I have been following this thread with interest and felt compelled to add a couple of thoughts.
First, in response to the idea that ADHD stimulant meds are addictive, all but one of the recent longitudinal studies based on human subjects (would insert link here but can't get full screen reply to work) actually indicate that these meds are effect-neutral or might even offer slight protection from addiction. People with ADHD are more likely to develop addiction with or without medication than an NT population. However, studies that compare ADHD medicated and unmedicated groups over time have found use of stimulant meds to have no effect or sometimes a positive effect.
These studies theorize that stimulant medication actually brings the low dopamine production and transport in the ADHD brain closer to "normal" levels. Unlike drugs of abuse, ADHD meds are low dose and usually slow release so that the dopamine rush of drug abuse does not occur. The scientists hypothesize that medicated kids might be less likely to self-medicate their brains with drugs of abuse if they are properly medicated. Also, ADHD people on medication have better impulse control, fewer behavior problems and higher self-esteem, all of which help them avoid drug abuse.
My admittedly limited, nonscientist understanding of the effect of stimulant drug abuse on the brain is that the repeated dopamine rush of drug abuse causes the brain to produce more dopamine receptors. These extra receptors then must have a regular diet of dopamine that the body can't produce. At that point the person has developed a physical addiction to the drug and feels sick without it. I know what I have just described is not perfectly scientifically accurate but is how it has been explained at a recent conference on the neuroscience of addiction that I attended.
I have read that the rat studies on the effects of stimulants on the brain use amounts of meds that are large multiples of the treatment dose that would be given to a human for ADHD. The rats also don't have ADHD presumably. I would be very cautious about extrapolating such studies to humans.
The reason why I feel compelled to add my sadly superficial and bowdlerized summary above is the ongoing, unrelenting explicit and implicit societal messages faced by parents that we are harming our ADHD kids by medicating them. Almost all of the studies specific to ADHD populations don't support that.
My DS12 has ADHD. His manifestation of ADHD is not nearly as behaviorally severe as some kids I have read on this thread. However, he could not function academically at school without the medication. Worse, he would be a social outcast as well. His impulsiveness, continual overtalking and trying to answer every question, inability to follow rules or pick up the unwritten rules that govern kids' interactions . . . all of these things made him a complete outcast in kindergarten. When he is medicated he is much better but still struggles with impulse control. He has no real friends but he is not ostracized like he was in kindergarten.
ADHD is not simply an issue of wiggling too much in your seat. I expect that those parents who chimed about this never meant to imply such a thing. However, when several people write in that our classrooms are too restrictive (and this is true!) and this leads to more false ADHD diagnoses, it makes me feel that the people who are writing don't understand the full spectrum and impact of ADHD outside of sitting still in a seat. It profoundly affects every aspect of your child's life. The academic impact is actually just a small part of it. There is also occasional crazy emotional dysregulation, constant low-grade anxiety, hyperfocus on undesirable activities, impact on family dynamics, unhappiness at being "different" . . . I could just go on and on. Every day is a struggle, honestly.
I read this board every day and know that none of you are judging or condemning any of the rest of us. You all seem like nice, interesting, thoughtful people. However, ADHD diagnoses have been so consistently judged and minimized that when I read about a more flexible classroom leading to less ADHD diagnosis it feels like you are saying that some parents of ADHD kids are complicit in expecting too much of their kids. Maybe there are such parents. I just haven't met any.
I remember when DS started 5th grade, his teacher told me with a sigh during the first week that three ADHD kids were trying no meds this year in her class. She said "It's just not working but they are going to have to figure it out." This is a teacher that freely allowed kids to move around and sit on the floor to work, gave quizzes using a transponder system, used Google docs for turning in papers to minimize lost papers-she GOT it. She had a flexible classroom. But all those kids were back on their meds by October. ADHD kids and their parents who really need medication don't want to medicate but really have no choice no matter what the classroom is like.
