Children with ADHD. Real or bad parenting?

[MarillionFan]

We asked the nursery today whether MF04 was the same as other kids that they looked after or whether he was a little bit different? The silence was deafening. Balls.

Three years later and has been diagnosed with ADHD in the last few weeks. Tried giving him a bloody good hiding but never worked. Impulsive, disruptive, blurting out noises all the time, never sitting still.

He misses 3/4 of his playtimes each week, always on the naughty chart & this morning watched him mess up his judo exam, scoring a lowly score, not even filling in answers, when I've spent two weeks prepping him with games & play scoring full marks every time.

The lack of control, concentration & impulsiveness is seriously going to hamper his academic development and self worth.

Still think it's a combination of real(medicine/diet) / parenting, trick is to work out how to balance the two.

Add two more years & he is now officially diagnosed as being on the Autism Spectrum in addition to the ADHD. Now has 1 to 1 help at school & securing extra funding.

Funny, how in 2012 when he was 3 when I first made this post, was you could tell then.

I knew it wasn't bad parenting.

[FatLazyContractor]

On the bright side, does that mean you get to jump the queues at Legoland?

I'd guess so. Who wants to stand in a queue with a fat hairy stinky man?

[SpontaneousOrder]

It's real. My other half's brother suffers and you can see it in every aspect of his life.

**edit** I read the rest of the thread. If you're recognising that it's real then he's already at a massive advantage compared to kids of 20 or 30 years ago. From my limited anecdotal experience, more understanding and less medication might be a good thing.

I'm not saying no medication (i'm not qualified) - just that understanding how a person works is better than dosing them up and hoping they'll be 'normal'. Other half's bro got dosed up as a kid which made him slow which made him feel even worse inside, while the teachers just wrote him off as a naughty kid.

At 30 years old now I have to remind him to hurry up an put his shoes on or he'll miss the train (he's spotted a spider int he porch and gone off on a tangent), and see clearly that the naughty kid thing is just bulltulip teachers wanting to force arbitrary shaped pegs through round holes.

[mudskipper]

Three years later and has been diagnosed with ADHD in the last few weeks.

On the bright side, does that mean you get to jump the queues at Legoland?

[tractor]

...

A sizeable bit of that is likely because they've found that Autism is a really big spectrum and that many of the behavioural things they used to call god knows what are on that spectrum so it's at least in part a re-branding.

Not to say that the spectrum isn't being exploited of course by unscrupulous parents and professionals, which just makes it harder for the genuine cases.

ADHD is without doubt a reality, but as people have said it's a great excuse/label/opportunity that's heavily exploited in addition to the real sufferers.

As people have said there's no perfect treatment or action to take. Especially in child development it's a case of work out what's right for the individual, ideally by trying bits of past cases to hopefully save time.

Indeed and some of the indicators that used to be used to rule out autism are now included in the spectrum. Lots of investigation is required including blood work, MRI scans, EEG scans and lots and lots of professional observation and still, often a full diagnosis cannot be assured. Poor GD was in last week for another scan that required a general gassing and complete immobility. Not nice for the little ones, or Mum and Dad

[TykeMerc]

Loosely related but someone told me that autism diagnoses have sky-rocketed in the last generation or two. I forget the numbers, something like it's gone from 1:2000 to 1:20 or equally crazy but he's just taken a job in a special autism school so I presume the figures come from somewhere reasonable.

A sizeable bit of that is likely because they've found that Autism is a really big spectrum and that many of the behavioural things they used to call god knows what are on that spectrum so it's at least in part a re-branding.

Not to say that the spectrum isn't being exploited of course by unscrupulous parents and professionals, which just makes it harder for the genuine cases.

ADHD is without doubt a reality, but as people have said it's a great excuse/label/opportunity that's heavily exploited in addition to the real sufferers.

As people have said there's no perfect treatment or action to take. Especially in child development it's a case of work out what's right for the individual, ideally by trying bits of past cases to hopefully save time.

[Zero Liability]

Sorry to hear that MF.

Try the non-medicine options before putting the kid on summat. These pills should generally be taken over a long period and will have unwanted side-effects (weight gain, skin problems).

And for once, I genuinely hope something good for you.

They're apt to cause behavioural/mental problems, as well.

[d000hg]

Loosely related but someone told me that autism diagnoses have sky-rocketed in the last generation or two. I forget the numbers, something like it's gone from 1:2000 to 1:20 or equally crazy but he's just taken a job in a special autism school so I presume the figures come from somewhere reasonable.

[tractor]

...

Tractor,

I just tried your method on one of the psychopath directors here - calm rational answers - worked a treat!

Cheers!

If that fails though, the judo approach can get spectacular results too

[unixman]

My hunch is that ADHD doesn't exist, but I wouldn't know. I do believe children's behaviour can be affected by extremes of diet, eg. living on high octane sugar & nonstop KFC is bound to do something.

I don't know much about ADHD, but it is disquieting that the state is diagnosing undesired behaviour as a clinical condition and applying drugs to alter it. A tiny bit of me worries they will want to control adults in the same way. Far fetched ?