ADHD? No Thank You!
The New York Times posted an incredible article on ADHD last week titled The Not So Hidden Cause Behind the ADHD Epidemic. If you have young children or if you work with young children or even if you simply know young children, it is a must read. The not so hidden cause? Our education system. More specifically- No Child Left Behind. Among other sociological factors, author Maggie Koerth-Baker presents undeniable evidence that our incredibly misguided education system has resulted in the skyrocketing number of ADHD diagnoses- which also means a skyrocketing number of kids on powerful psychotropic drugs. She presents a research study in which Stephen Hinshaw, a professor of psychology at University of California, Berkeley made a startling discovery. As each state adopted the federal No Child Left Behind program and instituted similar and even more rigorous standardized testing programs, that state saw a subsequent and drastic rise in ADHD cases. Each state, one by one, without fail.
By trade I am a clinical social worker specializing in child and adolescent therapy, so it would be foolish of me to say that ADHD doesn't exist. But my time as a therapist and my time as a mother both lead me to support the premise of this article with complete certainty- cultural and societal factors have led to far too many of our kids being diagnosed and medicated for ADHD and it's about time we as parents and teachers start recognizing this. We are doing our children an incredible disservice by expecting them to be tiny adults and then medicating them when they can't live up to those standards.
ADHD hits home for me on two levels. The first is my dear husband. I've always teased that he has the most severe undiagnosed ADHD in the history of the world. He was something of a nightmare in elementary school, except that his mother never saw him that way and she worked tirelessly to make sure his teachers didn't either. Had she not been so involved in his education, he would surely have been diagnosed with ADHD- even twenty something years ago before it was all the rage. Instead of insisting that he be diagnosed and medicated, which surely would have made her life easier, she was adamant that he not be diagnosed or medicated. On the contrary, his mother saw his endless energy as productive and his busy mind to be creative. In the second grade he had to take the Iowa standardized test- this was long before standardized testing was considered "best practice" in education- and he totally and completely failed. One of the reading passages was about some mythical creature. He was supposed to read the passage and answer the questions. But he didn't. He didn't answer a single question on that test. He drew pictures. Very detailed, beautiful pictures with an artistic talent far beyond his years. On the surface he looked completely distracted. Except that he knew exactly what he was doing and why. The authors of the test had drastically misinterpreted what the mythical creature would look like and Jon felt their descriptions to be all wrong- bordering on foolish. He knew he could read and he knew what the passage was about. Answering the questions seemed to be a waste of his precious eight year old time. Instead he was compelled to draw accurately detailed pictures of the creatures to show the authors what they should have described in their passage. I'm pretty sure his teacher didn't appreciate this- then again her job didn't depend on the results of this one standardized test- but his mother found his "results" to be quite logical. You see, when one has an accurate and honest understanding of child development and the purpose of childhood, the light becomes visible. Jon wasn't inattentive, distracted, or unable to focus on the reading passage. In fact, he focused quite sharply- on what he deemed to be a much more important issue than the empty bubbles in his test booklet. He couldn't let the authors live their lives with such a poor understanding of mythological creatures when he saw a wonderful opportunity to enlighten them!
The stories Jon's mother tells about his early years in school have always made me laugh, though I have always wondered how she never once considered that Jon may truly have ADHD. Then I became a mother myself. And it was just my luck that God blessed me with not one, but two exact replicas of my husband as a child. The older the boys get, the more I realize that their brains work exactly like their father's. And the more I become aware that to the outsider, any outsider, my children look like they need a hefty dose of Ritalin.
Our boys function- morning 'til night- at a pace that would exhaust an Ethiopian marathon runner. In fact, when they were two years old, they ran 3.1 miles. Continuously. In my living room. On the couch. Their brains move even faster than their little bodies. In the matter of a half hour, they will demand to cover- in a depth and detail unimaginable to any other four year old on the planet- ancient Incan bridge building, the buoyancy of ocean liners, the three time periods of the Mesozoic era, and the age old question of whether or not ducks go to Heaven. In the middle of such discussions, they will pause to use their finger to draw imaginary pictures in the air. Though they look incredibly aloof, we have come to learn that this is their way of integrating new images and concepts into their pre-existing schemas of how the world works. When they are done, they will sprint to another part of the house to act out our conversation. It is not uncommon for them to dart away mid-sentence to go put imaginary apples in the refrigerator or to build an imaginary "zoobrary" in the living room containing all 827 childrens books we own... all while continuing to engage in a deep discussion about the ethics of removing artifacts from the wreck of the Titanic. They look distracted. But in reality they are intensely focused on committing their newfound knowledge to memory by acting it out with their little bodies.
When we do our homeschool work, both boys can complete the entirety of their reading and math lessons without their tiny little butts ever making contact with the surface of their seat. On any given day, at least 20% of their schooling is completed while suspended in mid-air with their elbows on their desks and their feet hooked over the backs of their chairs. And it is a requirement that they each fall out of their desk with such vigor as to result in moderate injury at least once during each lesson. And yes, it affects their work. I often have to temper my frustration because I know that if they could just sit still for six seconds, they could form their letters and numbers with beauty and precision. But they are four years old. The fact that they are learning that four plus eight equals twelve needs to be enough- even if their answer are written sloppily. And the fact that they can answer such equations correctly, every single time, at four years old should excite any educator from here to Timbucktoo. But for the aforementioned reasons, sending the boys to school is one of my biggest fears in life.
What teacher is going to let them climb their feet up the wall to read upside down? What teacher is going to let them hang from the ceiling fan when they are curious about the physics of motion? What teacher is going to let them run around acting out everything they learn?
Everyone tells us that someday our boys will "outgrow" this and learn to conform to what is expected of them in school. People tell us they are just young, but that someday they will read while sitting perfectly still and seek the answers to their questions in books instead of physically acting them out with their bodies. People have told us they will "level out" with time and learn to think more slowly and deliberately. But they won't. And I know this because my husband has never "outgrown" such things. His endless energy and his divergent thinking have never even come close to what one could call "leveled out". He still can't sit still. He just can't. He still can't do a single thing in life the simple way, the quiet way, the passive way, or in any way that conforms to any kind of standard. Not even at work. At work he launches pop bottles through the ceiling of his classroom. The janitor has stopped asking if he wants the ceiling tiles replaced because the poor janitor knows that replacing them is an exercise in futility. Once Jon bashed a bowling ball through the concrete wall in the back of his classroom and just last week he let his physics students hang from the water pipes. And his students come back year after year after year to thank him for inspiring their education and their lives. It is the same endless energy and creatively divergent thinking of his childhood that makes him one of the greatest teachers you will ever meet. So no, the boys aren't going to "outgrow" this. And while it might be easy to wish that maybe someday they will, I don't wish for that at all. I don't wish for them to sit still. I don't wish for them to be quiet or passive. I don't wish for them to master the art of sitting in a desk for eight hours a day- not next year for kindergarten or twenty years from now. Whatever they choose to do in their lives, I hope with every ounce of my exhausted heart that they launch pop bottles through the ceiling and bash bowling balls through walls and swing from the water pipes with gusto.
I'm not sure what we will do with the boys for school or if or how they will fit into this system that demands nothing more of children than to sit still and fill in tiny bubbles. My kids don't sit still and I don't want to make them. Kids aren't meant to sit still. Especially young boys. Somehow in our country's quest to rise to the top of the educational ladder, we have failed to take note that the countries all ready at the top do not require their young children to sit at all. Scandinavian countries do not start formal education until seven or eight years old. Prior to that, play based programs, forest schools, and *gasp*- parents staying home to raise their children are common introductions into education. They also have an incredibly low prevalence of ADHD. Because kids are allowed, expected even, to do what kids are supposed to do- and that is be kids. Our culture seems to be well on its way to losing sight of what being a kid means. But even if it takes me all the coffee in the world to keep up, our boys are going to spend their childhood being exactly what little boys are meant to be. They will be wildly energetic, exuberantly creative, and bursting at the seams with Dabrowski's psychomotor overexcitability. But I'll be damned if anyone ever puts a label on that.
By trade I am a clinical social worker specializing in child and adolescent therapy, so it would be foolish of me to say that ADHD doesn't exist. But my time as a therapist and my time as a mother both lead me to support the premise of this article with complete certainty- cultural and societal factors have led to far too many of our kids being diagnosed and medicated for ADHD and it's about time we as parents and teachers start recognizing this. We are doing our children an incredible disservice by expecting them to be tiny adults and then medicating them when they can't live up to those standards.
ADHD hits home for me on two levels. The first is my dear husband. I've always teased that he has the most severe undiagnosed ADHD in the history of the world. He was something of a nightmare in elementary school, except that his mother never saw him that way and she worked tirelessly to make sure his teachers didn't either. Had she not been so involved in his education, he would surely have been diagnosed with ADHD- even twenty something years ago before it was all the rage. Instead of insisting that he be diagnosed and medicated, which surely would have made her life easier, she was adamant that he not be diagnosed or medicated. On the contrary, his mother saw his endless energy as productive and his busy mind to be creative. In the second grade he had to take the Iowa standardized test- this was long before standardized testing was considered "best practice" in education- and he totally and completely failed. One of the reading passages was about some mythical creature. He was supposed to read the passage and answer the questions. But he didn't. He didn't answer a single question on that test. He drew pictures. Very detailed, beautiful pictures with an artistic talent far beyond his years. On the surface he looked completely distracted. Except that he knew exactly what he was doing and why. The authors of the test had drastically misinterpreted what the mythical creature would look like and Jon felt their descriptions to be all wrong- bordering on foolish. He knew he could read and he knew what the passage was about. Answering the questions seemed to be a waste of his precious eight year old time. Instead he was compelled to draw accurately detailed pictures of the creatures to show the authors what they should have described in their passage. I'm pretty sure his teacher didn't appreciate this- then again her job didn't depend on the results of this one standardized test- but his mother found his "results" to be quite logical. You see, when one has an accurate and honest understanding of child development and the purpose of childhood, the light becomes visible. Jon wasn't inattentive, distracted, or unable to focus on the reading passage. In fact, he focused quite sharply- on what he deemed to be a much more important issue than the empty bubbles in his test booklet. He couldn't let the authors live their lives with such a poor understanding of mythological creatures when he saw a wonderful opportunity to enlighten them!
The stories Jon's mother tells about his early years in school have always made me laugh, though I have always wondered how she never once considered that Jon may truly have ADHD. Then I became a mother myself. And it was just my luck that God blessed me with not one, but two exact replicas of my husband as a child. The older the boys get, the more I realize that their brains work exactly like their father's. And the more I become aware that to the outsider, any outsider, my children look like they need a hefty dose of Ritalin.
Our boys function- morning 'til night- at a pace that would exhaust an Ethiopian marathon runner. In fact, when they were two years old, they ran 3.1 miles. Continuously. In my living room. On the couch. Their brains move even faster than their little bodies. In the matter of a half hour, they will demand to cover- in a depth and detail unimaginable to any other four year old on the planet- ancient Incan bridge building, the buoyancy of ocean liners, the three time periods of the Mesozoic era, and the age old question of whether or not ducks go to Heaven. In the middle of such discussions, they will pause to use their finger to draw imaginary pictures in the air. Though they look incredibly aloof, we have come to learn that this is their way of integrating new images and concepts into their pre-existing schemas of how the world works. When they are done, they will sprint to another part of the house to act out our conversation. It is not uncommon for them to dart away mid-sentence to go put imaginary apples in the refrigerator or to build an imaginary "zoobrary" in the living room containing all 827 childrens books we own... all while continuing to engage in a deep discussion about the ethics of removing artifacts from the wreck of the Titanic. They look distracted. But in reality they are intensely focused on committing their newfound knowledge to memory by acting it out with their little bodies.
When we do our homeschool work, both boys can complete the entirety of their reading and math lessons without their tiny little butts ever making contact with the surface of their seat. On any given day, at least 20% of their schooling is completed while suspended in mid-air with their elbows on their desks and their feet hooked over the backs of their chairs. And it is a requirement that they each fall out of their desk with such vigor as to result in moderate injury at least once during each lesson. And yes, it affects their work. I often have to temper my frustration because I know that if they could just sit still for six seconds, they could form their letters and numbers with beauty and precision. But they are four years old. The fact that they are learning that four plus eight equals twelve needs to be enough- even if their answer are written sloppily. And the fact that they can answer such equations correctly, every single time, at four years old should excite any educator from here to Timbucktoo. But for the aforementioned reasons, sending the boys to school is one of my biggest fears in life.
What teacher is going to let them climb their feet up the wall to read upside down? What teacher is going to let them hang from the ceiling fan when they are curious about the physics of motion? What teacher is going to let them run around acting out everything they learn?
Everyone tells us that someday our boys will "outgrow" this and learn to conform to what is expected of them in school. People tell us they are just young, but that someday they will read while sitting perfectly still and seek the answers to their questions in books instead of physically acting them out with their bodies. People have told us they will "level out" with time and learn to think more slowly and deliberately. But they won't. And I know this because my husband has never "outgrown" such things. His endless energy and his divergent thinking have never even come close to what one could call "leveled out". He still can't sit still. He just can't. He still can't do a single thing in life the simple way, the quiet way, the passive way, or in any way that conforms to any kind of standard. Not even at work. At work he launches pop bottles through the ceiling of his classroom. The janitor has stopped asking if he wants the ceiling tiles replaced because the poor janitor knows that replacing them is an exercise in futility. Once Jon bashed a bowling ball through the concrete wall in the back of his classroom and just last week he let his physics students hang from the water pipes. And his students come back year after year after year to thank him for inspiring their education and their lives. It is the same endless energy and creatively divergent thinking of his childhood that makes him one of the greatest teachers you will ever meet. So no, the boys aren't going to "outgrow" this. And while it might be easy to wish that maybe someday they will, I don't wish for that at all. I don't wish for them to sit still. I don't wish for them to be quiet or passive. I don't wish for them to master the art of sitting in a desk for eight hours a day- not next year for kindergarten or twenty years from now. Whatever they choose to do in their lives, I hope with every ounce of my exhausted heart that they launch pop bottles through the ceiling and bash bowling balls through walls and swing from the water pipes with gusto.
I'm not sure what we will do with the boys for school or if or how they will fit into this system that demands nothing more of children than to sit still and fill in tiny bubbles. My kids don't sit still and I don't want to make them. Kids aren't meant to sit still. Especially young boys. Somehow in our country's quest to rise to the top of the educational ladder, we have failed to take note that the countries all ready at the top do not require their young children to sit at all. Scandinavian countries do not start formal education until seven or eight years old. Prior to that, play based programs, forest schools, and *gasp*- parents staying home to raise their children are common introductions into education. They also have an incredibly low prevalence of ADHD. Because kids are allowed, expected even, to do what kids are supposed to do- and that is be kids. Our culture seems to be well on its way to losing sight of what being a kid means. But even if it takes me all the coffee in the world to keep up, our boys are going to spend their childhood being exactly what little boys are meant to be. They will be wildly energetic, exuberantly creative, and bursting at the seams with Dabrowski's psychomotor overexcitability. But I'll be damned if anyone ever puts a label on that.
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