*Ø* ADHD: Absent Dad, Highrise Dwelling
What shall we do about mother's little helper?
For more years than I care to consider, I've contended that ADHD, while it certainly does exist in many children, is an over-diagnosed condition, especially in boys.
In modern Western societies, it is often easier in many circumstances for a doctor to prescribe Ritalin than for a parent to find ways for a boy to burn off his natural energies climbing trees or kicking round a ball in the backyard or park. For this reason, I've taken to calling ADHD "Absent Dad, Highrise Dwelling". Boys will be boys, but if that's too hard in a two-room apartment seven storeys up, when father isn't allowed to see his children, you can just buy some drugs. Unfortunately, this is something I have seen too many times.
The Australian state of Western Australia has the dubious distinction of having one of the highest prescription rates of ADHD medications in the world, and the highest in Australia, with the rate now at around a staggering 4.3 per cent of all the state's kids, and climbing. Almost one child in twenty, apparently, has a disease that seems to have emerged mysteriously in the past couple of decades. Perhaps it's a new space virus from NASA's Skylab that crashed onto WA a few years ago.
Medical practitioners seem to have fallen under the spell of the transnational chemical corps, and many parents seem to have fallen under the spell of the doctors. The Australian epidemic of mothers refusing fathers' access to their children might be addressed if we are to get restless boys off the male issues list.
It's the Anatomy, Stupid
There is another aspect to this epidemic (of medication) which is rarely considered. Teachers want their pupils to sit still for hours a day on hard wooden seats. Apart from this being a violation of their natural need to be physically active, for boys there is an added problem. In general, their buttocks do not have enough bulk for such seating, and six or seven hours a day can for most boys be akin to slow torture. A simple prescription of cushioned seats, particularly for children with slighter buttock mass, makes far more sense than the dispensing of psychoactive drugs being pushed by the pharmaceutical corporations.
Better still would be the long-overdue abolition of the current systems of education, but I might be getting a wee bit ahead of the vested interests here.
Bad Boys Take Drugs: Ritalin and ADD/ADHD
Does ADHD Even Exist? The Ritalin Sham
What if ADHD Doesn't Really Exist?
ADHD: Does It Exist? (Audio)
ADHD Drugs Linked to Crime
Exam students "fuelled up on Ritalin"
Parliamentary Inquiry: ADD & ADHD in Western Australia
Licit psychostimulant consumption in Australia, 1984–2000: international and jurisdictional comparison
What shall we do about mother's little helper?
For more years than I care to consider, I've contended that ADHD, while it certainly does exist in many children, is an over-diagnosed condition, especially in boys.
In modern Western societies, it is often easier in many circumstances for a doctor to prescribe Ritalin than for a parent to find ways for a boy to burn off his natural energies climbing trees or kicking round a ball in the backyard or park. For this reason, I've taken to calling ADHD "Absent Dad, Highrise Dwelling". Boys will be boys, but if that's too hard in a two-room apartment seven storeys up, when father isn't allowed to see his children, you can just buy some drugs. Unfortunately, this is something I have seen too many times.
The Australian state of Western Australia has the dubious distinction of having one of the highest prescription rates of ADHD medications in the world, and the highest in Australia, with the rate now at around a staggering 4.3 per cent of all the state's kids, and climbing. Almost one child in twenty, apparently, has a disease that seems to have emerged mysteriously in the past couple of decades. Perhaps it's a new space virus from NASA's Skylab that crashed onto WA a few years ago.
Medical practitioners seem to have fallen under the spell of the transnational chemical corps, and many parents seem to have fallen under the spell of the doctors. The Australian epidemic of mothers refusing fathers' access to their children might be addressed if we are to get restless boys off the male issues list.
It's the Anatomy, Stupid
There is another aspect to this epidemic (of medication) which is rarely considered. Teachers want their pupils to sit still for hours a day on hard wooden seats. Apart from this being a violation of their natural need to be physically active, for boys there is an added problem. In general, their buttocks do not have enough bulk for such seating, and six or seven hours a day can for most boys be akin to slow torture. A simple prescription of cushioned seats, particularly for children with slighter buttock mass, makes far more sense than the dispensing of psychoactive drugs being pushed by the pharmaceutical corporations.
Better still would be the long-overdue abolition of the current systems of education, but I might be getting a wee bit ahead of the vested interests here.
Bad Boys Take Drugs: Ritalin and ADD/ADHD
Does ADHD Even Exist? The Ritalin Sham
What if ADHD Doesn't Really Exist?
ADHD: Does It Exist? (Audio)
ADHD Drugs Linked to Crime
Exam students "fuelled up on Ritalin"
Parliamentary Inquiry: ADD & ADHD in Western Australia
Licit psychostimulant consumption in Australia, 1984–2000: international and jurisdictional comparison
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