When Jonah was in preschool, he had trouble sitting still. He had a lot of energy and sitting quietly in a circle was not his strong suit. He was hard-wired to run. He started walking at nine months and then never stopped. I remember pushing his empty stroller behind him, as he ran the whole mile back home from pre-school. He had zero interest in passively observing life.
He still is that way. During Saturday's trip into NYC, he leapt up on park benches. He tried to climb a wall into Central Park. He ran up the front stairs of the museum backwards. He moves. Constantly.
If I wanted to drug him up, so he moved less and remembered to turn in his homework more consistently, I could get those drugs for him without breaking a sweat. But I won't, because he doesn't need them. He's a high-energy kid and that's how he is wired.
Nobody has ever urged us to medicate Jonah, because he does well in school and he never gets into trouble, but other parents have told me stories about teachers pushing them to medicate their boys.
The number of boys who are diagnosed with ADHD has skyrocketed. According to the New York Times,
Nearly one in five high school age boys in the United States and 11 percent of school-age children over all have received a medical diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to new data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
One in five boys? Maybe high-energy isn't a bug of boys. It's a feature. And maybe schools and the world isn't set up to deal with high-energy boys. And maybe we should stop pouring chemicals down the throats of our kids and learn how to deal with boys who need to walk up the stairs backwards and leap on park benches and climb walls. Maybe.
Apt. 11d 
As a mom of two boys, couldn’t agree more. We actually kept our oldest out of the public schools for 1st grade as he just wasn’t ready to sit still yet – which we knew would lead to trouble. Boys sometimes develop those focus and sitting still skills later in life – which is a problem when your job depends on preparing for a test that requires kids to focus and sit still.
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I thought that article was awful. The number stats switched from population to population, making it very tricky to keep track of what the author was talking about. For example, we hear figures of 11% of boys with a diagnosis (not all of whom receive medication), differing numbers for people on medicare, for boys of different ages, . . . .
Then we have quotes like “some stimulants were safer than aspirin” as though that was obviously wrong. Aspirin is actually dangerous for children in several circumstances (flu like symptoms, for example); Stimulant medication might be safer than aspirin, while still being dangerous.
And, the statement “A.D.H.D. is described by most experts as resulting from abnormal chemical levels in the brain that impair a person’s impulse control and attention skills. ” is just off. ADHD is purely defined by behavior symptomology, not by “abnormal chemical levels in the brain.”
http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/diagnosis.html
The article reads like an opinion piece and not an article on the incidence rate. I think part of what everyone is struggling with is that many syndromes/disorders, including ADHD (depression, . . . .) are continuum. The decision of when medication will be beneficial is contextual. It is simply not the case that we can measure or understand an abnormal brain chemistry that determines when medication will benefit, as opposed to other interventions (including changing the environment).
This article bugged me so much when I read it last night that I actually woke up this morning with a bad taste in my head, felling like I’d had something that disagreed with me (but I couldn’t remember what). Thanks for reminding me so that I can focus that vague discomfort on the specific article instead of feeling vaguely disturbed.
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On a personal level, I have a very physically active boy who no one ever suggests should receive ADHD medication, because he is also on task and can focus (including in physical activities).
I once did some studies with stimulant medication (nothing ever came of it), but one of the interesting papers I read in that period was one that showed that stimulant medication wasn’t simply a “tranquilizer.” A key piece of evidence was recordings made of activity level throughout the day at school — the kids not merely less active; they were less active during the “sitting” activities, but more active during the “active” periods, like PE.
I think it’s possible that ADHD is “over-diagnosed” but I also think there’s no baseline against which to compare for the correct level of diagnosis, because it is context dependent. I think there are public policy concerns (school requirements, medicare issues, drugs v behavior modifications, . . . .) but the discussion is complex.
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Another stupid article:
(this time on a drug patent decision in India).
Both these articles share my main issue, that they read like a conglomeration of press releases (with different weighting) rather than articles.
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Anecdotally, consider all the many memoirs of interesting, educated, accomplished men from the generation before medication who reported endless conflicts with school and schoolteachers, often over their restlessness with being asked to sit still and cooperate with repetitive, rote learning. What that brought them in an earlier generation, pre-1960, was often physical punishment (by teachers and parents) or other forms of institutional punishment like shaming or even more repetition.
Has neurochemistry altered in a generation or two? Or have we just stuck with the same kind of learning model while losing the ability to punish or confine boys? If the latter, small wonder teachers are desperately looking to drugs–they’re still responsible for keeping kids in the seats, quiet and obedient, and it’s fairly clear that many boys and some girls have strong, normal desires to be doing otherwise.
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I have a daughter who is a kinesthetic learner and high energy. We are in NYC for a few days and she described how she likes to experience art at museums (she is 7). She said that if she can move around and see it from different angles and take photos of it, she loves it. Just sitting and watching? Or sitting and viewing slides? Boring. Not interested.
Luckily her classes are small enough that her school back home can teach to the various styles of learning (ie tossing around a bean bag while doing a math game).
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