Back when I was a kid, this “disease” was called bad behavior. It was caused mainly by a lack of parental guidance and discipline. There were no “behvioral” diseases or heavily medicated kids in our schools and the problem was usually always fixed by discipline and tough parental love. Not by an MD writing a prescription for Prozac or Ritalin.
I will never forget when my kid sister told our Father, that her son had ADD. My dad went ashen, thinking it was some sort of disease. When she explained it (attention deficit disorder), he replied ‘Oh....Leave him with me for a week. I will get his attention for you’.......! :>)
Their cure worked like a charm.
I have a nephew who actually was diagnosed with ADHD and had the meds until he was a teenager. This boy could destroy a room within a few minutes when he was on the meds. When he was off, he just could not stop moving very fast. His stepdad (my brother-in-law) was/is always very strict with him.
Why is it considered “conservative” to disbelieve in ADHD? I have it. I was well-behaved in school—i.e., didn’t talk and run around. But I had, and have, forty years later, all the classic symptoms. The amphetamine I am on helps a lot.
Rush Limbaugh has had a lot to do, I think, with promoting this notion that ADHD, Depression, Bi-Polar Disorder, etc., are a bunch of “liberal” illnesses, cooked up to “excuse” people for crimes.
Most kids I know who are diagnoed with ADD/ADHD are kids whose parents are so wrapped up in their own lives they have no time to actually parent.
Each child that has ADD/ADHD is then labeled learning disabled. The school district gets more money for each “LD” child that goes there than they do for each “normal” one. That is one reason that the majority of children being tested for ADD/ADHD are referred by teachers.
Yep. I had it.
My Dad cured it with a belt.