essay freewrite
i was in the shower when this idea came to mind. it really wasn't a new idea, but one that i've had for quite a while now. i've had a strong disagreement with the way children, and adults are being diagnosed with behavioral problems in the last 10 or so years. i guess it all started with the popularity of ADHD in the news and teachers that felt they had the right to diagnose children themselves. It started there and went onto other ailments that we see as "problems." My feeling is that maybe these instances could be human evolution. The problem is that our society, in it's need for permanence would never consider the possibility.
For starters, i'm not trying to make any medical statements, these are all pure observations of those around me and a few definitions i've looked up. My theories could be naive, and i understand there have been years of study to back up other facts, but as the title says, this is a freewrite and it's my blog. :P
Now if we look at ADHD on WebMD, there are several different symptoms that even the website says many children exhibit. There is a lengthy process to try to diagnose a child, and to rule out if any other major change in lifestyle may have led them to act a certain way. Wouldn't that mean it's almost impossible to detect if a child has these symptoms? Just to name them for the record, they are: fidgeting, trouble enjoying quiet activities, excessive talking, runs and climbs where not appropriate, blurting out an answer before the question is done, waiting for their turn, interrupting, careless mistakes at school, trouble focusing, trouble organizing activities, losing things needed for a project, etc.
It's always been my understanding that our parents and school teachers taught us these things. Parents taught proper manners and showed us how to wait our turn and how not to fidget. Quiet time was meant after a good play outside or fun time with friends and family. Running and climbing were to be done at the park when our parents took us there. We went to school to learn how to be organized, how to correct our mistakes, how to focus by doing fun things. With the busy lives of parents and underpaid school teachers, maybe that's not being done anymore.
Previous families used to have one person working and another to stay home. Children were looked after, had someone to help with homework and had a person they could talk to. Dinners were had all together, at the table, and the day was discussed over their meal. Now both parents work, they get home late, sometimes have the children fix dinner and talk about all the problems they had at work. Of course each scenario is different, but i feel like the harder the parents work to bring in money, the less time they have to work at being better parents.
Teachers are often times limited by their funding and the school's structure. For the generous teachers out there, some i had when i was younger, they did all they could to make class exciting and to cater their teaching style to the way the individual student learned. This is the largest problem i feel we have with the American school system. There is only one way to teach. If the child doesn't understand the material by using that one way, they will fail.
So where am i going with all this? I'm rounding my way over.
Parents have no time to teach their children on their own, so either a secondary person is offered, or no person at all. This leads a child to make up their own standard of learning and what each lesson is. They look to what's readily available - TV, Radio, the Internet and Video Games. This information is coming to them at such a pace, they need to change the way they think in order to try grasping this overload.
Imagine this year after year after year. With children with access to these resources getting younger and younger. Wouldn't you say this is a behavioral change to survive? What if ADHD was a way to absorb the information that's obviously infinite? We only pick out things that are important to US, and let all else slip away? What if our way of acting in public, the way we speak to people, treat them and teach them is no longer acceptible in this age of too much information.
There are probably some children who suffer so drastically from this that they may need medication. But we'd never truly know unless they were placed in an environment that accepts them and adapts to them. You never know, they may be the future.
For starters, i'm not trying to make any medical statements, these are all pure observations of those around me and a few definitions i've looked up. My theories could be naive, and i understand there have been years of study to back up other facts, but as the title says, this is a freewrite and it's my blog. :P
Now if we look at ADHD on WebMD, there are several different symptoms that even the website says many children exhibit. There is a lengthy process to try to diagnose a child, and to rule out if any other major change in lifestyle may have led them to act a certain way. Wouldn't that mean it's almost impossible to detect if a child has these symptoms? Just to name them for the record, they are: fidgeting, trouble enjoying quiet activities, excessive talking, runs and climbs where not appropriate, blurting out an answer before the question is done, waiting for their turn, interrupting, careless mistakes at school, trouble focusing, trouble organizing activities, losing things needed for a project, etc.
It's always been my understanding that our parents and school teachers taught us these things. Parents taught proper manners and showed us how to wait our turn and how not to fidget. Quiet time was meant after a good play outside or fun time with friends and family. Running and climbing were to be done at the park when our parents took us there. We went to school to learn how to be organized, how to correct our mistakes, how to focus by doing fun things. With the busy lives of parents and underpaid school teachers, maybe that's not being done anymore.
Previous families used to have one person working and another to stay home. Children were looked after, had someone to help with homework and had a person they could talk to. Dinners were had all together, at the table, and the day was discussed over their meal. Now both parents work, they get home late, sometimes have the children fix dinner and talk about all the problems they had at work. Of course each scenario is different, but i feel like the harder the parents work to bring in money, the less time they have to work at being better parents.
Teachers are often times limited by their funding and the school's structure. For the generous teachers out there, some i had when i was younger, they did all they could to make class exciting and to cater their teaching style to the way the individual student learned. This is the largest problem i feel we have with the American school system. There is only one way to teach. If the child doesn't understand the material by using that one way, they will fail.
So where am i going with all this? I'm rounding my way over.
Parents have no time to teach their children on their own, so either a secondary person is offered, or no person at all. This leads a child to make up their own standard of learning and what each lesson is. They look to what's readily available - TV, Radio, the Internet and Video Games. This information is coming to them at such a pace, they need to change the way they think in order to try grasping this overload.
Imagine this year after year after year. With children with access to these resources getting younger and younger. Wouldn't you say this is a behavioral change to survive? What if ADHD was a way to absorb the information that's obviously infinite? We only pick out things that are important to US, and let all else slip away? What if our way of acting in public, the way we speak to people, treat them and teach them is no longer acceptible in this age of too much information.
There are probably some children who suffer so drastically from this that they may need medication. But we'd never truly know unless they were placed in an environment that accepts them and adapts to them. You never know, they may be the future.
Comments