If one digs into A.D.D. they really open a can of worms.

You get screaming allegations of wrongdoing from every direction- from schools who demand the children take the medications to outsiders who say that A.D.D. is just out of control children, and then you get the theories from those who are hit the hardest- big pharma corruption, and greedy schools.

I've heard many, and I'm just hoping that maybe we can start up a discussion with a lot of evidence. Maybe there is no singular answer, maybe it's a cocktail of all of the above.

I'll lay out some facts:
Many are misdiagnosed.
The topic is so hot-button because it regards children and how they're raised.
Schools do have the power to bring in a medical professional who examines the child- the validity of the test is very questionable, however.
Most children- especially boys, are fidgety in classrooms, perhaps accounting for the large percentage of men being diagnosed.
The low self-esteem suffered by many A.D.D. cases is probably a cause of being told they're different than everyone.
C.H.A.D.D. (an organization that focuses news stories on A.D.D.) was bribed by pharma companies to say that their drugs worked better than they actually do.

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Sever the line to the guilty past
To the ones who brought us nothing
Spoke of futures brave and proud
And brought only hate and war.
Lined the roads with hollow praise
Marked the land with paper statues
Shadows fell on their futile ways
And then there was nothing more

I don’t really have a comment on the topic, other than to say I thought the title of this thread was fuckin’ hysterical…

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there are probably cases in adults that are underdiagnosed. stress/anxiety should be looked at carefully before writing the paxil script. ADHD may be the cause.

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What do you expect? Boys are going to be fidgety. While there are some ADD kids out there, and while the number is high, it's nowhere near as high as we are supposed to believe.

I also think that we turn to medication as a first response, when medication should be a last response, after every other avenue has been explored.

But then again, some parents are too lazy to be parents, and dope up their kids to be good little zombies, who just stare off into space, in a medicated stupor.

I think that ADD is very real for some people, but WAY over diagnosed.

The problem is that in our factory style schools, there isn't room for people who diverge from the standardized idea of what an education should consist of. That's why stuff like Montessori is important.

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Oh, I don't know. I went to such a school, and found it let me down a great deal. It taught me very little. They seemed to have everything ass-backwards. They taught reading and writing the way most people teach math- only one way to do it and any deviance isn't art, but incorrect and must be corrected with additional help, while math was practically nonexistent. The utter lack of desks is something that I did appreciate, but I thought that a place to sit and write other than the carpeted floor would have been a nice addition to the room.

I think what Beer said was...inaccurate. When on the pills, people exhibit more anxiety, not less.

Pills should be the last resort, not the first, that is true, but when a parent hears that something is wrong with their child, they don't want to hear that they're the ones to blame, especially if they've put a lot of work into raising the kid to be "right" and "good." So it's not just lazy parents. Face it- no one wants to be told that their best just isn't good enough.

Pills don't make zombies out of children- though I will say that their side effects are often marginalized. Mine make me focus harder, but they also make me irritable, to the point that if there were two of me- one of me on my pills, and one of me off of them, the two of us would kill each other out of spite. It really does cause quite a contrast.

Poorer impulse control, faster reflexes, versus less creative and greater impulse control when it comes to decisions regarding personal safety, but seemingly poorer impulse control when it comes to social situations.

That's just my two cents, though.