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Strollerderby
Parents with children who’ve been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD have a difficult choice to face: should we medicate?
Therapy in combination with medication is widely believed to produce the best results in terms of behavior and academic achievement. Side effects can be an issue, though, and many parents dislike the idea of putting their child on a psychiatric medication.
Now a larger question looms: do the medications currently used to treat ADHD even work?
The New York Times this weekend ran a major article critiquing the use of medication for ADHD in kids. It’s an opinion piece, but one written from the vantage point of considerable authority by a therapist who has been researching children with ADHD for 40 years.
His assessment of the current state of ADHD treatments is frightening. Especially if, like me, you take Ritalin every day to manage your own attention problems.
OMG: Being left-handed could be viewed as a risk factor for diagnosing psychiatric and developmental conditions.
Lefties are used to getting the short end of the stick—from having to work around right-handed school desks, computer mice and pretty much anything else that requires a dominant hand to being regarded as an aberration that needs to be “fixed” to even being looked upon with fear (because there happens to be a very old and extremely lengthy list of folklore and left-handed superstitions all pointing to the left side equalling bad luck).
Research on south paws hasn’t exactly turned up the best of news, either. The Wall Street Journal, in an examination of several different studies, found that left-handed people really do have bad luck—if you consider having a higher risk for brain and developmental disorders as ”bad luck,” that is.
Your kid is hyperactive. He runs around at school. Yells at his siblings. Throws fits in the grocery store. Can never sit still.
Is he just an active child, or is this ADHD? It can be hard to tell the difference early on, but new diagnostic criteria suggest evaluating kids as young as 4 for ADHD. While early intervention can help kids with ADHD thrive in school and at home, parents are justifiably worried that expanding the diagnostic criteria will lead to medicating normal childhood exuberance.
The frontline medication of choice for ADHD these days is Adderall or Ritalin. Both are central nervous system stimulants that help ADD kids calm down and focus. They have few side effects, but they are controlled substances that can be addictive and are widely used recreationally. Continue reading »
Are we in danger of medicating away youthful exuberance?
The American Association of Pediatrics has released new guidelines that drop the recommended starting age for evaluating children for Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder from six to four years old, raising concerns about medicating children so young and that diagnoses will become even more widespread.
Per the Chicago Tribune, “There is now enough evidence to address this broader age range,” says Dr. Mark Wolraich, the lead author of the report that was released last weekend, “We know that identifying and treating kids at a young age is important … because the earlier we can provide treatment, the better chance of success.”
As a mother of a son who was diagnosed with ADHD at five and started medication just shy of six, even I am alarmed when I hear that four-year-olds are being diagnosed and labeled as ADHD. I am well aware of the fact that ADHD manifests itself in many ways and feel for any parent of a “difficult” child, but it just seems like a bad idea to open this up and invite irresponsible doctors to prescribe medication to children that are barely out of their toddlerhood.
Safety education is key for ADHD kids.
Thanks for confirming every parent of a child with ADHD’s worst fears, Journal of Academic Pediatrics! And thanks for compounding those fears with the heart-stopping statistic that injury is the leading cause of death among American youth. And then going still further to let us know that injuries kill more 11-year-olds than all other causes combined.
As the parent of a scattershot ADHD nine-year-old, myself, perhaps I am more sensitive to these statistics than others, so this story made me sit down with my little guy immediately for a review of the safety protocol he is supposed to be following on his five-block scooter ride to school every morning.
Unfortunately, I realized that I may have come across a little on the hysterical side when he left for school on foot fifteen minutes later, citing fears of getting his head “cracked open” if he rode the scooter.
I was not a Winnie the Pooh girl, myself. And despite numerous attempts to read the book to my kids, Milne’s cutely circuitous writing style left them lost and distracted. But after reading some good reviews of the new Pooh movie, we were intrigued enough to go, and careful not to point out to my son that he was a good two years older than any other kid in the theater. The movie was, as advertised, a trip back to a simpler time, when pictures could be flat and drama could be about who gets the honey pot. But since I had little knowledge of the World of Pooh, I was mostly fascinated by the characters. Milne clearly created these cariacatures to help kids understand certain human behaviors. But the way they look now might be a little different than the way they looked when they were written. If you look at the residents of Pooh Corner through the dominant diagnose-and-medicate mentality, pretty much everyone’s got an “issue”.
Eeyore is an obvious depressive. Tigger has ADHD. Piglet’s an anxious wreck. This theory is not my own, but has been making the rounds online. Some have even taken it a step further and prescribed the appropriate meds to “cure” Pooh and his friends. Take a look: Continue reading »
Can Inadequate Sleep as a Preschooler Cause ADHD?
A recent study led by author Erika Gaylor, senior researcher for SRI International, an independent, nonprofit research institute in Menlo Park, Calif., claims her research suggests that children who do not get enough sleep as preschoolers are more likely than other children to show signs of ADHD by the time they’re in kindergarten.
The study was based on parental accounts of amount of sleep their preschoolers received, as well as reports of ADHD symptoms (hyperactivity, impulsivity, etc.) their kindergarteners exhibited. The preliminary findings suggest that children who do not get enough sleep as preschoolers, are more likely to show signs of ADHD as kindergarteners.
Now, I’m no scientist, researcher, psychiatrist, or other expert in the field of ADHD, but I do have two sons who have been diagnosed with ADHD. And I think it’s much more likely that kids with ADHD simply sleep less. My sons weren’t diagnosed with ADHD until after they were in kindergarten, however, the symptoms started much, much earlier.
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