Friday, October 14, 2011

Well, next week is ADD awareness week. I didn't even know there was such a thing, but here it comes. I think that this is a great thing and hope that somehow the message gets out that ADD is a real malady and it not just an excuse for poor parenting skills. Nothing gets my goat more than someone telling me how I should be disciplining my child when they themselves have no idea what the heck they are talking about. Sure most of their ideas sound great-- for normal kids with normal responses to boundaries. The problem is, I was not dealing with a normal child. As far as my son was concerned, boundaries were made to be tested, and future penalties made little connection to today's actual behavior.
I just read an article by a Dr. Lawrence Diller M.D. about the over use of stimulants on the children of today. At first I was very offended. Then I wondered what his credentials were, so I looked them up. Seems he makes a lot of money telling parents the sky is falling and Ritalin, adderall and the like are to be blamed.
His recommendations for a remedy for most things ADD are for the most part, "pie in the sky." His resume speaks of years of counseling and prescribing these medications himself, but I have to wonder about that due to some of the suggestions he wrote down.
Take the first one, "Involve fathers in all evaluations and treatment plans for ADHD/ADD..." while I would agree that this is highly recommended that BOTH parents attend all evaluations and treatment plans and even school IEPs, if he really did treat lots of children with ADD he would have noticed that the reason most of the kids came to these appointments with their mothers was two-fold: 1) Counselors business hours are the same as Dad's working hours. Dad had to work. It takes two incomes for many families to subsist these days and Mom's job probably paid less or was more flexible with her PTO, so she was chosen to attend. and 2) A huge portion of parents with kids with ADD are divorced and the kids live with Mom. 
Combine these two  populations and you make up the majority of why only mom makes it to most counseling, doctor and IEP meetings. This is what I meant about "Pie in the sky." recommendations. 
I have spent too many days in Group meetings and online in chat groups with these incredibly hard working parents. In families with both parents living in the home, it is always best that both parents sign off on the programs and are participating as much as possible so the child knows the rules are consistent and everybody is on his/her side and trying to understand and help, but that is just not always possible. Let's get off the "Blame Dad" bus right now.
Another suggestion that made me wonder about this doctors credentials was, "Mental health professionals (especially child psychiatrists and behavioral-developmental pediatricians) should be more involved in coordinating approaches between family, school and doctor."  Like what?  All doctors, school and counselors have a meeting to discuss a coordinated approach amongst the list of possible interventions? Did this guy actually have the time to do this himself when he was practicing medicine? Probably not. Doctors alone have the most difficult schedules to work around, let alone finding the day, and hour where all of them can schedule to come to a meeting. I have also yet to see a pediatrician or child behavior therapist or counselor or psychologist  or county mental health worker have the luxury of having the time to coordinate parents, teachers and doctors to work together on a consistent and well thought out plan of action to help the child calm down enough to develop some coping strategies that they can call upon to help themselves succeed in school, and later, in life. The job of coordinating all three approaches into a workable solution is the job of the parent that goes to these separate meetings. They are familiar with what resources are available and communicate between these disparate professionals and they are the ones coordinating everything. As far as my experience has seen, this is the only real world way this is ever going to get done. I have to wonder where he thought that could actually happen in order to even mention it. He may have well just suggested that their doctors prescribe a magic pill that will make the whole situation better; It just won't happen.
Sorry for the rant, but when such a credible source as a doctor tries to discredit a therapy which has been proven effective in countless real world situations, I have to stand up and say this is pure B.S. Parenting an Alpha Delta Delta is one of the most challenging tasks a parent can have, and they are going to need to draw from as large a selection of tools as they can in order to find what works for them. If something doesn't work for one person, it may for another, so let's not go around bashing therapies that have proven to work.

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