where I'm going to get a bit ranty...

If you have a kid with SEN requirements you will soon find out the other parents in the school with kids with SEN needs because they will find you and bloody tell you.  They will then try to pull you into their pity party vortex. There will be sharing tips on filling out the forms to get the result you want (not what you need), of what to say to the Doctors to get the "right" diagnosis.  I tend to be quite rude when these subjects come up ("oh - what did you put in your form") as it's frankly none of their bloody business and now they avoid me at the school gates, which is fine by me.

To make matters worse my Brother in Law and his wife have 2 girls, who have been spectacularly badly parented.  Complete lack of consistency, skipping from one Super Parenting book to the next, weak parenting, pushing of the Mum's inadequacies, excuses and neurosis's onto the eldest and letting the younger one get away with murder.

They are now pushing for diagnosis's for both of them for Autism and ADHD and are getting push back from the Doctors and Educational Psychologists much to their annoyance.

And don't get me started on the Brother in Law's Wife's sister who has decided to give up work to home school her "Autistic" (not diagnosed) 3 year old as no school will cater to his "needs".

Rant over...

Have you tried to get a diagnosis

Weirdly enough, I did a self-test last year and it strongly recommended that I do so.  But no, I haven't tried to get an actual diagnosis. There's a thread that I started somewhere on here about that.

I'm conscious that a confirmed diagnosis could explain many of my ongoing problems that began at a young age, and have arguably impacted my life in a destructive fashion.  It's an exhausting battle tbh.  But I'm skeptical of bloody everything!  <span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">Even of my own intense skepticism. </span>

<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">My feelings about over-/mis-diagnosing stem from many years working alongside teachers and psychologists in a school for (profoundly) learning-disabled/behaviourally-disordered/special-needs students.</span>

Where ADHD was firmly diagnosed I more often saw it in tandem with some level of autism.  In other individuals I perceived it as caused/exarcerbated via a developmental response to familial distress and/or poor-parenting.  No easy answers, IMO. A true can of worms subject.

Weirdly enough, I did a self-test last year

I wasn't suggesting you have ADHD, apologies if it reads that way.

I meant it's not at all easy to get a diagnosis, much harder than many on here assume, therefore the condition is likely to be under-diagnosed still.

Especially since it doesn't always present as hyperactivity and can be more like just having a rubbish attention span - as someone pointed out above.

A lesson in believing everything you read on the internet

And what is that lesson?

Notice that I used the word 'apparently'...

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/work-of-fiction/

I don't see anything there that says the quote is definitely wrong, just offers an opinion that it meant something different according to content - but that is an opinion and, according to some STWers, opinions seem to have been 'no platformed' on this forum.

Assuming their opinion is corrent, here's an article from Scientific American about the over-diagnosis :

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/big-pharma-s-manufactured-epidemic-the-misdiagnosis-of-adhd/

I don’t see anything there that says the quote is definitely wrong, just offers an opinion that it meant something different according to content – but that is an opinion and, according to some STWers, opinions seem to have been ‘no platformed’ on this forum.

You're just babbling now.

"No platformed" FFS.

You posted ill-informed shite and got called out on it.

My 9 year old niece has recently been diagnosed with ADHD. According to my brother and sister in law, she is generally out of control, won't focus on anything or any task and her behaviour is terrible. In her particular case, her issues are more likely caused by unlimited access to sugar, fizzy drinks and crap parenting. She is now taking daily medication and is in a zombie like state all the time which cannot be the right way to deal with a child of that age. Oh, my brother is very happy about the money the state pays him for having a "mental" daughter. Yes, he is a ****.

Some good friends of mine - vegan but not hippy dippy have a kid with adhd.  No way is it caused by sugar, bad diet, bad parenting in their case.  They did medicate her - on half the recommended dose only on the bad days as they didn't want a medicated child.

You posted ill-informed shite and got called out on it.

offer proof that it is ill-informed ? Not even the fact checking can disprove the quote.

There have been several posts on this forum recently deriding other peoples posts as being opinion, as if it was therefore invalid. I'd look for some but this forum is so sh1t slow nowadays, my ADHD means that I don't have the patience to find them...

stop feeding kids convenient processed utter shite mass produced slurry food and eat real food instead with lots of fibre but with the vast majority of parents working full time who has the time to cook genuine meals these days?, since the 70’s we have been sleepwalking our way into a health crisis due to the changes in our diet.

Rather OT but just to make this point - our diet in general has improved massively since the 70s. Far more choice, far better education and information available to all consumers. Yes, ready meal and processed food consumption has also increased, but compared to the 70s and earlier we are in a far better position.

It's a regular joke in my family about my parents' and grandparents' cooking. Massively overboiled veg with a tough. cheap piece of meat. Followed by tinned fruit and something processed that resembled custard or cream, again possibly from a can. My grandmother would spend hours podding fresh peas, or preparing beans, and then cook them to death. Or maybe produce a whole meal from cans, including the potatoes. If you choose wisely your ready meal will provide a much better diet than the crap I grew up eating. I may be completely atypical but I think not.

ADHD is not the same as being badly behaved.

For me, this comment hits the nail on the head.

People are quick to make judgements about how other people's children behave when there are a myriad of reasons for this behaviour. Much of it though, is children being children/ time of day/ what they are being required to do/ mood of the adult commenting etc... In my experience bad behaviour is either learned or not managed by the revelvant adults. Symptoms of a medical conditions can look like these, but can be managed. They can be managed best by helping the child to bcome aware of their behaviour and provide staregies for them to cope.