ADHD and blame

"benefits", not "benefitd" - really must learn to double check before posting!

I used to work for a consultant Paediatrician who looked after a lot of children diagnosed with ADHD. I firmly believe that some cases (not all) are a result of poor parenting, poor diet, and the extra benefits available for looking after a child with a diagnosed disability. The main focus of a large number of the parents we dealt with was getting the forms signed for extra benefitd, not treating their child.

There are, of course, genuine cases of children, and adults, with ADHD, but I do think it has become an easy, and lucrative, option for those who can't/won't discipkine their children.

It is a shame that all the discussion is always about those with the most extreme versions of ADHD. Many other children have it in its milder forms, including some with ADD without the hyperactivity. These children are rarely recognised as having the problem and receive no help whatsoever.

Both DS and myself had these, milder, problems, before ADHD was recognised as a problem with children in any significant way. But I doubt if we were at school now whether the problems we have would be recognised.

I appreciate that many are genuine Galen....thank goodness we have a benefits system to support them.

My experience has been with families at the 'extreme' end of the parenting spectrum....to put it politely....whose treatment of their children is clearly a contributing factor in the behaviour of the children. The parents push for a diagnosis and immediately claim DLA.

ADHD/DLA
We see so many on the tribunals. A lot are genuine! If a family have other 'normal' children, then have one who cannot be left unsupervised, I feel the diagnosis is probably correct. Particularly if Ritalin or similar does modify the behaviour.

So sad these mums who just will not get off their damn phones to engage with their child/child/ren. I was buying a filter for my goldfish the other day in a garden centre which has a fantastic aquarium section, little boy aged about 6 or 7, clearly fascinated by some of the beautiful fish on display. Over a period of 5 minutes was desperately trying to catch mother's attention, by "mum, mum, mum, look at these fish" she wouldn't look up, carried on talking about a friend and their night out. Could feel the little boy's palpable frustration, he only wanted a nano second and a oooh and an aaah in acknowledgement of what her child was looking at.

Like "eloethan" I have watched mums in supermarkets and cafes on their phones ignoring their children except to shout at them from time to time. The children try hard to attract the attention of the adult and when they don't get it they become increasingly 'naughty' to force the mum to look up from her phone. I am sure in the pre mobile phone times we did actually interact with out children. i don't if this is relevant to increased diagnosis of ADHD but parents seem to have the 'attention span of a gnat' too!

Any discussion about the diagnosis of ADHD in young children would be incomplete without reference to the payment of Disability Living Allowance once the diagnosis has been made.

I have worked with scores of parents whose neglect and/or abuse has been a background factor in the diagnosis of ADHD in their child/ren.

An analysis of the national Child Protection Register stats in this respect would be interesting.

Doctors are worried about the over prescribing of concerta and Ritalin. For which are probably bad parenting problems.
ADHD does exist, but is almost certainly over diagnosed. Often at the insistence of parents who have a 'child in search of a diagnosis'

We sat next to a mum with her little boy and the grandmum today in a pub restaurant. They spent the whole time yakking on about their "status" on Facebook while the little boy did some colouring in. "Look Nan", he said, showing her what he'd done. "Oh yeh", she said, with an obvious lack of interest. They continued talking and the little boy kept trying quietly to ask a question "I'M SPEAKING!" the nan said loudly. Yes, I thought, you haven't stopped. Then they gave him some noisy game to play on a mobile phone and he stopped colouring in, and he didn't ask any more questions.

Of course, there is such a thing as ADHD but I wonder if parenting does play a part. As that little boy gets older he'll learn that the only way to get any attention is to be really disruptive.

Flickety, thank you for that informative post. I assure you that I'm not saying the condition doesn't exist, just that as with many conditions, it can be aggravated and / or present itself by the circumstances the person finds themselves in. I imagine that someone with ADHD who received proper parenting and was given the strategies to cope will be very successful in a range of occupations. I also imagine that in former times or circumstances where a state of constant alertness and restless, boundless energy were needed they would have been highly valued rather than diagnosed.

My comparison with hysteria wasn't intended to trivialise. I suspect that many of us on here would have been diagnosed with it a 150 years ago out of sheer frustration at the restrictions of women's lives in the 19 C. Now that we are not confined to the home and forbidden to take part in affairs, the very real condition has disappeared.

MiceElf I have mild ADHD and it is difficult to explain how it cannot sit and settle but fidget around doing this or that and jumping up to do some minor job I have forgotten about. The only time I am still is when I am very very tired or ill.

Ones mind acts much the same, no matter how hard you try to concentrate, your mind keeps darting all over the place. The alternative is a state of hyper concentration when the house could burn down around me and I would not notice because I am so concentrated on what I am doing.

Many ADHD people do have successful careers because we develop our own coping mechanisms. DS, who has the attention deficit but not the hyperactivity is a successful academic, who has written books and won awards for his research. He hyper focuses on his work but is domestically chaotic. DDiL stands on the doorstep as he leaves for work each day saying 'Check: house keys, phone, wallet,' because of the number of times he has left without one or the other. My own work involved a lot of different activities and that meant I could move from one, physically and mentally, to another or alternatively, if I was not distracted, hyper concentrate on one topic for three or four hours without a break.

I do think ADHD is misdiagnosed and over diagnosed. Children brought up in chaotic disorganised households are going to be inappropriately active and have difficulty concentrating because that is the nature of their upbringing but ADHD is something that comes from within yourself, although outside influences will affect it. Those who have it are in a constant state of confusion about why they cannot get their minds and bodies behave like other peoples. Both DS and myself are at the mild end of the ADD/ADHD spectrum, but I assure you it does exist.

It is. I don't pretend to know anything about ADHD, but I do wonder if many of these conditions are over diagnosed, and if they they partly the result of poor or inconsistent parenting.

Clearly, there have always been children 'with the attention span of a gnat' but I would have thought that the best way of helping them is to put in place measures which would help them to focus when necessary, to get rid of surplus energy by building into the daily activities lots of physical exercise and by making the boundaries of acceptable behaviour perfectly clear. This will help the child and those surrounding him (and it does seem to be mostly boys who are diagnosed with this condition). As the writer says, once the protective walls of school are left behind, employers will not be tolerant of poor behaviour, and if they are fortunate enough to be self employed, they will quickly learn that a business will not succeed without order, structure and focus.

At a slight tangent, and thinking about conditions which were unknown in the past, it occurs to me that 'hysteria' is no longer a condition. It was a useful label applied to women who got above themselves.