As somebody who grew up with "actual/bad ADHD," I find this statement, frankly, insulting. As a result of being drugged with Ritalin/Adderall throughout my childhood, I've had this notion of being somehow "wrong" or "broken" ingrained in my psyche, an effect with which I still struggle to this day. There are plenty of schools in which to enroll children with ADHD, and there are a ton of career paths - generally related to creative thinking - in which we can express ourselves freely without the stigma of being somehow "abnormal."
Have you ever actually taken an adderall? It has an intense narcotic effect, which is why people abuse it. I can't believe we give it to our children.
Adderral does not have an intense narcotic effect for me.
You can also nowadays take straterra, which is a non-stimulant.
Honestly, if your ADHD is so low level that you can function well without drugs, more power to you. There are plenty of ADHD people who literally cannot, and to imply they could just take career paths involving "creative thinking" is, IMHO, somewhat wishful thinking.
While I'm happy to hear that some have found a way to control their "affliction," I've never tried Straterra and have no plans to start. As I alluded to in my original post, my ideological objections to drugging our "broken" children are more than simply pragmatic. And, even though I'm a mid-twenties male in college, I hardly ever go to class as I still can't manage to sit still long enough to listen to a 50 minute lecture. I read the textbooks instead and ace the tests.
Anecdotally (I use that word conservatively as I've read studies to this effect but don't care to look them up), I've found that those with ADHD, including myself, are more creative than "normal" people. Something about the non sequitur way in which our minds work. So it's a difference in strengths, not a difference in mental quality.
I also noticed I'm using a lot of quotes in my reply. I guess my cynicism is expressing itself through my sarcastic tone.
"As I alluded to in my original post, my ideological objections to drugging our "broken" children are more than simply pragmatic. "
Do you have similar objections to drugging alzheimers patients?
I'm trying to understand where you draw the line.
Given that actually diagnosed ADHD people have brain chemistry differences that various drugs are meant to control, i have trouble seeing a difference between the two cases.
If you want to pretend you aren't neurologically different than others, great. Maybe you aren't!
Plenty are.
If you believe ADHD is a biological advantage that shouldn't be chemistry'd out, again great. Convince enough people, and eventually evolution will win.
I don't remember ever being afflicted with Alzheimer's, so I can't speak to that case.
But what is evident is that ADHD affliction is a broad, very continuous spectrum and not a black/white "disease" in the traditional sense. It's largely based on subjective factors. The hypochondriac parent will very easily convince a doctor to prescribe ADHD medication for his/her child. This reality, in addition to my own personal experience, leads me to believe that "ADHD" is less a disorder and more just a feature, like having brown eyes or fair skin.
Just because diagnostic conditions are not always clear, or overdiagnose, does not make it any less of a disease.
A lot of things mental disorders are based on subjective factors.
Would you disagree that schizophrenia is a disease?
At least 3 of the factors (and you only need two) are highly subjective.
If you wanted to argue that DSM-IV/DSM-V criteria for a lot of things have a tendency to overdiagnose or not be objective enough, I would heartily agree.
That does not make something any less of a disease, it only means our diagnostic criteria suck.
Alzheimers had very broad, subjective, diagnostic criteria once as well, right up until they made various breakthroughs in neuropathology.
Here is the way I've come to think about neurotransmitter-affecting medications: they're like glasses. Which is to say, ADHD, depression, and other "diseases" are like near/farsightedness.
A lot of people need glasses, and a lot of people always have, because for at least the last few thousand years (since the advent of agriculture), distance-vision hasn't had any particular selective pressure on it one way or another--it didn't increase your chance of successfully reproducing to be able to see farther into your own farmland. We don't really think of near/farsightedness as a "disease", per se; parents don't worry about passing bad vision onto their kids, they just assume they'll get glasses too.
But it is useful to be able to see things that are very close up and very far away--and we structure our society assuming that people can do these things. We print relatively small text in books, and expect kids to be able to read a blackboard from the back of a classroom. We have a system of transportation that expects drivers to be able to see, interpret, and react to road signs from a distance. And so forth.
In the same way, it is useful to be able to summon focus and motivation and single-mindedness to a possibly-boring task, and we structure our society assuming people can do this, as well.
You likely could find a place--a French vinyard, perhaps--where nearsightedness was irrelevant. And you likely could create a little pocket of our own society that permits you to live productively without glasses (live in a city, work as a jazz musician, and take cabs everywhere, for example.) But this is extremely limiting, when the other alternative--just wearing glasses--is freeing. The choice is between letting a quirk of your genetics dictate your path in life, and taking control of your own body and thus taking any path you please.
---
Postscript: all this relatively ignores the question of whether a parent should seek treatment their child, who is not yet formed in their own will enough to say what they would like out of life.
I think the answer to that is simple: if and when we have the medical equivalent to glasses, something that can be put on and taken off, and doesn't affect the wearer except to allow them to experience what is "standard" (i.e. doesn't give them any extra boost above that "standard", doesn't give them a "rush", etc.) then there is no reason to not supply that item to the child, and allow them to decide for themselves the advantages and disadvantages of it.
I, for one, was found to be nearsighted in grade four--and, after getting glasses, never had to be prompted by my parents to put them on. I preferred having them on, for what they allowed me to do.
If we do not yet have a drug that works like that, then, to the degree that the child will be "changed" by the drug, that same degree of consideration will have to be given as to any potentially-harmful course of action parents decide for their child (such as, say, sending them to a boarding school.)
I don't mean to offend you, nor was it my intention to insinuate that you've been brainwashed, which implies malice, but rather inadvertently indoctrinated, through nobody's fault, to take the "you can do anything you want if you put your mind to it" mantra to it's logical extreme. My personal opinion (take it or leave it) is that if one is unable to pursue an activity without the use of drugs, then likely that is not an appropriate use of one's time. If you really want to get in to a lengthy discussion on my view of how modern society forces us into homogenous units and leads to things like drug use, anorexia, consumerism, etc to make us fit the mould presented for us, please feel free to email me at the address in my profile.
The funny thing about drugs is that they don't effect every person in the same way. Any parent that would hand their kids medication and not do their very best to monitor how it impacts them is asking for trouble.
Glad you are able to function in life without the drugs. I've tried it. I was able to control the variables in my life somewhat to function for a reasonably long time but eventually I became overwhelmed and fell into a very deep pit of dysfunction.
They may not work for you but don't contribute to an already difficult stigma that makes it very difficult for those of us who have an actual need. It's hard enough to engage a doctor in this conversation given the "street value" of the drugs you're asking for.
The "intense narcotic effect" of Adderall is due, by the way, to the immediate, large amount of it made available in the bloodstream. The whole point of newer-generation drugs like Vyvanse and Concerta is to change the bioavailablity of the drug to a small, steady stream, by effectively having the liver process and "activate" it at whatever speed the body prompts it to.
I'm sorry for what you went through, but it's not the same thing kids today go through.
(I say this as someone who was diagnosed with ADD after 23 years being unaware of it, doing very badly in school, letting relationships fall apart, losing jobs, etc. In retrospect, given the drug technology at the time, I think my parents made the right choice--when a teacher suggested they look into my neurological condition--that the treatments available at the time were worse than the disease. However, this is no longer the case.)
Have you ever actually taken an adderall? It has an intense narcotic effect, which is why people abuse it. I can't believe we give it to our children.