The ADHD dilemma for parents

[n2doc]

The ADHD dilemma for parents
By Cordelia Rayner
With a recent survey suggesting almost 50% of children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder have been excluded (from school activities) at some point, parents face difficult choices. Up to one in 20 children have ADHD, which affects concentration and can cause them to be disruptive. Many are being put on medication but unions warn that some schools cannot meet their medical needs. And American scientists have raised concerns about the widespread use of ADHD medications. A recent survey by the National Attention Deficit Disorder information and support service found the exclusion rate for children with ADHD was 10 times higher than that of those without.

Some parents have told the BBC they were told to give their children medication or keep them at home, and that they often felt they were being denied a proper education.The National Association of Head Teachers spokesperson, Jan Myles, said: "It's the system that fails the child but all too often the blame is laid at the door of the school. "A lot of heads I'm talking to on a daily basis are exhausted with trying to implement different strategies that are not working." One mother, Linda Sheppard, is taking her local authority to the European Court of Human Rights to gain her son the educational support she claims he needs.

Ms Sheppard removed her son from his school because she says they were unable to offer him adequate support in the classroom. Continual exclusions from school trips and other activities caused his well-being to plummet and by the time he was seven he threatened suicide, she says. For 18 months Ms Sheppard struggled to find a school she felt could cope with her son's education needs. "It's ridiculous - the only way parents can get their children an education is through the courtroom," says Ms Sheppard, who claims that many exclusions are not recorded in official statistics and are classified as authorised absences by schools.

Other parents say they are coming under pressure to have their children on prescription drugs. The BBC's Five Live Report spoke to one parent who said they were asked by their school to either put their child on medication or they would be excluded.

more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/6071216.stm

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Every time I say this I seem to start a fight, but...

People ought to check out eeg biofeedback as an alternative. Many kids can be taught to activate the relevant (frontal, prefrontal) areas of their brains without medications & when this happens, very often th ADHD symptoms attenuate or disappear. There is a growing scientific literature showing the effectiveness of this approach.

The disadvantages are--first, it doesn't always work; second, it takes quite a few sessions; and third, insurance companies don't like to pay for it. In response, some psychologists & other therapists are setting people up to do home training with rented equipment, thereby drasticaly reducing the cost of treatment.

[chefgirl]

2. Never heard about biofeedback

I'm no doctor, but, I strongly believe that in the U.S. a lot of parents are pressured to have garden variety 'difficult' children tested and put on medication FAR too often for a few reasons.

First, and most common, is that teachers dont believe its part of their job description to bear ANY responsibility for childrens' behavior while in the classroom.

Second, and not often disclosed to the parents, is that for every child who is 'categorized', public schools receive a certain amount of additional, discretional funding from the federal and state govts.

I've known a few parents who were unduly pressured by school teachers to seek medical attention for children who were no more than simple discipline problems for a teacher who was unwilling to invest even the smallest amount of herself in teaching children about proper behavior in the classroom.
It happens far too often, as I said, and makes me wonder how many children are wrongly diagnosed and medicated every year so that a particular school district can bump up their budget.

For any parent experiencing this now, I would strongly suggest seeking a counselor or therapist who advocates behavioral treatment rather than medicinal.
There are any number of websites and organizations that recommend behavioral alternatives as treatment.

http://add.about.com/od/behavioraltherapy/

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/adhd.cfm

http://www.add.org/articles/coachingthera.html

http://www.adhdtreatment.com/

I urge anyone to do exhaustive research before exposing any child to drug therapy.

-chef-

[MichiganVote]

5. How do you know that teachers don't take responsibility for

a student's behavior? What do you base your assertion on? So far as I know all public teachers are assessed on their job performance in regard to classroom management. It is part of their job to limit or remove the disruptions in a classroom, even students. What are they supposed to do when the other parents complain about their child's classroom being a problem b/c of an unruly student?

Second, where do you get the information you assert that schools recieve more money for students who are "categorized"? That is an assertion that I find doubtful...so fill me in, where is the article or regulation to prove your point?

[chefgirl]

9. OK

First of all, I have a son who is now 17, and is finally finishing his obligatory years in public schools. I have been active in the PTA and other parents groups, such as individual classroom parent groups, and have participated in many discussions, official and unofficial, with many parents, teachers and school administrators about exactly this issue.

I also have a cousin with a child who truly is severely afflicted with A.D.H.D., and she is a special education teacher, herself, and well acquainted with the system and the abuses, within it, that exist.
I also have a very close friend who is a sixth grade teacher in the N.J. public school system.
I also have a very close friend whose son WAS misdiagnosed and medicated for years for A.D.D. The truly offensive part of his story is that once he was 'categorized', he was never permitted to be removed from the 'special needs' role in his school system.
This issue has been one that I have spent quite a lot of time learning about and dealing with over the years.

I have had PLENTY of personal experience with teachers spouting the same excuses for why they can't control children or teach them about proper behavior in the classroom. The most common of those excuses being " The parents are not involved enough in their childs education" Whenever I heard a teacher falling back on this weak excuse for laziness and unwillingness to DO THEIR JOB, it was almost always a teacher who had multiple complaints from multiple parents about their lack of attention to the behavior of the children in their care...bullies being the most common example.
I completely agree that there are parents who do need to be more involved in their children's education, but by and large, parents who are involved in the PTA, who show up at the meetings, who speak up to try and change things, are not the parents who aren't involved enough. If they are required to send their children to school for 6-8 hours a day, then they also have the right to a reasonable expectation that the teacher/s these children are spending those hours with will reinforce the rules of behavior that they are being taught at home. Too many teachers do not believe that its part of their job description. Sorry, but its true.

While you are right that teachers are assessed on their performance, do you realize that the bulk of that assessment is based upon their lesson plan books, and how many little check marks are entered concerning attendance, how much homework was assigned and completed by the students, and the pass/fail rate of the students?
VERY little, if any, visual assessment is ever done of a teachers 'classroom management' unless of course there are strenuous complaints, by parents, about a given teacher. Even then, school administrators are loathe to monitor a teachers daily behavior in the classroom unless truly 'serious' allegations are being made, such as physical abuse, etc...

There are any number of sources for proof that public schools recieve additional funding for 'categorizing' children as 'special needs', which the A.D.D. or A.D.H.D child falls into.
I am not about to go searching all over the internet for proof. It's there if you care to look for it, or are you just arguing with me for the sake of having something to say??

The most easily found would probably be a series of congressional hearings which were held in the late nineties, possibly even since 2000, where experts and parents alike, spoke at length, for days, about the conflict of interest which occurs when teachers who are NOT trained in any kind of diagnostic techniques, are given the authority to recommend children for testing for A.D.D. and pressure parents with a variety of veiled threats if they arent tested.
In these hearings they go into a fair amount of detail about the funding that is provided to schools, based on each and every child which is added to the 'special needs' category in individual schools. You might want to try the C-Span archives.
It begs the question, 'why do these teachers work with such vehemence (and they DO) to pressure parents into having their children categorized and medicated?'.


As I said in my first reply to this thread, Im no doctor, and I concede I am no expert, but I have had quite a bit of experience with which I can form my opinions about this issue. If you disagree, so be it.

-chef-

[BadgerKid]

3. Status of biofeedback?

Curious, do you know whether biofeedback is considered as alternative medicine by insurance standards?

[Jackpine Radical]

7. Depends on the ins. co. Some recognize general biofeedback, but

not EEG biofeedback, etc. Some will reimburse biofeedback only for certain conditions (e.g. incontinence). There are CPT codes for biofeedback, there is a strong supporting literature, etc. but most ins. cos. prefer pharmacological solutions because they're cheaper in the short run. This is actually a somewhat more complicated question than you might have thought it was. Or maybe it's just the answer that's complicated, not the question.

[gully]

4. I think for the most part ADHD is a sham. I think that many kids do have

neurological issues that most out grow, and/or they have a creative temperament.

Thom Hartmann was dx'd with ADHD, he's written extensively about it, and has a web-page here:

http://www.thomhartmann.com/home-add.shtml

[Mojorabbit]

6. It isn't a sham

It runs in my family the gamut from mild which requires no meds to severe which does.

[gully]

8. It runs in my family too,

and I still think it's a sham for the most part. Sorry.

I have read a number of books that indicate that anxiety can be mistaken for ADHD, given that anxiety is the most common mental illness in children, I'd think it prudent to consider that first?

Not saying that there is not "something" going on in many who are dx'd but I don't know that it's generally something that merits an ADHD dx and a heavy dose of ritalin.

[trotsky]

10. I think that you're completely unqualified to make such a statement.

As the parent of a child with ADHD, I know first-hand this is not a "creative temperament" or a simple neurological issue that he'll outgrow.

[gully]

13. Take it up with Thom Hartmann,

my spouse was dx'd with ADHD as well, and my kid qualifies for a diagnosis. It's BS - in both cases. It's not normal to expect a smart kid to sit for hours and listen to a droning teacher -

[trotsky]

14. But unlike you, Thom Hartmann doesn't think ADHD is a sham.

He believes it is a real condition, and a normal one.

[gully]

16. I share his belief

he feels that people with ADHD are "normal" and so do I. So why are we medicating normal children in this country?

[trotsky]

20. Nope, you said it was a sham.

Do you retract that statement now?

[gully]

21. No, it's a sham to negatively label and medicate normal people.

More from Hartmann:

On the other hand, it ignores the fact that both people and environments are complex and variable, largely disregards the effects of context on performance, and overlooks evidence that human weaknesses in one environment often turn out to be powerful or even vital and adaptive assets in another.(10),(17),(20),(26) For example, rather than questioning the desirability of the "brick" factory-style school house with it's large class sizes and homogeneous instruction methods, the disorder perspective places blame for failure squarely on to the child.(22) Not surprisingly, the disorder perspective sees adaptation and disorder as two distinct categories, rather than two aspects of a single phenomenon .(2)

Edited to add link > http://www.thomhartmann.com/disorder_or_difference.shtml

[trotsky]

22. Oh, so you're backpedaling. That's fine.

Glad you realize that ADHD isn't a sham.

[gully]

24. No, but you're apparently desperate

.

[trotsky]

28. Deperate for what?

I'm not the one who made an untenable claim here.

[gully]

29. You've contradicted yourself here.

While claiming others have.

[trotsky]

30. Perhaps you can explain.

How did I contradict myself? And more importantly, how did you NOT?

[gully]

31. Perhaps you can read

what's been posted.

Buh bye now.

[trotsky]

32. LOL, ok.

Just as I thought. :eyes:

[shrike]

11. It ain't no sham

I have it and so does my niece. I didn't outgrow it, btw.

While it's true it can be misdiagnosed, a lot of things can be misdiagnosed.

Before my niece was put on Concerta, her parents put her in a private school. The teacher, who was ready to flunk my niece, informed my sister that her own sister had been diagnosed as ADHD, and should have been "made" to pay attention. She suggested that Sis put my niece in a training school, since she'd never be able to make it academically.

After a few years on Concerta my niece is being inducted into the National Honor Society. I sincerely hope she will outgrow it, since about 50 percent of us do. I wasn't one of the lucky ones.

[gully]

15. I just read an article about how adhd meds can improve grades for

all kids and that some parents are seeking the meds for that reason.

Can't find it know.

I'm not saying that there isn't something going on with various people - I just think the dx criteria could apply to many people and is subject to interpretation by parents/teachers:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/symptom.htm

[Orrex]

12. Your statement is too broad

It may be the case that ADHD is overdiagnosed and/or over-medicated, but your claim is too sweeping to be of real value. It might be more effective to point out that ADHD is a spectrum phenomenon having considerable overlap with other conditions and behaviors, some of which do and some of which do not justify pharmacological intervention.

But for those who suffer (or whose loved ones suffer) from actual ADHD, it's kind of a slap in the face to dismiss the condition as a sham.

BTB, I'm not a big believer in the famed "creative temperment" as anything other than an abbreviated description, because it's too often used to justify the rudeness of someone who happens to know which end of a paintbrush to use. To identify this manner under an associative term is to imply that one is necessarily (or generally) a function of the other. Better to avoid the temptation to link the two.

[gully]

17. What I think is sweeping is the diagnostic criteria:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/symptom.htm

I don't dismiss that the people who are dx'd have "something" different/special about them, my issue is with the criteria for diagnosis.

[Orrex]

18. Well, that's a very different statement, isn't it?

Calling ADHD a sham "for the most part" isn't really the same as asserting that the diagnostic criteria are too broad.

As I mentioned, it's my view that ADHD is over-diagnosed and over-medicated FWIW, this is supported by my admittedly anecdotal observations of real-world practice: "Your son appears bored in math class. Have you considered Ritalin?" and that sort of thing.

But if you want to revise your statement re: the "sham" nature of the condition, that's fine.

[gully]

19. I think it's the same thing.

I think that the criteria for an ADHD dx is flawed on it's face.

Here is a lengthy article from Thom Hartmann which sheds a bit of light on it:

http://www.thomhartmann.com/disorder_or_difference.shtml

And another interesting tidbit -

http://borntoexplore.org/famous.htm

Thomas (Al) Edison's schoolmaster, "angered by the lad's inattentive 'dreamy,' distracted behavior, frustrated by his tendency to drift off during recitations, to draw and doodle in his notebook instead of repeating rote lessons -- cuffed and ridiculed Al in front of his motley classmates. Teachers saddled with disaffected students like Edison were judged by how many pupils were promoted from one grade to the next, and they needed to rationalize the actions of children who were 'not apt.' Sure enough, 'One day,' Edison recalled with bitterness many years later, 'I heard the teacher tell the visiting school inspector that I was addled and it would not be worthwhile keeping me in school any longer. I was so hurt by this last straw that I burst out crying and went home and told my mother.' His indignant mother 'brought back to the school and angrily told the teacher that he didn't know what he was talking about, that I had more brains than he himself.'" Mrs. Edison pulled Thomas out of school and began home-schooling, determined that "no formalism would cramp his style, no fetters hobble the free rein, the full sweep of his imagination." ("Edison - Inventing the Century" by Neil Baldwin, 1995).

[Orrex]

23. Well, first of all I am strongly opposed to retro-diagnosis

Because it is invariably drafts historical figures into the service of whatever cause is looking for a compelling figurehead. I've also heard that Leonardo had ADHD and Einstein had Asperger's. No one says "Attila the Hun was a compulsive hand-washer" or "Stalin was a chronic bed-wetter." It's always a conveniently favorable spokesperson. At best, these are speculative ruminations that can't readily be confirmed without direct observation of the living person's behavior. I'm sorry that Tom had an asshole for a teacher, really I am. But that doesn't justify a diagnosis more than a century after the fact, especially for a condition whose particulars are even now somewhat nebulous.

I think that the criteria for an ADHD dx is flawed on it's face.

Well, if that's the case, then make that claim. Don't dismiss the condition as being "for the most part" a sham: the condition isn't a sham, even if the over-diagnosis is.

[gully]

25. In order for me to lend credibility to the condition

I'd have to believe that the criteria for dx was sensible, I don't. And you have said as much as well: "a condition whose particulars are even now somewhat nebulous."

[Orrex]

26. That's nice

But calling it a "sham" implies willful deception on the part of the sufferer and suggests that he or she is to blame. You'd be better off avoiding such inflammatory language and simply making your point that over-diagnosis is a serious problem.

[gully]

27. It's not a sham on the part of the "sufferer"

it's a sham on the part of those who say "you are flawed and here is why ......"

[Orrex]

33. See? Now we agree!

If everyone would just admit outright that I'm an infallible genius, the world would be a much more harmonious place.