Monday, August 8, 2011
Are Kids These Days Really ADD?
Kids these days that are diagnosed with ADD left and right. It is funny how ADD was not even around in the olden days, but the kids still managed to survive. Passing houses in the car, there are hardly any children outside playing. When I was a kid my mom always kicked my brother and I out of the house to go play. This is a huge difference I see when I compare my childhood to kids' today. It is the 21st century and there are many electronic devices available to children. Why would they go outside to play when they could stay inside and play video games, watch TV, listen to music on an iPod, or play on the computer? There is too much sitting and staring going on with these activities. Kids aren't getting any energy out by doing these activities. It is a fact that someone burns more calories sleeping than watching TV. I think that being cooped up all the time is or could be a primary reason so many children are diagnosed with ADD. When children go to the classroom they can't sit still and concentrate because they have so much energy built up because they don't run around at all. So, I don't think kids are actually ADD, I think they just have too much energy built up so they can't focus. It would be interesting to do a study with children who play outside versus children who do not. I wonder if there would be any significant changes in the child's attention span.
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It is interesting that you chose to write about this topic because it is something I have thought about many times. From my own experience working with students and from observing other teachers at work, I noticed that educators often rely on medication to get kids to focus/calm down. While I do think some children definitely benefit from ADD medication, I think there is far too much pressure from parents and teachers to use medication as a means to change a child's behavior. Like you said, I think the real culprit stems from children not having the opportunity to release all the pent up energy that all kids have. Asking young students, or anyone for that matter, to sit at a desk for 6 hours a day is over ambitious. I think it would be very helpful if teachers included exercises and activities that called for movement within their lessons so that kids can move around and break focus without breaking the rules.
ReplyDeleteI really think that the medical world and the parents these days contribute to the rise in ADD. Like you said kids don't get outside as much because they aren't required to. The only problem is if a child doesn't have ADD and they have the medication it's not necessarily going to fix the problem. A lot of the medications that they give kids with ADD can amplify the problem. I know I was diagnosed with ADD and I don't even think I really have it. When I took the medicine it made me feel more cracked out and it was harder to focus. I think in my situation it didn't have to do with not getting outside but the fact that I didn't have the happiest home. I think situational depression and home life can have a huge influence on a child's ability to function in a classroom. I also agree with what Caitlin said, it's hard enough for the most disciplined adult to sit at a desk for hours at a time how can we expect kids to do that?
ReplyDeleteI agree, I think many children are misdiagnosed and that ADD is over-diagnosed. Parents get paranoid when their child doesn't do as well as they would like so they take them to the doctor, hoping for a reason. Or, teachers notice kids not paying attention to lecture and lessons so they suggest that the child might have a disorder. But the fact is, some kids just aren't interested in what they are learning so they aren't paying attention like they should. Also, the amount of technology in today's society certainly doesn't help. There are soo many distractions out there, it's like you have to try harder and harder to NOT be distracted by some form of technology. Between cell phones, TV, computer, hand held video games, there are so many things going on in a child's world that maybe they need to practice only focusing on one task at a time instead of being raised in our multitasking, distracting world of chaos and technology.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Katie in the though that proscribing medication for ADD can contribute to the problem. Yes, perhaps a kid has problem concentrating, but it is probable because of the lack of parenting, checking to see if they have their homework done, problems with the teacher/student connection. The student is neglectful to complete work because he/she doesn't want to or doesn't spark their interest and the teacher may be neglectful in return because he/she has other students she needs to take care of. So the student isn't completing work for whatever reason, the teacher calls the parents in to discuss it. The teacher claims the student isn't completing work because she feels he/she is distracted. That one word, distracted ignites the fire. Once that bomb is dropped, the parents say "oh no! Little Timmy must have ADD!" So they go to the doctor and boom. Adderral. (Even though, like Jessica says, their probably being distracted from the rise of technology, cellphones, TV, video games etc. and not distracted biologically.) Once a child is prescribed to Adderral for ADD, it is an uphill battle and a downhill spiral from there. For instance, I've had a friend who has been proscribed to Adderral for his ADD since he was very young. And he is an absolutely different person. He is more irritable, his appetite has been minimizing, and its hard for him to sleep at night. To counteract his trouble with sleep, he takes more drugs proscribed by the doctor. A downhill spiral. Ever since he's been prescribed, his tolerance has been increasing, so to counteract that his doctor prescribes him a higher and higher dosage. To literally make him become addicted so that he feels like he is unable to live without. Unintentionally, my friend become somewhat addicted to cocaine. Since Adderral is just a low dose of cocaine. Therefore, when children are diagnosed with ADD the doctor's remedy is pretty much, without saying, cocaine. An illegal drug. An illegal drug in a different for therefore legal. Prescribed. But after everything is said and done does it really work? Does it make the child more attentive, more focused? The answer is yes. It certainly does make people more focused more attentive, it makes them be able get work done easier because of the focus. Is it worth the side effects tho? The downhill spiral of an increased tolerance, increased prescription, increased addiction?
ReplyDeleteWhen I say my friend was somewhat addicted to cocaine I mean he was addicted to Adderral, not the real stuff. I was simply making the connection between the two not saying he was a coke addict.
ReplyDeleteI think Rachel makes a really good point about children coming to class and having all this built up energy because they aren't outside playing enough, making it seem like they may have ADD when in reality they don't. However, I don't think this is the case with all children. I know from my personal experience that some children really do just have ADD. My senior year in high school I was a teacher aid for a first grade classroom and I had a student that had ADD. He was a very smart boy, he spent his recess running around the play ground like nobodies business, and he was also actively involved in t-ball/baseball. But, when it came to sitting at his desk and learning...it was pretty much a lost cause. He spent his entire day constantly moving around and paying attention to everything except for this homework. At the end of the year he was prescribed some medicine to help control his ADD. He was a completely different person. He was able to sit in his seat quietly and finish his homework, his grades showed a significant improvement, and his reading level even improved. This leads me to believe that some children do in fact have ADD. Although they may not have had medicine ("back in the day") to control ADD, i'm sure some people did indeed have ADD.
ReplyDeleteI come from a family that my mom says is “rampant with ADD”. My dad grew up with three brothers all really close in age and they all have been diagnosed with ADD. This was in the 1970’s and they were playing outside nonstop, All State in all of the sports they played and only had junk food once a week when their mom bought sugary cereal on Saturday mornings. They all definitely have ADD and needed to take ADD medication. I don’t know if kids today really have ADD and if so, what is stems, from but I do think that the issue might be the diagnosis. I think, in schools, teachers pretty much make the call on that. The amount of kids diagnosed with ADD is really high in lower elementary and I’ve heard its rising. The problem with things like ADD is that it is a judgmental disease and there’s no cut and dry answer. Last year I was having problems focusing and I saw a doctor who prescribed Aderrall on the spot for me on our first session, with no testing. I guess that would have been nice had I been set on the idea of having ADD but I just really think that’s scary how easy it is to get prescriptions. I think the problem here is that the diagnoses might be rising but that doesn’t necessarily mean the problem is.
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