"I am hoping this will be helpful to create an awareness of the dangers of relying on medication to solve behavioral problems. " Before even reading your position statement, my immediate reaction was that you are going into this with at least two hidden biases: - First, that the adults are relying on pills to "solve the problems" rather than mitigate the severity of the issues that cause the symptoms, or to assist the child in overcoming the problems, and - Second, that the problems are "behavioral" in nature and not medical. But after reading your stance, it seems like your position is the familiar "overdiagnosing, overmedicating, underparenting" argument. I do hope you'll dig much deeper than this. As the parent of two boys with labels, I will admit that there is some truth to your stance. But that pendulum also swings the other way, with the "overdiagnosing" argument preventing children from receiving the legitimate medical treatment that can help them succeed. My older son was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, and is also gifted intellectually and artistically. Prior to his diagnoses, he struggled to learn to read and his self-esteem plummeted in response to his unexpected difficulties. I had always been an active and involved parent and had a close relationship with my son, and while he WAS very active, I did not experience ANY discipline problems at home. So when the educational psychologist I took him to (suspecting dyslexia) suggested ADHD in addition to dyslexia, I was surprised and reluctant to believe it. But teacher interviews overwhelmingly supported that diagnosis, and after considring the issue carefully, I agreed to a trial of stimulant medication. It made a significant, immediate and positive difference in his schoolwork. He was finally able to concentrate enough to benefit from his reading instruction, and caught up to 'grade level' relatively quickly. He was also able to curb his impulsiveness, which smoothed over some of his previous social and classroom difficulties. He was happier and doing well again. Then his stepmother got involved, citing the "overdiagnosed, overmedicated" argument, and his father, citing the "He's just like I was!" (therefore?) argument threatened to sue the doctor if he continued to prescribe stimulants, so I agreed to take him off the meds. DS's schoolwork began to slip and problem behaviors re-emerged, though with even more active parenting, those issues were held in reasonable check. He is still disorganized, forgetful, impulsive and very distractable, problems that were much less severe when he was medicated. Does he absolutely for-certain have ADHD? I guess I can't say for sure. Without a scientifically validated medical test, no one can say for 100% sure. But what I can absolutely say is that being on stimulant medication helped him significantly, and the "overdiagnosed / overmedicated" argument harmed him. My younger son is diagnosed with PDD-NOS, a mild form of autism, another of the "wildly overdiagnosed" conditions. There is absolutely no question in the minds of anyone who knows him that there is something going on, some disorder of some sort. What exactly that diagnosis should be is still up for discussion, among experts and parents alike, and PDD/NOS is simply the best (if imperfect) fit. But he too has been harmed by the "overdiagnosed / overmedicated" mindset. Even among treating professionals, there is a certain amount of "overanxious parent" skepticism. With some physicians you can see the skepticism when they first walk in the room, and watch it melt when they determine that there actually IS a basis-in-fact to the parent's concerns. "With this campaign, I hope to bring to light the exorbitant amount of children being diagnosed and medically treated for "disorders" like ADHD." Believe me -- this 'issue' is hardly in the dark. It is out there and being trumpeted far and wide; it needs no advocate. But please know also that this viewpoint harms some children as well as helping some of them. " It will show that many of these "disorders" can be corrected simply by a parent paying more attention, or a teacher altering the way a subject is taught. " Certainly, active, involved parenting and creative teaching strategies geared toward the needs of each individual child are good, effective tactics. But to suggest that medical biological disorders can be "fixed" by simple good parenting / good teaching are simplistic in the extreme, and harmful to the children who actually do have these problems. Now there IS good science being done that establishes how intensive behavioral patterning and effective one-on-one and small group teaching can actually change the structure of the brain, re-wiring neural pathways. (Look into dyslexia remediation strategies and Applied Behavior Analysis in treating autism.) To investigate how intensive training and instruction can actually "cure" medical disorders that originate in the brain by realigning neural pathways -- a similar but more scientific and greatly intensified approach to your 'active parenting/individualized teaching' argument -- there's some thesis material.

A__'s 8 (almost 9) He lives at four different houses - so his life in incredibly inconsistent (BM's, my BF's, BM's mom's, and my BF's dad's) We only have him on weekends (and the time frame is highly variable - sometimes we get him Friday night and BM calls Saturday morning that she wants him back, sometimes we have him until Sunday night. Sometimes we don't get him until Sunday morning and drop him at school on Monday) He plays soccer (usually one practice and one game per week) BF usually winds up taking him to that because even though everyone else says "Ooooh, it's soooo important for him to be in sports" they also can't be bothered to drive him or attend his games. (but that's an unrelated rant about hypocrisy and unreliability from A__'s other caregivers) Warcraft is a fantasy game (orks and mages and stuff do quests to find treasure and learn skills) that was originally designed for teens and up, but it's not graphic or adult themed, so it's really popular with 8-12 yo boys. He plays about 5-10 hours of it on weekend days at the moment. 5 is a lot, but 10 is just plain unreasonable. He plays for about 2-3 hours after he gets up (he wakes us up usually around 8, I get him breakfast, then I go back to bed until about 10 and get up to shower etc) We don't mind him playing in the morning before we're up and being allowed to play in the morning keeps him from sneaking up in the night and so on. Then he wants to play it all afternoon and evening too. I can't say that I blame him, there hasn't been much in the way of toys or other things to do at my BF's place lately (A__ outgrew the toys that BF had, and every time A__ gets presents, BM wants them all at her place. BF bought him a Wii, BM said it should be at her place, etc etc. BF asked BM for some ideas of what A__ is really playing with these days and she said "I'll send some toys over" but then changed her mind and wouldn't even give ideas because "He doesn't need toys at your house. He has toys at my house" - another unrelated rant in the making) The other thing is that A__ is very very high input (ADHD in action) so it's very hard to keep him at an activity for more than a few minutes. My BF really wants to do other things with him, but BF has always been at a loss as to how to keep someone with A__'s attention span focused on something other than Warcraft. He's a good dad, but he has trouble thinking from A__'s point of view sometimes and isn't all that creative when it comes to thinking up activities for A__ to do. Which is where the other thread (Hands-on/Active ideas) comes in. A__ is pretty good about listening when we say "Only one hour of Warcraft tonight" - he sometimes stalls by starting a quest with 5 minutes left in the hour or says "but I lost two minutes when I went to the bathroom" etc, but what kid wouldn't? So now that we're working on the activities stockpile so actually have other things for him to do, and we have decided to give up on toys from BM so just go buy him some, we were thinking of starting with 5 hours of Warcraft (for a whole day) that he can earn extra 15 minute blocks for with good behaviors. After awhile, we think we'll drop it down to 4. That means the structure of the morning can stay the same (which is good because all three of us like this system) but then he has to budget his time for the afternoon and evening and it legislates that he HAS to do something else. BF works some odd shifts and we don't live together (A__ asks me each week to "stay for the whole weekend pleeeeease?" and that's why I get him breakfast and stuff). So at present it's not all that practical for us to have A__ for a more structured time, but once we get engaged and move in together (probably this summer) we plan to ask for a more regular schedule, which will help with some of our troubles stemming from unpredictable schedules.

I wouldn't want one myself. Wastes too much space. But for some people it works miracles. As a general rule, you have to show things to clients, not describe them. And I wouldn't even show that thing to a client without also including examples of the different types of more flexible storage that would accompany it. A safe assumption is that any client, ADHD or not, is going to be very literal and poor at envisioning and imagining things. I also think that very personalized solutions are important not only because of individual differences but because I think in ten or fifteen years the notion that there is one, single syndrome called "ADHD" will join the flat-earth theory. Lots of issues are being lumped into that now to maximize the market for certain pharmaceuticals, but it is already clear that some patterns are different and could have a treatable genetic basis. Speaking of which, I'm just curious--is your client sweet or ornery, hyper or sleepy? It can make a difference. Anyway, I would still try to build in some inflexibility into the storage. One idea would be to include cubbies or dividers of varying sizes. It wouldn't solve the issue but it would narrow down the places to look for lost items, since a stick blender obviously can't be in a cubby the size of a deck of cards. One other idea to consider. Kitchens are typically organized into zones and you wouldn't put your knives and forks over where you prep food, nor would your mellon baller go over by the dishes. But I wonder in this case it would be simpler to group things by size or keep all the storage together, since you know everything is going to end up in the wrong place anyway and at least you can cut down on footsteps while searching. Did you or your client consider speaking to one of the organizational consultants that specialize in ADHD?

My ss has some (not all but some) of these tendencies.. Some of them have changed or evolved over the years but are still there in some form He often doesn't know where a sound is coming from (I had put this to that he had ear infections as a kid and has tubes, but then I found out tubes shouldn't do that) *** Not one that he has has problems with He often doesn't realize someone is speaking - he says he just hears a sound, but doesn't realize it's talking. I had thought he was just hyper-focused on something else, but he's getting WAY better about hyper-focus and it's still happening. ***ditto but I am guessing not as bad... I will be talking to SS and unless I have grabbed his attention and make sure he makes eye contact with me ... it's like it was all just a buzzing in the backround. He forgets the meaning of everyday words frequently. Poor little guy cried the other day because he was so frustrated that he couldn't remember the word "armpit" :( ***had some difficulty with this when he was younger... sometimes still has this issue. It's like a little roadblock just popped into his head. I know he had used the word before and I know he knows what it means but it just isnt there and he will get himself frustrated. I usually just use it in several sentences and he'll catch on. His speech therapy is going very well, but our big struggle is that he doesn't hear the difference between phonemes. *** not a big problem with him right now... mostly I am sick of the 'ghetto talk' (or at least that is what I call it) He babbles a lot, much like how a baby or toddler babbles. Random, meaningless phonemes strung together... Last week, just out of curiousity, I popped my head into his room and asked "Hey, whatcha talking about, kiddo?" and his reply was "Huh? I wasn't making any noise." *** he did used to do this and it would confuse me because I would have no clue what he is talking about. Usually telling him to calm it down and sometimes take a break would solve it. It was like he was so excited about what was going on or what he was doing he just didnt take the time to form full words. Now he (quite frequently) will be moving his mouth. No sound will come out but he is definately 'talking'. I asked him the other day if he realized that he was doing that and he said 'doing what?' I have no clue how to fix that... right now I am taking a no harm no foul approach to this one. We have so many other things to work on. He can repeat your words back verbatim, but has no clue what they mean when questioned on it. For example "Put on your shoes, A__" and he looks right at you while you say it, but then he walks away... When we ask "What did I just tell you?" he can say "Put on your shoes, A__"... but when we ask what he should do with that instruction he is puzzled and has to think about it before he cheerfully exclaims "I should put on my shoes!!" and promptly does it. So I don't think it's just attitude or not listening. ***Big Big problem with SS right now. I ask what did I say... he repeats it... I ask what does that mean or what should you do... he is clueless. I mostly just make a point of asking more questions... like so what should you do... what do you think would be the next step... that way I can be sure he understood what I said in the first place. I keep telling him listening is active that means he needs to think about what is being said. Hearing is inactive ... thats just hearing words bee bop around in your head. I want you to listen to what I am saying... so I want you to think about it and repeat it in your own words (big deal) usually if he can word it in his own words he has got it. If not we know to take a step back and try again. He often doesn't know if the TV is loud or quiet. He'll be STRAINING to hear it, or covering his ears because it's blaring, but when asked "Why not turn it up/down?" he says he doesn't notice it was quiet/loud. I would chalk it up to lazy or just being a kid, but he will get up to change the lighting or get a blanket and so on. It seems like he has a physical reaction to the volume, but he doesn't have any clue how to affect change to it. Does that even makes sense? ***this could be a bigger problem ... but it could be nothing .. I have had similar situation with all of my kids not just ss with adhd... it's like it just doesnt click that oh yeah that would fix the problem. I guess it would really depend on how often it happens. Sometimes when listening to a simple instruction, he cannot carry out the task - like folding a towel "Now bring the bottom up to the top" - and he says "I was listening, but I didn't get it" He genuinely appears to be listening - he is watching, is being quiet, has attentive body language, and so on, but he just doesn't hear it. ***another big one with SS... sometimes it is like I am speaking a foreign language to him and sometimes I do find myself getting frustrated with thinking "How in the hell do I say put the lid on the tupperware container a different way..." I dont really know what the key is here ... I do know I just keep trying to think of different ways to phrase things... and often time I physically put the lid of the container while I am saying it and then he says "Oh! I thought..." and then I take it off and say here you go. I feel like it defeated the purpose of asking him do it for me in the first place but I would rather get him to understand directions than get upset over having to put the 'lid on the container' myself I honestly dont know anything about auditory processing disorder so I dont know the answer there. But, my ss with adhd has some of these problems/concerns. It is mostly just a day to day thing for us. We know what it takes to get certain things across... ie eye contact or he isnt listening and we make sure other know this. Since he is getting older I am more and more pointing out things like SS, you know you will forget these things if you dont write them down, so you need to write them down... and ss you know you are not listening if you arent making eye contact so make eye contact... take the initiative. My theory is that we are not always going to be able to tell teachers and coaches what his deal is. He needs to realize it and take control of it in order to benefit his life in the long run.