If ADHD is such a problem...

Why is no one doing anything about it?

I have a friend who was recently told that her child had attention problems at school. He's an incredibly bright, happy, 2nd grade kid and an only child who makes straight As. His mom was, of course, immediately concerned. I mean, in spite of his grades being stellar, here was her kid's teacher - someone who sees lots of kids every day; an authority in the eyes of a parent - telling her that her kid had problems with focus. Nothing, but nothing, will make you sit up and take notice, lose sleep and google like a maniac, especially as the parent of a young child, like a teacher singling out your kiddo as the one with problems. She knew that he got frustrated by distractions and loud and chaotic work environments (who doesn't?) but she was unaware that it was unique enough to her child to merit mentioning. His school work is great, he has friends, he likes school and his teacher... it was a little bit of a shock. When my friend asked what to do about it, she was told by the teacher that exploration of attention problems usually starts with the child's pediatrician.

I remember going through this same thing with Truman. His issue wasn't just simple distractibility, not just the AD (though that's there, too); his problem is the H. If you ever want to be driven slowly (or quickly, depending on your tolerance level) insane, come to our house after 3:30pm and stay through homework, dinner and bedtime. If you ever were a doubter of the existence of ADD or ADHD, you'll leave our house a believer. You'll more than likely slowly back out of our door when your time is up, wish us well, maybe even offering up a little prayer for us as you wave goodbye, and then turn and run as fast as you can for your car so that you can get home to a space where no one is talking incessantly or climbing furniture or crying because the mere thought of reading 15 pages of social studies is just so overwhelming that they can't read the first word; where there's no science fair project to (quite literally) fight your way through or simple math homework that will drag on for hours until you wish your kid would be OK getting along in the world with just a 4th grade education just so you would never have to do this goddamn math homework ever again. A quiet place; one where there's Downton Abbey on the DVR and a glass of wine from a box. I'll give you a wan smile and a friendly wave from the porch. I get it. I'd run with you if I could, but I have to be here when we repeat it all again tomorrow night.

What's a pediatrician - a person of medicine who is not a specialist in mental health - to offer such a kid when they face these parents who have been told by a teacher that their child among all others, has a deficit of attention? What's a teacher to do when she has a class full of children that she has to get through not just day-to-day stuff, but testing, which now reflects how her own job evaluation? You can guess that it's not long, caring, involved classroom strategies and behavior modification. In our case, we were very hesitant about medication. And we were on the receiving end of a lot of "well, we can't do a lot otherwise. Let us know when you're ready to start meds" conversations.

It's growing, for whatever reason. I was just reading this morning about the rise in cases in California.  How I feel about how quickly we turn to ADD/ADHD medications is another topic altogether. How I feel about medicating my own child is even another. If I keep rolling the topics backwards, one is just a bandaid on top of another until we reach the core: What the hell is ADD/ADHD? Why do so many kids "have" it? What's causing it? And what are we going to do about it that isn't just medicating the kid?

Autism is something we can put a finger on and recognize the symptoms of (mostly) easily. It garners sympathy and help and research is available. ADHD is almost the dirty little secret; a shameful categorization, and medicating your child for it, even though the pressure to do so is most certainly there, is even more so.

I don't have an answer to this. And hell, I have to go fight my way through a highly inattentive and hyperactive breakfast and school preparation. But I put it out there to the universe at large - do we need to change our thinking fundamentally about what human behaviors are "normal" in children? And if not, do we need to maybe look further into what is actually causing brains to wire differently rather than to re-wire them even more differently with just medication?