Comments by "Drecon84" (@Drecon84) on "Dad Saves America" channel.

  1. It's really easy to come away from this video believing that ADHD is a behavioral disorder, which it is not. It is genetic. However, many of the problems that are associated with ADHD are behavioral and it's very important to separate the two. Stress, anxiety, aggressiveness.... There are genetic predispositions to those things but as Erica says, these things can be worked with. ADHD is genetic and you either have it or not. That said, the amount that it affects your life is partly dependent on your environment (all of those parts that Erica talks about, I have no notes for that, it's important to accept that what she says there is completely true) but partly on just the ADHD itself. As an adult with ADHD (who only got diagnosed at 28), kids can be perfectly behaved and have a great family situation that they treasure, but still have ADHD. This means trouble focusing, underachieving, daydreaming, losing stuff.... the works. ADHD is interesting in that it is both overdiagnosed and underdiagnosed. There are kids without ADHD that get misdiagnosed just because they are difficult but there are also kids that have ADHD but that don't get diagnosed because we focus so much on the behavioral parts. I would have loved to get help as a kid. I worked ten times as hard as others and still had worse results. If someone had truly tried to understand where my problems came from, maybe I could have gotten medication as a kid and not have flunked out of 3 schools before discovering I had ADHD and finally getting medication and getting my teachers degree with top marks. Listen to Erica, her message is really important, but don't start thinking that ADHD is a behavioral problem. It's a generic problem that very often has behavioral effects. You should not blindly medicate children. It should always be in a situation where the kids need the medication to focus (and also when they actually want it) and should usually be combined with things to work on their social issues.
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