If your child is struggling in school, social or home settings, and you want to understand the spectrum of why’s behind disorders such as ADD, OCD, ODD - and more importantly, what you can do to help…
We are experiencing an epidemic in our country: the over-diagnosis of ADD/ADHD in even the youngest children. In England, 2% of children under outpatient psychiatric care are diagnosed with ADHD, while in America the figure is 40%! This “disorder” is usually a complex tapestry whose richness is often dishonored when we simply medicate the child to “make the symptoms go away.”
This isn’t to say that we aren’t seeing an alarming rise in the prevalence of children’s challenging behavior, disturbed psycho-social functioning, and the associated stresses that puts on families—we are! But I believe to get to the soul of the problem we need to look beyond the pharmacy.
I love the complexity of your knowing. Most clinicians really oversimplify and just jump to the pathology diagnosis. You sure have keen senses. Right on, Marcy!
—Mary H., parent
While a full discussion of ADD/ADHD and other psycho-social and learning disorders is far beyond the scope of this website (ADD/ADHD resources), several promising approaches to these disorders—involving daily lifestyle, physical and emotional nutrition, and the importance of exploring parents’ own stories—are central tenets of QUANTUM PARENTING.