In the 1940's ( born 1941 ) I suffered ADHD but was quickly cured by my "old man " who gave me a fell clip around the ears !
Have had no recurrence since !
I can still recall the moment clearly & from that time was happy to continue family life supported by the firm comfort of knowing that if I complied all would be good , and it has been
My children have continued in similar manner.

I think the Bart example of ADHD = naughty is just one version of the disorder. There are the quiet inattentive dreamers as well. Nice kids with heads full of ideas and information swirling around, reducing their will to concentrate. One psychologist I have met with suggested that Leonardo da Vinci displays the typical characteristics of ADHD - type inattentive. Imagine the loss to the world if he was medicated. I agree with Brenton that research, addressing a more holistic approach, will be of great benefit.

Medication could be a bandaid or a solution for my son, but in searching through the scientific literature I am finding it difficult to make an informed decision on alternative treatment options that are supported or disproved by rigorous science. The physical side effects of medication are well documented and the potential cost to creativity and intellectual freedom, I think, are high. We are seeking alternatives, not to fix his 'problem' but to support his mental and psychological growth and well-being

I welcome a broader conversation.

Great article!! Is adhd real? Its as real as the individual thinks it is, or wants it to be, what you see is what you get, always has been always will be, or is it what you imagine, either way, kids are being poisoned, and called names, and its criminal and wrong, in the minds and hearts of the honestly compassionate, and the evolved, every action has a cause or a reason, and its not a chemical imbalance, its a one plus one reason-equals two = reality, equation, so its an investigation reality, not a medication, and stick them in a corner reality, the lazy, invasive and antagonistic approach, call them names, and shut them down with a pill because i cant cope, and that makes me feel bad about me, the pseudo doctors taking advantage of what they've created(adhd- insecurity) in their self serving imaginations, taking advantage of the vulnerable and the unevolved, the scared and immature, blaming their vulnerable clients kids behavior, or ever changing chemical balance, the ordinary good behavior ,the not so good ordinary behavior, the standard boundary testing behaviors, the growing learning behaviors in all children, to appease their guilt, ignorance, and inadequacy as a parent, these are the same kids we all grew up with ,and around, in the sixties ans seventies, and the majority are parents themselves, own their own houses, with their own kids, and are living happily ever after, just like you or me, they were never called professional leporising names like adhd or bi- polar, and poisoned, in my day they weren't , and we are still the same people!!!. I know i would have been adhd Xs two, i even had a teacher in grade three who refused to teach me, and called me horrible names, i knew this teacher wasn't like other teachers, this teacher was very short wicked, very unevolved, and was basically a meany, i dont blame her, she was just unevolved, ( and i was a terrorist child) that's not a crime, but its a reality that we all have to deal with and work around, with some people in our lives, i see these same adhd flag flyers and the creators of this pseudo disease, as that teacher, striking out at what causes them to fret, imagine the worst, or over concern themselves, which in turn does the same to their victim, and "fills" society with an insecurity, that shouldn't and doesn't need to be there, damaging us all, no one more, than our young bouncy bean children. Leave them alone, stop picking on them and their "children's behavior", stop poisoning them and calling them names, making them insecure and feeling bad about themselves, encourage and nurture them, get some help to cope, and deal with what you cant. no ones blaming anyone, except psychiatry who's poisoning the minds of our young and innocent children via their insecure, unevolved and not so good as parents, parents. yeah sure weave got out of control kids, who grow up to be out of control adults, and some of those will have real mental disorders, but they are one in a hundred not one in five or two in five like their making out it is. That's about a dollar and them,and has very little to do with us, its just that us, is believing in them, when us should believe in us. Don't believe me? Then why wont insurers insure the mentally ill?

(((Disability insurers find themselves in a bind. They want to insure people with mental illness but they are struggling to get their heads around how to cover an area of medicine that can't be proven (or disproven) with tests.

Mental illnesses are a set of conditions that are opinion based, and doctors disagree in their opinions all the time. So when the time comes to deal with an insurance claim of mental illness, it becomes complex. This frightens insurers because they have limited means available to mitigate their losses.

Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/opinion/politics/insuring-mentally-ill-benefits-everyone-20121104-28rzw.html#ixzz2BOsTk1aj
""Unless you've got blinkers on"".

Brenton

"For me, the turning point was when Bart Simpson was diagnosed with ADHD. It was then that I knew ADHD had become the label for any bad behaviour."

Ah Brento, you have tweaked to what I tweaked to 2001. Ritalin is not a neurocognitive palliative for kid. Ritalin is the beta version of Soma, which the kids take, but the main beneficiaries in mind are the parents, teachers, and classmates.

""You don't say so," said Lenina politely, not knowing in the least what the Warden had said, but taking her cue from his dramatic pause. When the Warden started booming, she had inconspicuously swallowed half a gramme of soma, with the result that she could now sit, serenely not listening, thinking of nothing at all, but with her large blue eyes fixed on the Warden's face in an expression of rapt attention.

"Often in the past Henry had wondered what it would be like to be subjected (soma-less and with nothing but his own inward resources to rely on) to some great trial, some pain, some persecution; he had even longed for affliction. As recently as a week ago, in the Director's office, he had imagined himself courageously resisting, stoically accepting suffering without a word.

"All men are physico-chemically equal," said Henry sententiously. "Besides, even Epsilons perform indispensable services."

"Every one works for every one else. We can't do without any one. Even Epsilons are useful. We couldn't do without Epsilons. Every one works for every one else. We can't do without any one …" Lenina remembered

As a retired child and family psychologist I can now detail how I've watched with dismay, during my working life, the growth of the distinct "syndrome" ADHD. I am certainly not suggesting that there is not a problem and I acknowledge that some very hyperactive children, who also cannot attend, can benefit from a short period on drug therapy while they are being taught some coping strategies. But assuming all children with some or all of the  myriad of different symptoms which make up this "diagnosis" need drug treatment is overtly misleading.

In the early 1970s I did some research on "hyperactivity" in children, a condition which was then quite well recognized. Many well known pediatricians in those days recommended activity based learning. One parent, for example, was advised to buy the child a weekend train pass as a reward for attentive behaviours at home and school and he was let free alone with certain instructions about noting, in writing, where he went and what he saw and, particularly, when to be home. This would not be permitted in the more protective environment of today as he was 10 years old. It worked wonders.

Anxiety is a very common childhood reason for not attending. Why did I put the word "childhood" in that sentence? An anxious child with heightened vigilance can exhibit all the symptoms of ADHD. Do we want that child on amphetamines? Anxiety in children, other than the quiet, shrinking kind, is often unrecognized. This especially seems to apply in the case of little boys.

One of the difficulties working with children who have ADD or ADHD is having them take responsibility for their own behaviours. It is remarkable how the introduction of a drug regime can actually re-enforce this attitude of no responsibility. Not only do they have an "illness" but when they are in trouble the excuse always seems to be Mum/Dad/ School Support Staff forgot to give me my pill. But life for children in this day and age with busy parents and a more hysterical media about child dangers means that children have less and less opportunities to take responsibility. It is time consuming to devise ways in which they have to take responsibility for themselves and take the consequences reasonably safely (and consequences never equate with punishments). In addition, with the community emphasis on formal education as an answer for all ills, some parents and some schools appear to be more focused on performance and children who are underachieving become anxious and, instead of being accepted for who they are and what they can do, are made even more anxious by these concerns and are then diagnosed with a complaint.

As also in "dyslexia" a word meaning simply "word blindness" and which has many different causes but which has taken off as another syndrome, there are many reasons, causes and treatment for the varied manifestations of children's inability to fit adult preconceived norms. Whilstsoever funding for educational or medical assistance purposes is predicated on diagnoses we will always have the development and expansion of new syndromes and, as a consequence, sometimes inappropriate or unnecessary treatment for some. Well meaning parents can get frantic and obsessed about their beloved children and well meaning experts can get fanatic about their beloved cause and lose their perspective.

Let's go back and look at each individual child, assist where we are able but most importantly value each one for whom he or she is, not for how well they fit the mainstream.

ADHD has two likely causes including

1. inheritance of the disorder and;

2. early lesions to the brain caused by hypoxic (lack of oxygen) ischemia (lack of oxygenated blood flow to the cell tissues) which has been reported to be responsible for up to 25% of all brain damage in neonates.

Hypoxic Ischemia induced lesions in infants have also been correlated with the development of ADHD later on in life.

Defendants in medical litigation prefer familial / inheritance as the cause of the disorder and naturally;

Plaintiffs lawyers prefer hypoxic ischemic brain damage caused by medical negligence.

MRI is a structural imaging technique that has been used to identify brain abnormalities and lesions in ADHD children.

Read "The etiology of attention - deficit hyperactivity disorder: imaging evidence for neonatal hypoxic - ischemia" by Scott L. Hess neuroscience, University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.

For the skeptics, there are many more such journals / studies supporting the fact that some cases of ADHD are caused by neonatal complications at the time of birth.

If you suspect those complications are as a result of medical negligence then look to what happened to the child at the time of birth, obtain the hospital notes and antenatal notes from your GP through the freedom of information applications, and have them analyzed by someone who can interpret them.

If there is nothing in the medical or GP notes to support negligence then look to the family background of behavioral problems and assess if there is a familial cause;

Either way it may help to understand what has happened to your child...before you allow a doctor to fill the child up with drugs.....