Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion B

It is clearly a great way to prevent ADHD, of course (which is why there isn't much of it in France to start with), but beware, if you are too structured, then your child develops autism. Because cold mothering.

Or so say the French psychoanalysts, who also happen to be running most of the French psychiatry system.

(and yes, it is always the mother)

This is actually a great sniff test for "research" validity. If that "Bringing up bebe" is mentioned in an article talking about anything except the trend of making a quick buck by playing on the anxieties of the modern American parent, you know it is going to be crap.

+1 on everything else on current trends, over-diagnosis, and medication/no medication.

p.s. One prop to the French study (in regards to scheduling) is the floating question of sleep related issues vs. ADHD. Another gifted challenge here is the increase in allergies amongst gifted and the relation of allergies to sleep apnea.

Forgot I had read this post a while ago:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/16/attention-problems-may-be-sleep-related/

Thanks HK, appreciate the psychosis connection and support from your work in this arena. Anecdotally, it's easy to see as psychotic is an appropriate adjective before I get my first cup of coffee in the morning.

and props to mumofthree, the op article definitely fails a sniff test of authentic experience. Particularly that she just floated gifted through as if it was just another false diagnosis.

As I stated before, I am completely against spanking.

The majority of Americans spank, so I definitely don't think that is what is helping France's kids- that would be purely coincidental. However, food habits and sleeping habits make sense to play a part in a growing brain.

There IS a food/ADHD connection, backed by research. It's not as simple as "take out gluten," or something like that, but evidence suggests that many of these kids have food allergies or sensitivities and that figuring this out can help. Snacking, though? SNACKING causes ADHD? Snacking causes obesity, sure.

The sleep connection is certainly something to be concerned about. Do French kids get a lot of sleep? I don't know. I'm inclined to doubt it--Europeans tend to put their children to bed late, according to my European friends.

It appears that every study is attempting to find the "magic bullet" by indicating that if all children were the same and raised the same...we could avoid ADHD (in this case) or a host of other issues... it is the same thing we rage against in education...standardization, one size fits all "common core". Every person is from a unique place...from DNA, to Nature, to Nurture, to choices.....

I can't type more now, ill come back later, when i have time to type and to think about how much to share, but really I could have written that article. The passages that don't make sense to moomin make perfect sense to me...

And I think some of it comes down to having a fairly decently bahaved, very gifted girl child. She does not look like most people's idea of ADHD (including not looking in attentive because in a group scenario she's gifted enough not to need to have heard the teacher and well enough behaved to have looked like she was listening). But medication is quite literally a magic pill for her, with difference obvious to everyone. She herself was absolutely clear from the first day that she felt better, liked feeling better, wanted it to last.

But the judgement we face from school, teachers, family is constant and very very hard.

I feel like I have too much to say in on post and too much of it would require personal information that I don't want to share to make sense.

Ultramarina - diet absolutely is a factor, but it's way more complex than "just go gluten free", as you say. My DD with ADHD has LESS food issues than her sisters, but is GF/CF and additive free and it did help. Sleep is critical.

Moomin - how many of those kids you see with ADHD and put onto meds are gifted girls (possibly highly gifted girls) with primarily in-attentive type? Even when they are combined type (which my DD actually is) it doesn't look like combined type in a boy. Because honestly all of those quotes make PERFECT sense to me and they make perfect sense TOGETHER. My DD didn't get the chance to be diagnosed as having a disorder of written expression or dysgraphia, but she was on the path, she would have been.

Someone else commented about how it's almost always outgrown. It's not, increasingly it's becoming clear just how much it is NOT outgrown. The hyperactivity might be, but the inattention and impulse control, which are the more damaging are often ongoing.

Note also that I am in Australia - where ADHD can only be diagnosed and medication prescribed by a specialist, not the family Dr. Certainly misdiagnosis still happens sometimes, just like with other diseases, but statistically we are under diagnosing and under treating compared to international predicted incidence rates.

I agree with all of this, and especially the bolded. (not that I have any personal experience with near death by motor vehicle. ahem.)

Yes, yes, yes.