ADD was created?

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After a psych evaluation, school's idea, I knew pharmacology was going to be introduced--it was. He introduced ADHD as part of the inattention problem and how it could be treated quite well with a stimulant and how this could also help with friends too. Whatever he's selling, I'm not buying it.

ADHD might exist, but you can keep your stimulant meds. I like my son just the way he is thank you. I'm not about to drug him up so he can be too zoned out to know what hit him.

So, you're telling me he can make friends if he takes a drug? Come on! It seems too simplified. How will he ever learn strategies for social situations or attending to the task at hand? I don't want a robot. My son has grown tremendously in leaps and bounds since he was small. I'm mortified how parents drug their kids so they can be A students or more compliant. It seems almost surreal to me--like some sci fi movie--louis lowry's The Giver sums it up pretty well--anyone read?

When I told this particular doctor how I explained to my son all about aspergers because he inssited on knowing what was what and wouldn't accept anything but the truth, he said "Well, you want to be careful and make sure that he knows he's so much more than that."

What a boob.

I talked about it all with my son, even the meds. I am very open with him and feel dishonest if I were doing something, or even speaking about him, behind his back. If some day he has to take meds because he truly can't function (depression or suicidal), then he will agree to it and understand all about it. In other words, he will have a say as to what goes into his body.

equinn

I believe the reason we have 'diagnosis' of things such as ADD/HD and AS is because our modern societies have much narrower allowances for what is considered normal.

Someone who has the traits of what we call ADD/HD is not malfunctioning in any true manner.
People with ADD/HD actually have some very strong traits that just do not translate well in modern society where we are expected to keep track of time, organize an overabundance of things in our lives, and be passive for situations that are not necessarily positive.

I can learn quite a bit, even with ADD/HD, but not need to sit in a classroom for the length of time our school systems dictate.
It's a bad system to make all kids adhere to the same standards when you can't come up with the 'best' method to teach every kid in a single group.

Work... I have had 40 jobs in my adult life. Many of these jobs had no real necessity for having me show up at some exact time and start work. There was no one to relieve, no machines that had to be turned on/off at a precise time, etc.
I would have been much more productive if they had given me a list of things needing to be done and let me work at my own pace and scheduling.
I often do not have to take breaks, nor stop for lunch. But our current labor laws and the mindset of management is that every employee has two 10 minute breaks... one prior to lunch and one after lunch.
Then the employee must take a lunch break at four hours into their shift.

I've run into this too many times... my ADD/HD allows me to work more efficiently in a different way that would not cause the system any hardship.

Basically, my feeling is that I do not have an attention deficit and it is certainly not a disorder.
My moments of hyperactivity can be used in a positive manner but clash against an arbitrary system that requires me to sit or work for long periods.
I pay attention to many things... just not for very long, most times. This does not constitute a 'deficit' of attention.. just a different manner of using my 'attention'.

I think if we could change the way our schools are operated, we would see this whole problem of ADD/HD in children change to be not so great a problem.

It's all about understanding the varied nature of the human mind and creating ways for each person to work efficiently for the way their brain works.
I'm not talking about 6 billion different rules, but understanding that we can group folks in ways that will capitalize on their strengths instead of trying to turn these strengths into weaknesses and then labeling these people as defective.

I try to assimilate myself into the mainstream workforce as best as possible, and on rare occasions (my current job and employer for example), I find a place where I am allowed to work more like myself than be forced to work against myself.

I still take responsibility for showing up late to work, and not getting some things done... but my supervisor understands that for the most part, I am a hard worker who can get things done, will not gripe about missing my break, and will eagerly accept new assignments.
My pluses seem to counter my minuses I think. That is why I have been here over 5 years now.

Remains that you were making a dishonest connection by linking 'healthy skepticism' with people calling ADD 'lazy' or whatever and pointing at me as one of those. I am not going to bother and try hard to be polite with the likes of you.

It wasn't a dishonest connection, I really did believe that you read all of the previous posts and were defending Yupa's opinion that Twoshots was clearly referring to. Granted he definitely went out of line with the namecalling, and negated his credibility after that. But all I'd have to do is substitute ADD with ASD is this discussion to empathize with his and other people's frustration.

If there was no connection, and you had no idea that other people were saying these things, then sorry. I didn't mean to make it look like you said those things, it just seemed apparent to me that you were defending those who were. It helps to read an entire discussion in order to see the context of person's post, especially if their reaction seems really extreme.