I’m sure my kids would be inundated with all sorts of labels if they attended public school.

The one month my eldest attended third grade was a nightmare.

Schools need to place students inside convenient little boxes.

Almost everyone I know has one or more children with some disorder or another.

Is it real or imagined?

There is such competition for children to excel with schoolwork and test scores that parents are medicating kids to perform well – like little racehorses on steroids.

A diagnosis of ADHD brings so many benefits in the school system. Kids with ADHD are entitled to special classes and extra time on tests – even the SAT and ACT and college entrance exams. The schools have an invested interest in diagnosing kids with disorders and/or special needs to receive more tax funding. Teachers want quiet and compliant kids who stay silently in their seats.

Homeschooling allows me the freedom to teach each of my children however it best suits us. Each of my four children are individuals with needs that require much care and time on my part.

We all have strengths and weaknesses.

We don’t all have a disorder, or do we?

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

A child’s identity should be based on their abilities rather than disabilities. And certainly not just on appearances or a list of symptoms that may vary with different circumstances.

This thread on Twitter is educational. I don’t want to be that abled mother who sees my kids as “less-than.”

I’ve seen mamas’ digital signatures in forums and whatnot, proudly displaying the whole “Wife to so-and-so, mother to 4 kids, 1 with {insert disorder acronym, spectrum tag, disability, whatever}”

Obviously, it’s informative and helpful for moms to find others to share and support each other.

But I think some mothers wear their kids’ disabilities and disorders like a badge of honor.

Some mothers seem proud they have such a burden in their kids’ disorders. They love the attention they get and the sympathy when they complain.

And I get eye rolls and tsk, tsk if I dare utter a complaint ever because my kids are neurotypical or even “above average.”

Who decides what is typical or divergent?

But what is normal?

Is mental illness the new norm?

I am all for people getting the services they need and deserve. There are more great therapies and medication to help people than there ever was before. Knowledge is power.

But where is the knowledge coming from? Is it correct? Who decides?

Movies and television programs deify psychology. The person with a psychology degree is considered a god. Social media encourages kids and teens to self-diagnose themselves.

It was worrying to think how labeling her like that, without a diagnosis or even a doctor’s appointment, could affect her for the rest of her life. Saying so nonchalantly that children have a psychological or neurological disorder as if they are hungry or cold is very serious. Not only does it belittle the severity and seriousness of those who truly suffer from these conditions, but it also labels children unfairly. When they hear a plotline repeated about their lives, they begin to associate themselves with these labels and draw identity conclusions from them. These narratives become their life story, and it is very hard to get our of them.

The Danish Way of Parenting

I know some parents with very real struggles with very real children with very real challenges. I am not discounting real diagnoses or real special needs or disabilities that are physical, biological, or psycho-social.

The issue with ADHD is that it has no biological markers. It is overdiagnosed in the USA.

Lots of kids don’t actually get a real medical diagnosis. You can’t just claim your kid has ADHD because he can’t sit still for hours or she daydreams sometimes instead of completing 60 algebra problems in an hour.

It’s so much easier to make our kids pop a pill than to teach them executive function or self-control or to learn it ourselves.

We are destroying children with our expectations.

In 1991, Congress included ADHD as a disability that falls under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). So the child’s family is entitled to disability benefits. It is more work for individual teachers completing IEPs for these kids. It is quite the conundrum.

Schools and the expectations for children is often a big part of the problem.

Since when is being a child an illness?

There should be comprehensive tests to diagnose disorders and syndromes (and physical issues as well). It should take more than 20 minutes and a little checklist of 6/15 symptoms for a doctor to determine a child has ADHD.

Online quizzes are dangerous. I look at those online medical quizzes and apparently I have every disorder, syndrome, disease, and illness known and unknown and will not live past next year.

Like astrology in which everyone relates to her horoscope, almost everyone who takes an ADHD quiz discovers she is “sick.”

Is this the new witchcraft?

So, without a battery of real medical tests that come back with a true medical diagnosis, don’t label kids to make up for a lack of relationship.

I think there is a vast overdiagnosis of American kids with ADHD and other psycho-social issues. We are medicating America.

It makes our society complacent and then no one is responsible for any behavior. They blame “The Disorder.”

Sure, lots of kids probably show signs of ADHD. It’s often a temporary thing that kids experience under stress. And we are surely a very stressed out society.

In America, the oddball is the mother with kids who have no labels.

Does everybody who is labeled with it actually have ADHD?

It’s way overdiagnosed in America. Fewer European kids are diagnosed or medicated for ADHD than American kids. They have a different lifestyle and priorities.

We monitor behavior in our family closely. We have a flexible schedule and structure. We stay close together to relate well.

A military pediatrician diagnosed my eldest as “OFF THE CHARTS ADHD” when she was seven. I just never fully agreed with it. Honestly? She was SEVEN. She was learning to cope with daily life with a new dad, two new sisters, a cross-country move, and beginning homeschooling. She had been abused by her birth father. Stress!

I don’t fear the ADHD label: I just think many kids diagnosed with it is unnecessary and imaginary. My little kids don’t even know these labels exist. They’re children. When they get rambunctious, I send them outside or we have a dance party. No one wants to sit still and quiet for hours.

 “‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. 

Deuteronomy 5:8-10

In John 5, Jesus asked the man at the pool: “Do you want to get well?”

“Many of us want freedom from pain, but we don’t always want the adversity that comes with spiritual wellness.”

Michelle Lazurek

I am not discounting real physiological illness that can be complex.

We weren’t always in a homeschool environment. As a classroom teacher, I saw all sorts of kids with very real family, medical, and personal problems.

My eldest attended day care and preschool until she was five. When she attended third grade (for a month), the school officials immediately labeled her. Many of her classmates were already labeled. It was a military (DoD) school and medical clinic. They certainly had an agenda.

I see many parents who reveled in their kids’ labels and hid behind them rather than do any real parenting. They’re winging it and perpetuating generational trauma. Many just don’t know any better. And just because a kid has real special needs doesn’t release a parent from setting some boundaries and education.

Many of my students acted differently with me than with other teachers. I treated them differently and tried not to listen to what others had to say about attitudes and behaviors. I gave those kids a chance to be themselves. I respected them. I listened.

I do know very real issues are out there, but I think some doctors and parents are too quick to smack an ADHD label and prescribe an addictive amphetamine rather than evaluate and learn the root of the problem. The doctors don’t have time to do a proper exam or listen to issues.

As a military family, there is little continuity in the medical field. We have new doctors frequently and records don’t get written up well, transferred timely, or read by new staff. We moved every 2-4 years and it’s just really hard to maintain a relationship with the medical staff.

There are many real reasons for the symptoms of ADHD that should be explored. Hormones, environmental causes, brain injury, dietary allergies, or emotional issues. This is not a biological illness as the drug companies and many doctors would have us believe. ADHD is usually a temporary psycho-social disorder that could be managed with therapy and addressing environmental and relational stresses. Drugs should be a last resort and only temporary. We don’t have many longitudinal studies about the effects of these drugs long-term.

The common drugs prescribed for ADHD: Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta, Quillivant, Methylin, Strattera – many highly addictive stimulants – are Schedule II controlled substances (the same category as Oxycontin).

Some help for brain (and physical) health for some people:

• Vitamins: especially D, B complex, E, and other antioxidants.
• Mineral supplements: magnesium, chromium, selenium
• Cod liver oil. Everyone needs this to help maintain mental acuity.
• Healthy real food diet. Start by limiting processed snacks and sweets and introducing more fruits and vegetables. Healthy fats and oils instead of trans fats. Be wary when eating out. Even if allergy tests return negative, don’t discount a sensitivity. Do an elimination diet to make sure!
• Regular exercise. Get the whole family in the habit.
• Outside time. Fresh air and sunshine works wonders.
• Therapy. We need to overcome our triggers and generational trauma. We cannot continue to pass this along to our children.
• Meds. Perhaps as temporary assistance while undergoing lifestyle changes and therapy.

If it takes two years to gain fifty pounds, it will take many months of hard work to lose weight. Too many Americans want instant gratification in the form of a miracle med that often exacerbates the issues with unwanted side effects. I know too many mothers who are exhausted due to a poor lifestyle during their childhood and youth. It often takes years, much time, and even money to get healthy again. It takes work.

Our lifestyles are a rat race trying to keep up when we really just need to slow down.

How is this affecting our children?

Instead of having a relationship with our children, we look to the screens as babysitters, food as drugs, and drugs as candy.

And we wonder why so many kids are asthmatic, obese, and inattentive? Some parents just aren’t the best role models. They don’t know any better. But kids learn by example. If we had poor role models, shouldn’t we educate ourselves so we can be better stewards of our bodies and teach our kids to be good stewards of their bodies? To leave a legacy of physical and mental health is important.

And I realize that receiving sufficient mental and physical health resources is a privilege many don’t have. It’s very expensive in the USA and there is a societal stigma that we are slowly removing, but kids, women, and people of color still have issues finding and receiving good medical care.

As kids get older, maybe we should ask them if they want the label. We should learn and help them understand the stigma so we can eliminate it in our society. We as an entire society need to shift and heal together.

What I’m NOT saying:

• I’m NOT saying that everyone who has weight issues is lazy or a bad parent. Weight issues are quite real and are often hereditary and a sign of many other problems that can take generations to heal with help. Weight doesn’t always equal health. It’s often a struggle. But the medical community loves to only treat symptoms and not look for the reasons behind them. I realize our society has fatphobia.
• Not every mom revels in her kids’ labels, disorders, special needs. If a child has a real medical illness, physical disabilities, mental disorders, or special needs, then by all means, doctors, specialists, medical professionals, and recommended services should be used. Use discretion. Just don’t make excuses or use bandaids.
• All home and school environments are unique. I have experienced public, private, all levels, homeschool, co-ops…and I have seen all sorts of parents, kids, teachers, and administrators who did and did not serve children well. Learn to recognize toxic and abusive environments and avoid them.

The symptoms of ADHD do exist, but many of the symptoms can be explained by other medical or mental diagnoses.

Helpful: Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale for ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences)

Even if and when kids are correctly diagnosed with a medical disability, disorder, or disease, they are more than a label.

Resources:

• Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It by Gabor Maté
• When the Body Says No by Gabor Maté
• Suffer the Children: The Case against Labeling and Medicating and an Effective Alternative by Marilyn Wedge 
• Hype: A Doctor’s Guide to Medical Myths, Exaggerated Claims, and Bad Advice – How to Tell What’s Real and What’s Not by Nina Shapiro MD and Kristin Loberg
• The Myth of the ADHD Child, Revised Edition: 101 Ways to Improve Your Child’s Behavior and Attention Span Without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion by Thomas Armstrong 
• The ADHD Explosion: Myths, Medication, Money, and Today’s Push for Performance by Stephen P. Hinshaw and Richard M. Scheffler 
• The ADD Myth: How to Cultivate the Unique Gifts of Intense Personalities by Martha Burge  
• The Myth of ADHD and Other Learning Disabilities: Parenting Without Ritalin by Jan Strydom and Susan Du Plessis 
• Smart but Scattered: The Revolutionary “Executive Skills” Approach to Helping Kids Reach Their Potential by Peg Dawson and Richard Guare  
• ADHD Does Not Exist: The Truth About Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder by Richard Saul 
• Eating Mindfully: How to End Mindless Eating and Enjoy a Balanced Relationship with Food by Susan Albers
• The Danish Way of Parenting: What the Happiest People in the World Know About Raising Confident, Capable Kids by Jessica Joelle Alexander and Iben Sandahl 
• Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman
• How Children Learn by John Holt
• Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life by Peter Gray
• Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children by Angela J. Hanscom
• Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids by Kim John Payne
• Free-Range Kids: How Parents and Teachers Can Let Go and Let Grow by Lenore Skenazy
• Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships by Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD 
• Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Maté  
• The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture by Gabor Maté