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> Assuming neglect among parents of children with ADHD is absolutely uncalled for, and contrary to my experience, where parents of children with ADHD are absolutely run ragged from years of trying to fight to keep their kids healthy, sane, and educated. I never once suggested the parents were being neglectful in the sense they weren't giving it their all or trying their hardest. To your point, they're ragged, the ADHD children clearly need more work, etc. Further, I'm sure the "mental health professionals" recommended it to them. I'm not going to share my personal experiences, but I truly do understand all of this and the struggle. I agree we have no proof about what causes ADHD, and those were all correlations. That said, I can say that in the past 100+ years our entire environment as a species has changed. We have some pretty unreasonable expectations on children and not all of them will want to build, some will want / need to lasso cattle, ride horses, hunt, etc (as we did for tens of thousands of years). They may not learn the way we structure our society, they may not respond well to the chemicals, the change in diet, what have you. It could simply be genetics. The point I was trying to make was it's clear why depression is often correlated (there was no causation in this paper btw) with ADHD and ADHD drugs. Societal and family support is weaker than it was 80 years ago, there's lack of community, less dual-parent households, constantly being told "the world will end", etc That's kind of my point. ADHD and depression are a disease, meaning they are a variety of symptoms that when presented together are diagnosed as impeding normal function. Those symptoms can have various causes and unless careful observation is made, it's possible to conflate or miss the cause, there may also be a multitude of causes. Treating the cause will "cure" the disease, much like you can cure (or at least dramatically reduce the risk of) type 2 diabetes with diet and exercise (the issue being your bodies ability to process glucose -- often due weight); but not Type 1 diabetes. What I want to clarify is that I think this is a societal issue, but expressed it through personal observations. Having one parent clearly has an impact (less energy and capability to give to an ADHD child), having structured education, having screens, etc. Give the example you stated around screen time; would your son be better off trying to learn to focus or playing outside? I honestly don't know for sure, but what is clear is that you care. I'm 100% sure you're doing your best to make that judgement call. My point, was that many times the parents don't care, they just want their kids out of their hair. My general point was never to assign blame, it was to point out that diseases such as ADHD, Autism, depression, anxiety, etc to be diagnosed together. Further, that those diseases often correlate with some of the issues I highlighted. That doesn't mean it's all cases, but to ignore reality isn't going to help either. If we don't examine the causes and we just medicate -- it wont work well for the children. Medicate as needed, but if we can, we should try to cure the disease. |