ADHD

JL Wilson opines that many of America’s children are “overdrugged and overdisciplined” http://independentcountry.blogspot.com/2006/02/what-are-we-fighting-for.html I understand the point he is trying to make about tyranny in schools, but I think it all goes back to parents who have abdicated responsibility for discipline and who surrender their children to the state. I visited a friend who was hosting a children’s sleepover this weekend, and it was a little like a visit to a monkey house. If I had to live with some of the kids my conspecifics have produced, I might be grateful for a diagnosis of ADHD and the opportunity to drug them into submission. In my experience working with children from messed up families, I have met a few who merited a genuine diagnosis of ADHD. I have met even more who likely had fetal alcohol syndrome but whose parents preferred a diagnosis of ADHD. That way, the kid got the special program without their being tagged with any responsibility for the kid’s condition.

I have met even more kids diagnosed with ADHD who were in all probability trained to be wild and undisciplined and whose parents finally found them too overwhelming to deal with as they matured. The same parental sloth that created the wild child to begin with allows the parents to rely on drugs. Moreover, the diagnosis of ADHD allows them to deny any responsibility for their child’s behavior. By the time they get to school, they are going to be so disruptive that their teachers will jump at the chance to drug them or transfer them to a special class, and the parents will cheer.

I am all for allowing children as much freedom as possible and encouraging learning and curiosity. But parents don’t do their children or themselves any favors by letting them run wild and having too little discipline. I have remarked before that too many parents today are unwilling for their children ever to be thwarted in any desire or to have to delay gratification for even a moment. You don’t have to beat them or anything, just lay down some rules and structure. Your children are not as stupid as you apparently think. They can be trained to be amiable and considerate human beings who can dress themselves, eat with utensils and use the bathroom by themselves. A little early effort will pay off big time in the long run.

There is a type of parent that I secretly think of as “mooching child owners”. They want to enjoy their children much like extremely expensive pets, but they want to pass the social and economic costs of their hobby onto everyone else. They think nothing of exposing everyone to their wild and undisciplined spawn in public places and are astonished that anyone might be annoyed at, say, being pelted with food by the toddler in the next booth at the diner. They send their imps to public schools paid for mainly by others and expect the schools to discipline them. Their unruly children take up a disproportionate amount of teacher time and school resources and may even require specialized attention, the cost of which is foisted upon the community. To add insult to injury, they want tax credits for having reproduced.

I hope that lazy parents are the minority. Otherwise, in my old age I will be ruled by the generation of the semi-feral.