by Bettina Sipe

Created on: February 18, 2009

Whether it's deemed a cop-out or a catch-all, one thing is for certain: ADHD is overdiagnosed in children.

It became very clear to me early in the school year that my young child would potentially be labeled as having an attention issue. At the age of five, he entered school very enthusiastically and eager to learn. Very soon thereafter, "bad boy" notes were sent home in his backpack; his wide-eyed surprise and concern was as strong as mine, as we pondered what was happening. My husband and I scheduled conferences with his teacher, and learned that the notes were prompted by his supposedly off-base behavior, which included daydreaming, humming and sleeve-chewing.

I quickly recalled a similar scene, many years earlier, in which I was that same imaginative child who took every opportunity to mentally escape the doldrums of a painfully-boring learning environment. My teachers lamented, "We don't know what to do with her! She doesn't pay attention in class." One by one, I paraded in front of specialists and administrators, until one day, a set of tests revealed that I should attend Gifted classes. My interest in school was renewed, and the story had a happy ending.

I often wonder if by today's standards, I would have been quickly labeled as ADHD and subjected to an experimental-drug cocktail. Considering my son's experience, that wouldn't shock me in the least. Very quickly, the conversations with teachers and administrators suggested that I should explore my son's "attention issues" with the pediatric and school psychiatric community, who would use some sort of vague and subjective screening to reach such a serious conclusion. After all, I was told, many previous students had made tremendous strides after having been diagnosed as ADHD cases and prescribed a course of treatment, including Ritalin and Adderall. Of course, at this point, loud alarms sounded in my brain as I remembered my hesitation in administering relatively docile over-the-counter pain relievers to my kids. Psychiatric drugs, based on a subjective diagnosis? No way.

Thankfully, a family friend helped us to better understand the root causes of our son's situation. While some of his behavior could be chalked up as developmental in nature or age-appropriate coping mechanisms, we learned following a visit to our ENT that he suffered from enlarged tonsils and adenoids and temporary hearing loss as a result of frequent ear infections and chronic sinusitus. We were promised that most of these school-related attention issues would soon fade following surgery, and this was the case. It frightens me how easily we, too, could have become another ADHD statistic, waiting in line at the nurses office for our next Ritalin dose.

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