"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.

"I forget: does your SS have any learning disabilities or behavioral disorders?" Ceph, it is hard to say. I think he's very borderline. Granted, he is only in 2nd grade and most LDs aren't diagnosed much earlier than this stage. But each school year, his teachers have all said "he exhibits some signs of ADD, etc, it might be worth getting him tested" yada yada. But they all kind of downplay it, and shrug it off like "could be a problem, could not be." So my theory is if he DOES have some behavioral issues/LDs, they are very mild. He is definitely a young 8. He's always been young for his age, from the start. It doesn't help that he is VERY small (shortest kid in his class) and has a slight build. I feel bad for him because people will meet him and say "let me guess, are you in kindergarten?" OR "are you 6?" It's hard on him. If anything, it has taught me that when guessing a child's age, ALWAYS err on the older side of what you think. Most kids are FLATTERED to have someone think they are older than they really are, but not so much if someone thinks they're younger. Anyway, he kind of acts the same way he looks. He has DEFINITELY matured over the last couple years, so I think he is on his own emotional growth curve, just not sure it's on par with his peers. For example--he sucks his thumb A LOT. Is very into stuffed animals/Littles Pet Shops, etc. I know this sounds bad, but it just seems to me these are things either a younger child or a girl would like, as opposed to an 8 year old boy. So I guess it's not surprising that his language seems delayed. And I DO think a lot of it is BM's poor influence in this area. Another thing he says a lot is "was" in place of "were." As in: "Was my dad and mom there?" (When he really means "Were my dad and mom there?") He's going to be working with a reading specialist 2x a week this summer, so I think DH will speak to her about the language/grammar concerns.

Amy, I wasn't going to add any more to this thread (somehow I got singled out here, and I'm not sure why), but I want to respond to your post. Honestly, I've never noticed errors of any kind in your posts. My impression of you is an intelligent, insightful, talented person. I think if we go back to the original post, we'll see that the comments were about the texts, not the writers. All we were saying is that we scroll on by some posts rather than try to figure them out. On a Lyme Disease forum I belong to, people are asked not to post in long paragraphs because those with Lyme find it difficult to track a train of thought if it isn't broken up into smaller chunks. That certainly is true of me--though I don't know if I can blame it on Lyme--and it's one of the things we were talking about.

I've grown tired of hearing it's how we say it in the sath (or insert your chosen location). I remember how badly my Texas cousin wanted to move to Minnesota. I knew she'd have a lot of trouble though. In Houston, she was a high school honor roll student. In Minnesota, she wouldn't have passed third grade English, grammar or math. We took the Iowa basic skills tests but either they couldn't have or they never scored them. There's no way she could have passed them. Even reading letters/emails from her to this day, there's been no improvement. If you don't learn it in grade school, you're penalized for the rest of your life unless you really make a huge effort. Broadcasting and media have to take their share of the blame for this condition. Not so long ago grammar was important in broadcasting where today it means nothing although I attribute part to the management being so poorly educated they don't know any better. I can only quote Barry Zevan: "Broadcasters these days are absolutely massacring the English language."