Quote:
Originally Posted by AGDee
I'm basing that statement on my experience working on child/adolescent psych units for 13 years. There were many times that we would be discussing the treatment plan of a child who was hyperactive and impulsive and the psychiatrist would immediately want to put the kid on Ritalin. The support staff didn't always agree because those symptoms can be indicative of anxiety as well and we wanted to be sure it was truly ADHD through testing, etc. The doctors had the attitude "We try him/her on Ritalin and if it gets better, then it was ADHD". I saw it thousands of times, even if the only time the child became hyper and impulsive was an hour before family therapy and was fine the rest of the day.
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It's not overdiagnosed generally, in fact it's felt that it's underdiagnosed, but in some areas it is grossly overdiagnosed which is where the hysteria about every kid in america needs ritalin comes in.
Your three year old can't pay attention? It's called being three. Your seven year old is sitting in a classroom with a group of other students, assigned to do work and wanders off because something else is more interesting? ADHD. (ME!)
Some people just don't want to deal with their kids being kids...