Attention Deficit Disorder / Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder
[ADD / ADHD]

Possibilities for Change

We might ask others and ourselves what would we do if there had been no invention of ADD/ADHD? Pperhaps we would remember the skills, abilities and resources we could draw upon.

These might include the following:
Put the problem into a context. What has happened in the past and what is happening in the present in the young person’s life and relationships?
Be aware that some children, especially boys, are vulnerable to reproducing male violence and aggression, especially if they were victims in their lives of abuse and violence perpetrated by men.
Realize this problem may be a reproduction of some of men's ways of being, rather thant a genetic inheritance.
Be aware of the ways in which children express emotional distress (often but not always as a result of abuse), and how parents and professionals describe these expressions as “behavioral problems.”
There might be ways of assessing and naming learning difficulties without needing to come up with new labels and categories. There might be ways of providing extra learning supports that do not pathologize children, but rather are helpful to them.

Thinking about the problem in new ways allows us to assist our children toin growing up into theira lives.fe They are given an opportunity to take control back from diagnosis and take responsibility for success back from medication. Believing we need special treatment and interventions for ADD/ADHD blinds us to our long cultural history of expertise:, skills and success in parenting, teaching, social work, and counseling children and families that have such problems.