Just wondering guys, but if you are a parent and the school let you know that they want their child to be tested to see if they have ADHD, Autism, etc what would you do? Would you go to the extent to refuse evaluation to your child, to the point if its obvious or likely they have it, just so they won't have trouble getting a pilot medical down the road in case they want to learn to fly? Would you try to figure out other ways to treat your child besides a label and medications?
I would absolutely refuse to allow anyone other than a professional chosen by myself to do any evaluation. That actually happened to us, when our daughter's teachers suggested we have her tested, so I picked a psychology practice and got her tested. No ADHD, autism, etc. just a very high IQ and she was bored into a coma at school. So they switched around her classes, got her into the gifted program and she was fine after that.
I truly believe a majority of these "problem" children are in reality problem schools. They teach to the middle of the bell curve. Children more than one standard deviation on either side are going to be miserable all the way through. The gifted programs and "special" programs (for the other end) only partly address the problem. There is a terrible lack of crafts for kids who will always be more physically inclined. On top of that is the lack of exercise and terrible diet we've been talking about. I feel you have to peel away all these factors before considering whether a child might have true ADHD.
Knowing everything I know now I would have handled it differently with our daughter. Knowing now that every visit to a professional gets permanently inked into her records for life, I would not have taken her to a psychologist but would have embarked on sleuthing on my own. I probably would have come to the same conclusion. If all else failed I would have pulled her out of school and homeschooled her which we did in fact do with our second child who had even worse problems and who I believe is off the chart intelligent although I never got her formally tested.
I think ADHD is real and in rare cases should be managed with pharmaceuticals but I would rule out all other possibilities before I took my child down that road, including removing all sugar and processed foods from their diet. When we pulled our second child out of school in the middle of tenth grade, the turnaround was immediate and profound. She became a very happy and normally behaved child and went on to do excellently in college. The very worst thing we could have done would have been to take her to a general doctor with a complaint of "can't pay attention in school" and have him put her on a drug and force her to stay in public school.
But to your question, "if it's obvious" they have ADHD, would I refuse to get them evaluated just to avoid problems getting a pilot's license? No I would not. But first of all no lay person can diagnose "obvious" ADHD. The kid will need a thorough checkup to rule out physical disorders such as asthma, allergies, hypoglycemia, thyroid problems, hearing or vision problems, etc. etc. there's a ton of stuff that can mimic behavioral disorders. The trouble is, when you take them for this checkup, and the general doctor concludes ADHD, you then have to say, "No thank you, I'm taking her to a psychiatrist to confirm this," and at that point you have the dreaded diagnosis in the record anyway.
So at that point, then yes, I would then take the kid to the
pediatric mental health professional of my choosing and if ADHD were confirmed with testing, consider treatment up to and including pharmaceuticals. At that point I would sadly accept they may not be safe to be a pilot. Just like if they were an alcoholic or drug addict. I'm not about denying reality, I am about a correct diagnosis, and about not hanging someone with a diagnosis until it
is correct.
