I have two daughters, one has ADD, one does not. The one with ADD is the younger of the two. I refer to her as a human border collie. She was diagnosed as being ADD by her fifth grade teacher, in response to her falling grades. Apparently, that's a very common time for that to happen, as their classwork starts to become more demanding. Naturally, we were upset, and didn't want to medicate her, but nothing else was working, so that's what we tried, and her grades improved almost immediately.
Now, for those of you who think its lazy parenting, please tell me why it is that the older child has never had this issue. Trust me on this, they get the same parenting, live in the same house, have gone to the same schools, and dance at the same studio. She doesn't take her medication (Adderall) on the weekend, and I can tell you she behaves very differently Her follow thorough on basic household tasks is not good, although we do manage to get her to do her homework, but it can be a bit of a struggle.
For those of you "follow the money" folks, she was diagnosed by her teacher, who is a public employee and has no financial incentives. All this meant to her was some extra work. The school system does not get extra money for ADD children, much of the time, they don't even know which ones have been diagnosed as such. The diagnosis was confirmed by her pediatrician, who is her regular doctor. We called him and made the appointment, he had no control over who we chose, and received his standard fee for that sort thing. The only party in this chain that has made any substantial amount of money is the drug maker, who has no part in the decision making process.
Why is this diagnosis appearing now? For one thing, we're asking more of more children, we're trying to get more kids performing at a high level. Look at how selective many of the big state schools have become. When I was applying to colleges, the University of Florida, which was my home state's school, was a backup. Now it's a selective university. How about a really selective place, like Stanford? Half of the applicants to Stanford are their class valedictorians, and most of them don't get in. We all want the best for our children, and when something stands in the way of their success, we do our best to overcome it. Years ago, when someone wasn't all that good of a student, no one worried about it all that much, if they wanted to go to college, they'd get in somewhere, and if they didn't, fine, there were other things to do for a living. Nowadays, most of us don't accept that.
