I met this teacher when my children were in school. She is approaching the age of retirement so she has been spending some time reflecting on her career. She was telling me that thirty years ago when she first started teaching she had never heard of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Now she has several children each year that have been given this label. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder commonly referred to as ADHD is one of the most diagnosed disorders among children today. She feels that the disorder is over diagnosed and that for some children the issues is a learned behavior problem that can be corrected through behavior modification rather than medication, which is often used for attention deficit hyper activity disorder.
This teacher is involved in setting up individual educational plans, also referred to as an IEP, for half of her classroom. She feels that the ability to have harsher disciplinary measures for the entire student body would eliminate the need for many of the IEP’s. ADHD is not the only diagnosis that many children with behavior issues are labeled with. Diagnosis’s from the spectrum of autistic disorders is on the rise also. We discussed the reason for the number of children having these labels and taking medications. We have decided that there has to be a correlation with the changing lifestyles of families along with the nutrition that all of us get. We eat so many more foods that have been processed with preservatives as well as additives.
These chemicals have to have some type of effect. Also there are so many people with an anti-authority attitude. Parents are more apt to use their energy taking on the school system than they are spending time helping to correct their child’s behavior. The result is that the child does not listen to the teachers and this is backed by the parents. This is opposite from when I was in school. If I was in trouble at school I was also in trouble at home. If my parents disagreed with the school, I never heard about it. We never had kids leaving the classroom to get their medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Today children have to form lines outside of the nurses office to get their morning and afternoon medications.
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Attention deficit disorder diagnosis and treatment options
Attention Deficit Disorder or ADD was first noted as early as the mid 19th century, but of course it wasn’t given this name until decades later. It was always thought that poor parenting skills were to blame for the unruly unmanageable child, and the saying “spare the rod spoil the child” was used quite frequently in regard to this type of child.
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