ADHD, Illness or just an excuse?

[ELVIS68]

[askyourgran]

I think this is a genuine illness, The symptoms are recognised by the medical profession and treatment is available. I know of someone who cannot allow her child to eat chocolate, it makes her hyperactive.

[trt]

There was a cure for ADHD 30 years ago which cost the NHS no medical expensive hospital treatment or prescriptions, and parents couldn't claim benefits for the problem, it was called a clip around the head and sent to bed.

[cherrychapstick]

well said trt! wouldn't say it is totally not real but think it is a cop out for lots of parents who fill their kids up on sugar just to get peace .trt you get benefits for a child who has adhd i never knew that ,my son gets very hyper with chocolate and oranges (i just don't give him them)

[trt]

cherry you do get benefits,
I know someone who gets about 70 pound a week for their son who has the so called prob, check with the social service, they don't advertise it buts its there.

He also got a free laptop with free broadband for 2 years to help his education.

[ELVIS68]

The reason I ask is a friend of ours has a child and whenever he is around his own family he is a "little sh!t" whether it be at home, round our house or out, but when he round our house on his own he is as good as gold

It does make me wonder if it is a "discipline" thing

[trt]

Hi ELVIS68,

The child I mentioned above is exactly the same when he comes into my house, he sits there and is very well behaved, but when I visit his parents house, he is a nightmare.

[ELVIS68]

Thanks trt, he gets lots of warnings from his parents when he "plays up" but no punishment, It`s frustrating becuase you want to say something to the parents but no parent wants to be told how to control their kids

[cherrychapstick]

i believed you trt i just didn't know about getting benefits for it

[cherrychapstick]

my pals son's doctor has said he has it but i have had words with her on quite a few occasions because he will do something and them she will send him to his room leaving her feeling guilty and he will come back to her within 5 mins and say sorry and thats it finished with he has her wrapped round his little finger and always blames his brother saying but hes annoyed me and then she will shout and the younger one ,which i have told her is wrong and she must watch everything that happens because it is not fair and the younger one is going to end up resenting her for it while the older one is just laughing at her (basically thats what i think) which was proved last week when something happened and it all kicked off when he said his brother had been annoying him (he was nowhere near him)

[brenda]

Adh----
A is for apathetic,incompetent parenting,

D is for diabolic ,uncontrolled food consumption,

H is for,handy easy label , to satisfy parents who think medication is the answer to the problem.

[ummmm]

Sweets use to be a nightmare for my son. I remember someone giving him some chewits and me running to try and stop him eating them...He's grown out of it now.

[jake-the-peg]

I do admire people who don't let their complete ignorance stop them from having strongly held opinions!


ADHD is a very real condition and is most probably a dopamine imbalance in the brain.
http://www.medpagetod...atrics/ADHD-ADD/15872 for example.

But do a little research on your own and you might just learn something


Incidently - lovely experiment where they took a bunch of kids to a birthday party and told the parents they'd all get sugary foods - they didn't they got fruit and a lot of boistrous games.

The next day they went to a "health party" - actually loads of junk food but calming activities.

Afterwards the parents all said the kids had been hyper after all the sugar - not knowing that the menus had been switched.

Conclusion - sugar doesn't necessarilly make kids hyper but parents who think it does reinforce their prejudice because they expect it and ignore contrary evidence

[ummmm]

I don't think it's so much to do with the sugar. More the E numbers.

I watched a programme where the did an experiment with some identical twins. One was fed junk food and the other was fed healthy fresh food. The one on the healthy diet had better concentration at school, more energy and slept better.

[jake-the-peg]

Lot of variables there - the trouble with twins studies is that you usually just have a small number of subjects so factors don't even out and it's difficult to control.

In a one off experiment like that one could easily have a mild virus duringf the test period.

I'm not saying it's wrong - just that experiments with small numbers of subjects are unreliable

[ummmm]

So you don't believe food and behaviour are connected?

[bobjugs12]

I'm loving this bigotd crap spouted by some on here. My son is Autistic, and is possibly developing ADHD. You gonna tell me that's because I'm a crap parent? Can you then explain why my daughters do not have the same problems he has?
Brenda, your little poem was bo11ocks. You try saying to my face that I'm an "apathetic,incompetent parent" and I will rip your uneducated morally- retarded views to pieces. You really are a moron of the highest order.
It's because of absolute morons like you that my son will always have ANOTHER hurdle to overcome, in a world already full of hurdles.
The words I want to use to describe how much contempt I feel for you would, unfortunately, get me banned; so i'll finish off by saying you make me sick to my stomach.

[rowanwitch]

I think it might have been better had the professionals decided to describe it as a syndrome as it is identified by a number of behaviours not all are shown by any one child, it also manifests differently wih girls and boys, I don't believe you grow out of it either but you can develop or be taught strategies to cope. My mother thinks I probably had it as a child ( tests from the Dore foundation indicate I probably still do but quite mild) and she would admit a clip around the ear would be pointless as you don't register it... time outs do seem to work though. I suspect it isn 't as common as it seems though and I would guess a number of cases are misdiagnosis due to other problems either within the family or due to other conditions including the autism spectrum disorders which are sometimes linked. Friend's son has it very severely and no one would be able to say he was just a naughty kid she is brilliant with him though but had to fight for years to get him the help he needed.

Sqad's opinion would be interesting here....

[jackthehat]

When my son was about 15 months old he had a small glass of Tizer (coloured by E110 - Sunset Yellow) and the change in him was immediate and dramatic (it would take too long to say exactly what happened). After that one episode, I made sure that everything I bought was E110 free and we *never* had any problems after that.
Except, of course, when he ingested something that we hadn't bought and hadn't, therefore, checked. He would have an 'episode' which was as distressing to him as to everyone else - he would be left pale, trembling and exhausted. Thankfully, I can count these times on the fingers of one hand.
I was thankful that I was able to idenitfy exactly what had caused his 'attack' immediately. I suppose there are many children with similar 'triggers' which have gone unidentified.

[joeluke]

How come ADHD was never heard of when I was a kid? No kids I knew or went to school with had it