What in the hell is ADHD? I understand what it's supposed to be (Attention Deficiet Hyper-activity Dissorder) but I'm prettysure that the majority of parents out there who claim that their child sufferss from ADHD really has no dea what the actual clinical diagnosis of the dissorder is. When I was a child, no one had even heard of this disease. And thank goodness, too! If they had, I probably would have been drugged up to the teeth for most of my childhood, staring blankly into rorschack tests in the office of some under-qualified, over-encouraged gradeschool counselor who believes that the special shade of blue that he chose to paint his office walls is solely responsible for bringing troubled kids back "from the Brink!" When I was a child, young men were supposed to be wild and rambunctious. It was, and still is the nature of the beast. And seldom does hyperactivity interfere with healthy learning. All that is required is some perserverence on the part of the instructor. Perserverence that is as wild and out of control as the hyperactivity in question
I watch these shows like "Supernanny" and "Nanny 911" where these children physicaly and verbaly abuse their parents, and then turn around and expect nurturing hugs and encouragement, without any reserve or even a second thought. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!? Who runs these households? When you have to negotiate your evening meal with your 4 or 5 year old child as if a hostage crisis were in the works, and lives could possibily be lost and or shattered if peas were to touch the 8 year old childs plate. The mistake was made when the parent let the child believe that if he/she argued hard enough, this parent would feel guilty for forcing their brood to eat nutritious food. And the parent obviously firmly believes that the child will hate them, or climb a clock tower over meatloaf and mashed potatos. And what in the name of Jumping Jesus on a Pogo Stick is a Chore List? God forbid that we give our child a responsibility as steep as folding and putting away their own laundry. But mom likes the shirts folded a certain way, and there is just no way that the 4 year old understands perfect symmetry, and making each corner meet at an exact vertice!! Oh well! If one or two wrinkled shirts is what it is going to cost me so that my child might set foot on the yellow brick road to responsibility at an age before the flying monkeys of spoiled brat-ism take wing on a wicked witch fueled man hunt, then SO F***K**G BE IT!!!!
So in case you didn't catch it, i'm a disciplinarian. And you can imagine how quickly my belt traveled from out of my belt loops to across my child's ass when this boy who has absolutley no problems grasping the physical workings of school and the 3 R's, comes to me with a report card full of negative remarks. In fact, in my house, we don't call them report cards anymore. we call them remark cards. Because I'm not at all concerned with how my son (who is a borderline genius, come to find out) is doing at grasping the complexities of addition, subtraction, and the spelling of 5 letter words! After all, we're talking about a kid who's been reading and spelling at the college level since Kindergarten. So, it's the remarks regarding his behavior that really tell me how he's progressing.
So, this child who is supposed to make my wife and I so proud that there will be an aftereschool special based on his life by the time he hits age 10, Turns out that this child "does not work well with others", and "is disruptive to the rest of the class." He's also "Not living up to his full potential", because he thinks that he is the hall monitor, the police, and the principal, all wrapped up in 1 premature package of aggression. So I try to tell him that it doesn't matter how smart he is. If the teacher and his fellow students can't tolerate his simple presence in class, he could be Albert Freakin Einstein sitting by himself in the middle of out-cast-land. He just stares at his toes and says the two words that his teachers, as well as me are getting real tired of hearing; I KNOW.
All this trouble obviously didn't stem from a lack of knowledge, and it didn't stem (I very strongly suspected) from a chemical imbalance in his brain. The problem was that he was finishing his work so fast that as the teachers were trying to help the rest of the class to catch up with him, his mind was alowed to wander and daydream. The educators had no contingincy plan as to what to do to keep him busy while they had their focus turned on eveyone else. That being said, it stood to reason that my child was not the only one. There were 3 children in his class that the teacher suspected might have ADHD, because of their wandering attention span, and their disruptive behavior in class. Well, when you teach a lesson, and 3 of the kids finish the class work in 5 minutes, then they spend the next 25 minutes tring to keep themselves occupied quietly while the teacher helps the rest of the second graders to "get it," you have to expect that the excess 25 minutes is not going to be spent "reviewing the material that they learned today."
All 3 boys tested at the end of that year for the gifted classes, and all 3 were immediatley placed in advanced everything for next year. Now, in advanced classes in our school district, the parents play a very hands on role in and out of the classroom, regarding the particular learning style of each child, and the very first thing that the teachers ask the parents to address is IDLE TIME! BAM!!! Hit the damn nail right on the head there, and kept the school district from filling my childs head full of drugs just to keep him on track while their slow-poke employee helps the kids who belong in special ED classes, but the parents can't admit that little johnny might be a RETARD! Give little johhny the drugs!! I'm sure that Ritalin makes a fine Hamburger, or can ride a skateboard just fine. But there's no place for mind control drugs on the space shuttle, in the brain surgery ward, or teaching the next generation of johhny's that if they can't get the material in 10 minutes, they need to MAKE THEIR PARENTS AWARE!

DREW W. SCOTT