ADHD Is a Lie

If you look at the CDC statistics of the diagnosis of ADHD, you should be alarmed by the number. Almost 10% (9.5%) of the children aged between 4 and 17 years old have been diagnosed with ADHD. Are you kidding me? 1 out of 10 kids have a "problem?" Shouldn't we, at this point, start to consider that these things we think are "problems" are really pretty common and thus "normal?" I don't disagree that in extreme cases some kids have trouble controlling themselves and may have real psychological issues, but come on now! The symptoms of ADHD are an aggregation of normal childhood behaviour. The diagnosis is of your child with ADHD is nothing more than observation that they display an "abnormal" number of normal behaviours. Note, not any specific behaviour is abnormal, kids that are diagnosed with ADHD supposedly do more of them than is what is deemed to be "normal" within an observed period of time. By definition this makes diagnosis subjective.

So one has to pose the question, what is "normal?" If less than 10% of a population exhibits a trait is it normal or not? How about 1%? Again, what is normal? Are basketball players "normal?" Do they have a condition that needs treatment? Certainly less than 10% of the human population is greater than 6' 5" tall.

The biggest problem with "disorders" (not diseases mind you) is that, with children, parents are often compelled or feel compelled to "treat" the supposed disorder. With ADHD, that means about 1 in 10 children will be seeing doctors and probably taking prescription drugs all because they they fall out of some imaginary gauge of a "normal" behaviour chart. This may be damaging to the child, problematic in the home, and expensive in terms of healthcare cost. For what?

Read the diagnosis of ADHD
http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/diagnosis.html

I have never met a single child that, at some point, would not be diagnosed as having ADHD. I think we need better parents and teachers and fewer drug pushing pharmaceutical companies making up bogus "disorders" (NOT DISEASES!) to sell more drugs.