They finally admit it!

SCCutler said:
School tried to tag Tommy with an ADD diagnosis in second grade - it gets them extra funds from the state. Bet they still smart from the butt-whipping my wife gave them, and that's when they lost Tommy for good. Their loss. He's a senior, honors classes, never a med yet.
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So I can file away for when my son gets to be that age, what was the extent of the butt-whipping? I will want to repeat it should they attempt this with my son.

Yes, there are genuine ADD/ADHD cases, and that should not be ignored. But, as Dr. Bruce says, many are misdiagnosed. There ARE a number of lazy parents who think it's easier to put kids on pills. I'm related to several.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
So I can file away for when my son gets to be that age, what was the extent of the butt-whipping? I will want to repeat it should they attempt this with my son.

Yes, there are genuine ADD/ADHD cases, and that should not be ignored. But, as Dr. Bruce says, many are misdiagnosed. There ARE a number of lazy parents who think it's easier to put kids on pills. I'm related to several.
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This is exactly the kind of lunacy to which I was referring. When a kid has a mental illness, a) you probably know something is wrong long before they are in school, and b) no amount of butt-whipping will help. Trust me. I know from experience. The problem is how much physical, mental, and emotional damage do you want to do to your kid until you find out that it won't help?

Having made that mistake, I understand the meaning of the phrase "violence is the last refuge of the incompetent".
 
Having made that mistake, I understand the meaning of the phrase "violence is the last refuge of the incompetent".
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The other side of that is the first line of defense should not be doping them to numbness at the first sign of squirming in their seat at the dinner table.

I know someone that most likely needs a full up eval by a psychologist instead of a 3 minute diagnosis by a GP. She's on whatever meds it is they give kids nowadays for ADD and bipolar and I think she's addicted to them. She's been on them since she was very young and truly thinks the doped up feeling is normal. When she's on the meds, she's extremely distracted to the point that a 10 minute uninterrupted conversation is completely impossible, lots of mood swings, an extreme overfocus on details, and a slow cycle of character changes over time. If she starts forgetting her meds, she continues to forget the meds. At that point she gets truly nutters to the point everyone stays away from her like someone who is going through withdrawl. Then after a week or two of no meds, she starts acting and behaving like normal people do especially once she gets out and starts doing things in the real world instead of watching tv 20 hours a day. The bad part is once she starts acting and behaving normal, she freaks out and says she's bipolar and can't concentrate (B.F.S. she is incredibly stable and can out think nearly anyone in great detail at that point) then for several days her sane rational life is completely about getting back on the drugs per the prescription instructions. Once she's back on the drugs, she's back watching tv then goes back into the doped up numb routine and it starts all over. She is convinced that real normal behavior is bad and messed up so it's back on the meds.
Maybe she does have something wrong, I'm thinking there is a good chance of probably not though except for maybe a prescribed drug addiction. If something is wrong, the diagnosis and dope is likely completely effed up. I'm not a pscyhologist at all however after a few months of daily exposure to someone even I can see when no dope = normal behavior and dope = abnormal behavior at least to some extent. I'm just not seeing how a 3 minute GP exam every few years and a prescription for drugs over the phone from that exam can be right for a psychological problem that may or may not even exist. When someone is off their meds and acts and behaves and functions normally, then when they're on the meds they go fruitcake, they probably shouldn't be on the dope to start with. Just a stupid guess on my part anyway.
Now imagine when she becomes a parent. Normal behavior is wrong and drugged ADD/biploar/whatever behavior is normal. My safe money is that a restless kid sitting watching tv for too many hours will end up at the GP dope dealer. Then that scenario will end up as the beginning of generation #3 of drugged to the gills kids that thinks normal is wrong.

The whole dope the entire population on general principle concept is idiotic. Find and treat the actual cause, not the symptoms in a 3 minute generic doctor office visit.
 
ChrisK said:
This is exactly the kind of lunacy to which I was referring. When a kid has a mental illness, a) you probably know something is wrong long before they are in school, and b) no amount of butt-whipping will help. Trust me. I know from experience. The problem is how much physical, mental, and emotional damage do you want to do to your kid until you find out that it won't help?

Having made that mistake, I understand the meaning of the phrase "violence is the last refuge of the incompetent".
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As I read the post, the "butt-whipping" was on the school administrators not the child.

I have five kids ages 10 - 2. We were told by a kindergarten teacher that my oldest daughter had ADHD. She made this diagnosis on a five year old in the first month of school. We did the meetings with the teacher and principal on a course of action. While they did not *overtly* recommend meds they suggested we seek further help from a doctor. My wife and I had made a conscious choice to start our kids as early as possible and to buck the trend of starting them later and later. When my daughter started school she was 5 years and three months old. Some of her classmates were 16 months older. We knew there would be some struggles. We plowed all our efforts into working with our daughter and refused to medicate. WE KNEW OUR KID. She is now an excellent student who just started middle school. She still has a vibrant personality and can still be "difficult". However that spark is incredible.

My middle son is much more challenging yet and we were also told he had ADHD and need to see a doc. This was a different teacher and principal. This case was different because we knew he was having trouble sleeping and was experiencing night terrors. He would sleep 12 hours at night and still be tired the next day. However when the energy was up he would be perky and alive. We decided to get help and insisted that we look for physical issues before going to medication. A $5000 sleep study later we were told he had severe obstructive sleep apnea. We are now four months post surgery and the change has been remarkable. Again - WE KNEW OUR KID. Doc congratulated us on our persistence as he would not have guessed a string bean six year old could have had that diagnosis.



I'm fully supportive of parents seeking expropriate medical advice and there are certainly children who need meds, however my personal experience is that "medicate" is the default position of educators and that in our case would have done far more harm to our kids than any potential good.


Eggman
 
James_Dean said:
We were told by a kindergarten teacher that my oldest daughter had ADHD. She made this diagnosis on a five year old in the first month of school.
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James_Dean said:
My middle son is much more challenging yet and we were also told he had ADHD and need to see a doc.
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Yeah, I think that this is extremely inappropriate for schools, and (to Dr Bruce's point) for GP's to diagnose. You need to get some specialists on the line for this evaluation, which is exactly what we did in our case with one of our children.

I admit to being extremely oversensitive to these issues. I just want to go on record as having said that "beat them all" is at least as bad as "medicate them all". Raising kids is hard and requires a multidisciplinary approach and one heck of a lot of patience and understanding. What works for one kid (severe discipline) will not work for the next one, even if the next one is a close sibling.
 
ChrisK said:
I admit to being extremely oversensitive to these issues. I just want to go on record as having said that "beat them all" is at least as bad as "medicate them all".
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Oh I agree. And, both can be forms of assault.:yikes:

In my most recent case, the KID SOLD HIS CAR to fund the psychometric study. Now that's committment. He's doing well at UND and has a First Class certificate.

The question then becomes, where was the parental committment 10 years earlier?
 
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Eggman read Spike's post the same as me: butt-whipping of the school. The schools need the whipping, since they push the diagnosis.

Chris, I understand you're sensitive to the topic, and understand why. It sounds like you've made great efforts to help your kids. But if you truly believe that ADHD isn't a ridiculously overdiagnosed disease, I'd suggest you look more closely at the world outside of your home.

One of my cousins has a supposed ADHD kid. Third child (following an autistic kid), and learned at a young age that he got attention by acting out. Never got disciplined, so he kept it up. He's a terror around his parents.

He's great around me. Inquisitive, calm, intelligent. He learned that was the way to get my attention. No butt-whipping on my part, I just ignored him when he acted out. He wanted my attention.

I have another relative whose mother pushed for an ADHD diagnosis because she got tired of the kid running around the house. Well gee, kid's 8, and there's nothing for her to do. Lazy parenting.

These are examples of misdiagnosis of dozens I personally know. I also have a good friend who's a legitimate ADHD case, and he's been helped tremendously by medication. A few other legitimate ones. The ratio I see is about 1:20.
 
bbchien said:
Oh I agree. And, both can be forms of assault.:yikes:
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That's probably the most profoundly wise comment I've ever read about the issue.

bbchien said:
In my most recent case, the KID SOLD HIS CAR to fund the psychometric study. Now that's committment. He's doing well at UND and has a First Class certificate.
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Good for him -- and you!

bbchien said:
The question then becomes, where was the parental committment 10 years earlier?
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Again, I don't blame the parents as much as I do a society that's done away with the traditional outlets by which kids, especially boys, were able to both express and to learn to manage their energy. The latter is where self-directed play (rather than organized, "structured" play) is important. Designing and building the structure themselves bridges the gap between physical activity and cognitive skills -- effectively teaching them how to channel energy into productive thought.

In summary, and in my opinion, for the great majority of kids diagnosed with ADD/ADHD, it's not a matter of them being "hyperactive" (i.e., having too much energy). It's a matter of there not being sufficient and appropriate outlets for that energy. Yes, there are those who actually do have the conditions. But I believe there are many more who are misdiagnosed simply to force them into a mold of the schools' own design, and which is in itself pathological.

-Rich
 
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Ted DuPuis said:
So I can file away for when my son gets to be that age, what was the extent of the butt-whipping? I will want to repeat it should they attempt this with my son.

Yes, there are genuine ADD/ADHD cases, and that should not be ignored. But, as Dr. Bruce says, many are misdiagnosed. There ARE a number of lazy parents who think it's easier to put kids on pills. I'm related to several.
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Ted:

Don't worry about it. Laurie will be the one, and she'll be powerful-strong. You don't mess with the mommy instinct, on this you may rely absolutely.
 
RJM62 said:
That's probably the most profoundly wise comment I've ever read about the issue.



Good for him -- and you!



Again, I don't blame the parents as much as I do a society that's done away with the traditional outlets by which kids, especially boys, were able to both express and to learn to manage their energy. The latter is where self-directed play (rather than organized, "structured" play) is important. Designing and building the structure themselves bridges the gap between physical activity and cognitive skills -- effectively teaching them how to channel energy into productive thought.

In summary, and in my opinion, for the great majority of kids diagnosed with ADD/ADHD, it's not a matter of them being "hyperactive" (i.e., having too much energy). It's a matter of there not being sufficient and appropriate outlets for that energy. Yes, there are those who actually do have the conditions. But I believe there are many more who are misdiagnosed simply to force them into a mold of the schools' own design, and which is in itself pathological.

-Rich
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Hillbilly and I are kindred spirits. For years I thought I might eventually run across somebody with a remarkably similar belief structure on many different issues.
 
I have wondered why the disease of ADHD was not reported until fairly recently until I realized the old name for it was "ants in pants". I think much of what is diagnosed as ADHD is just kids being forced into an unnatural environment.
 
RJM62 said:
The other problem is that the schools have become bastions of idiocy. Few schools allow "contact" kinds of games during recess such as Tag, Ringolivio, Johnny on the Pony, or even Stickball, for fear that one of the little ones might get a bump or a bruise -- heaven forbid. You'd think these kids were made of glass or something.
-Rich
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Do keep in mind that in our litigious society if someone's child comes home with a bruise parents can and will sue for large amounts of cash. Moreover, teachers are pretty much unable to use any sort of corporal punishment to correct misbehavior. As for any sort of physical altercation, many schools have draconian zero tolerance policies.

So schools duck and cover, keep the kids minimally active (so they don't get hurt) and drug them so they don't act out. Hell, with cuts in school budgets many of the athletic activities we all grew up with are gone.

The squeaky gear gets the grease, and lots of parents have squeaked over the years.
 
I got paddled once by a private school headmaster.

Missed my opportunity for free flying for life, by a couple of decades, apparently.
 
steingar said:
Do keep in mind that in our litigious society if someone's child comes home with a bruise parents can and will sue for large amounts of cash. Moreover, teachers are pretty much unable to use any sort of corporal punishment to correct misbehavior. As for any sort of physical altercation, many schools have draconian zero tolerance policies.
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When I was in school, the family of one kid who got picked on a lot sued the family of the #1 bully in the class. They lost the lawsuit, and ended up switching schools. I doubt that it did much.

I was always picked last in gym class (even after this kid and one who was about half my size), and generally picked on and bullied. Happens to the nerds.

Aside from kicking the #1 bully in the head one day (he left me alone for 3 days after that!), I never did anything about it besides complain to teachers who did nothing, and neither did my mom. They even kept me in the same classroom as this guy for the first 5 years of school (in spite of repeated requests that we be put in different classes).

Well, one day he got caught pushing drugs. He got expelled, and all kinds of bad things happened to him after that.

Still makes me smile. What goes around... :)
 
I am appalled.

This is akin to, "our kids are not doing well, so change the test".
As in, "the kid is not performing, so change the kid".

It would be interesting to compare survey data as to the incidence of ADHD in wealthy school districts (New Trier, 60093) vs. in average districts (Peoria 61615, my home town). It's a good bet that it's higher in my home city because here, the parents DON'T have the resources or see fit to bring the resources to bear. The community only funds to schools to classroom size = 30. It could be done by zip codes and the various insurance databases.
 
steingar said:
Do keep in mind that in our litigious society if someone's child comes home with a bruise parents can and will sue for large amounts of cash. Moreover, teachers are pretty much unable to use any sort of corporal punishment to correct misbehavior. As for any sort of physical altercation, many schools have draconian zero tolerance policies.

So schools duck and cover, keep the kids minimally active (so they don't get hurt) and drug them so they don't act out. Hell, with cuts in school budgets many of the athletic activities we all grew up with are gone.

The squeaky gear gets the grease, and lots of parents have squeaked over the years.
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Yeah... that's true, unfortunately. I broke bones in school, and no one made a big deal over it.

As for the fighting, at the Catholic school, the Irish priest used to just drag both of us by the ears (employing a patented twisting motion that's taught in seminaries and convents around the world) down to the boxing ring in the basement of the rectory, and let us duke it out -- complete with encouragement and coaching.
"Cover yehself, lad! Yer face looks like a well-slapped backside, be-jay-zus! And you, bowsie, stop dancing like a lass and fight. This is boxing, be-jay-zus, not the ballet."
​
When neither of us could remember what we'd been fighting over, we'd get sent back to class, and that was that.

-Rich
 
Heh - when we acted up in Jr High gym class we got to choose. One whack with the paddle with all the holes in it, or go to the mat with the wresting coach who hated everyone because he didn't win that national championship back in the day. Either way you were going walk funny for a couple days. And what happened in gym class stayed in gym class. Every one got a good laugh, except the angry wrestling coach, and that was that.
 
Long about the late 80s, I had a music teacher who had the largest men's chorus in the school district. How'd he do it?

First, fun stuff for guys to sing... P.D.Q. Bach and the like. Stupid stuff. Funny stuff. Funny choreography. Etc.

Second, anyone had a birthday they got dogpiled by 80 guys. He briefly, um... left for coffee during those to avoid the problem of "knowing" about it.

Three, if a performance was good, the next class period was tackle football without pads, on the school field. He'd pretend to not be around for those, also. And we had at least one broken clavicle that the kid KNEW not to say it was DURING CLASS. It was just him and his buddies screwing around on the football field. We knew how to cover for the teacher because the PC-ness was already starting by then.

Four, the group was proud of itself and anyone tarnishing the reputation of the group or the department had creative punishment. The guy who got caught having sex in a music practice room was duct taped to the choir room wall and left there for the class period and the open two lunch periods afterward.

I'm sure if any of this were to happen today, there'd be people fired, in jail, and expelled and a whole bunch of nanny moms throwing hissy fits at School Board meetings. We guys had our way of dealing with stuff that works for guys, but none of it would be allowed today.

The eighty person chorus also wore tuxedo pants, and tuxedo vests with no shirts. A-la Chippendales style. I'm sure that'd never be allowed today either.

That teacher was one of a kind. His music department still stands as the most awarded department in the district, 20+ years later. Ten straight years winning college invitational Jazz festivals, men's chorus nobody could come close to, and the pull of the men's chorus meant he could skim the cream of the crop off of the older/bigger guys who were Basses for the other parts of the music program after teaching them to be part of a team effort and how to sight-read. (Every high school men's chorus always has plenty of tenors! Haha.)

Today's educational weenies would be aghast. I'm sure that's why he retired not long after the 90s began. He stuck around long enough to fight for a new music/drama auditorium upgrade to the school and wing for same. After that, he was done.

Best example of "just get it done" I'd ever had in life up until that point. Rules? We can follow them and still have fun. Bend them a little perhaps.

How did he have the higher-ups on his side when things got a little out of hand? Performance. Those awards got the place noticed in a positive way every year. And that... Is often how the real world works. We learned a lot from that guy.
 
Parents sometimes WANT the drugs so that the kid gets special education services . . .

Parents put lots of pressure on docs for drugs, diagnosis that may not be valid, antibiotics, all sorts of stuff . . . and docs find it easier to whip out the Rx pad sometimes.

But docs giving kids drugs without a diagnosis - yeah, thats wrong.
 
ChrisK said:
Yeah, I think that this is extremely inappropriate for schools, and (to Dr Bruce's point) for GP's to diagnose. You need to get some specialists on the line for this evaluation, which is exactly what we did in our case with one of our children.
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That would be great.

Unfortunately, child and adolescent psychiatrists and clinical psychologists versed in doing the testing are hard to come by, particularly if your kids are on one of those cheapskate medicaid or S-CHIP HMOs. Navigating the behavioral health world is difficult enough for educated parents, throw in some social challenges and kids are really at the mercy of teachers, school counselors and PCPs.

At one point in my career, I was on the track to become a pediatric neurologist. After a couple of weeks in the 'neuro behavioral clinic' where the kids were sent after the school system had all but written the script, I started to get somewhat disillusioned with that side of the field. Next was 2 weeks with a peds neuro in the posh suburbs, the same #%%%, just with paying customers.

What rubs me the wrong way about that NYT article is the accusation that somehow insufficient funding of schools is what 'forces' everyones hand to drug out the kids. There is no shortage of ADHD diagnoses in more affluent school districts with smaller class sizes and a better funded library. While we dont know what causes ADHD, it is certainly not the funding percentage of the teachers defined benefit pension plan.

That said, I have no doubt that the disease is real and has a neurochemical basis. I just dont believe that it affects double digit percentages of kids. Once 30% of a population has something, that 'thing' is part of the spectrum of normal. I was one of those kids with a 'personality', eventually I grew out of it (I think :yesnod:). In todays environment, I would have been at risk of growing up on legal drugs (it is completely nuts, I have to write doctors notes for my kids to be allowed to put on sunscreen, the same piece of paper would allow the school nurse to administer Speed to them).
 
Ghery said:
I would take exception to that generalization. My wife is a teacher and belongs to the union only because she has to.

As far as disciplining students goes, things teachers could do when I was a kid would get them tossed in jail today. The blame more typically belongs with parents who do a lousy job teaching their kids the difference between right and wrong. I've had our kids (in their 30s now) comment when watching a kid act up with no responce from the parents, "You wouldn't have let us get away with that." And they're right, we wouldn't have. If you are in public, behave in a manner suitable for public. Parents, not teachers, are the ones with primary responsibility for this.
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Yes, this.
 
Help prevent cheating by embedding the chips subcutaneously. In fact, do it at birth and don't tell them, so they don't remove them.

</sarcasm>
 
Gary F said:
I have wondered why the disease of ADHD was not reported until fairly recently until I realized the old name for it was "ants in pants". I think much of what is diagnosed as ADHD is just kids being forced into an unnatural environment.
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That, and the fact that "ants in the pants" is not a billable diagnosis for practitioners, nor does it qualify school districts for subsidies.

If the subsidies were removed, the number of ADD/ADHD diagnoses probably would drop by at least 75 percent, as school administrators would start looking for more profitable diagnoses and labels with which to brand their students. But that would hurt the very small fraction of kids whose ADD/ADHD diagnoses are actually valid.

What I would prefer would be a requirement for exhaustive testing before a diagnosis or ADD/ADHD is certified as such for subsidy purposes. Require the full battery of tests, administered by board-certified psychiatrists and psychologists, so that only those kids who truly have these conditions are diagnosed as such; and even then, require that alternative treatments be tried before drugging the children.

That would remove the profit motive to school districts for diagnosing and drugging kids who don't absolutely need it, which I sadly suspect is what's really at the root of this phenomenon.

-Rich
 
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