I totally agree, the UK school system is horrific for this. Sums up my experience of school, and generally of any system that is imposed. It’s really gross and causes so many problems.
Well put.
5 Likes
It’s not the only area of the NHS that does this, recent video https://youtu.be/v1eWIshUzr8 was in the back of my mind, including the overlap with not fitting into societally constructed roles…
Don’t get me started on the NHS mate.
1 Like
So you may be „one of us“ 
after all and are just still in the phase of denial (or „in the closet“ if I may borrow that term - although 
„on top of the closet“ would describe it better for many boys 
)?
Fantasizing (attention: humorous remarks ahead) „Hey - I am just like them ADHD kids 
- and I am super(!)-normal. So they are normal, too. Therefore - ADHD cannot be a thing. It must be computers, sugar and preprocessed food. Mom was right.“
When you would recognize, your life, too could have been less troublesome to you and the people around you if your mom would not have rejected medication, erm 
what I want to express: getting the diagnosis as an adult is a very emotional experience but it passes in stages. Finally getting a medication that helps (as a late diagnosed/treated person) contains another preprogrammed veeery complex emotional phase. 
🥲:cry:
🥸:weary:
🫤:grinning:
Thankfulness usually prevails in the end. After all, the life before was everything but boring.
SCNR
3 Likes
All people working in education from the person on the front desk to the teachers and principles should have mandatory training in learning specialisms, understanding disabilities and mental health issues and how to support kids with them.
A little understanding and empathy would be a good start. I deal with idiotic teachers every day in work who have no clue why the kid in their class fidgets or switches off when they start talking, most thinking punishment is the answer and even some who think its all made up. It’s every level, from those teaching to those in charge, all ignorant and in my opinion not fit for their job
3 Likes
The ones that I really struggle with are the teachers who make a big song and dance about a kid’s behaviour, so we get them on the autism pathway or look into ADHD. Then, when they’re asked to contribute to any assessment they say everything is fine and there’s no problems.
Bellends.
2 Likes
It’s the entire system. Teachers suggest things to tick boxes but dont have the training to follow it up or properly support the child. I guess the blame is beyond them, its the system, lack of funding and ridiculous pressure they are under for performance stats etc.
3 Likes
ADAH became prevalent after WW2. Research into food allergies was done in the 50 and identified several food additives which were relatively new, used to improved shelf life, where shown to effect hyperactivity in subjects. Studies were originally done by Kaiser Permanente but over the past decades we’re replicated in university programs. The science the FDA uses to determine to “safety” of these synthetic food additives was created in the early 80s by a conglomerate of beverage and sweetener corporations.
BTHQ, BHT, etc, and some food colorings. And there is the science behind sugar, caffeine, circadian rhythm/sleep etc and how these effect mind and body. We’re not robots, we’re natural beings who do do well with the ever increasing sophistication.
Therefore - Computers, sugar and preprocessed food cannot be a thing. It must be ADHD. Mom was right.
From well outside your experience, are they just saying that there’s no problems with the kids from their perspective?
Again, conflating the two does not suggest you care a lot about causal factors, you see a simplistic nail to hammer down. Which is not new and not helpful. Are you at some polarity of Autism or ADD?
And no, sugar, processed food, or gluten do not cause ADD and Autism, the issues with both are environmental and neurotypical individuals prioritizing their idea of “normal” and deciding what’s good to “fix” children.
There are plenty of concerns with how our “attention economy” harms all of us, but the continued suggestion that only environment or gluten “causes” ADD/autism is harmful and unhelpful. Similarly, trauma/ptsd can be involved in ADD-like patterns,
If you’d like to talk nuance we can discuss plenty of how structured thinking and executive function in neurotypicals can also be affected negatively by some of those factors, but in my 40s I really don’t need someone telling me that iPads and dark patterns are why I think and process the way I do, going all the way back to the early 1980s.
1 Like
Attention, rant-like sentences ahead, take with a grain of salt and understanding for the individual biography
Here, there is no lack of funding, problems are similar.
Lack of understanding, lack of empathy, teachers‘ ideas of grandeur. Misinformed public. Disbelief in scientifically established facts and arrogant dismissal of expert opinions and those of trained professionals (although quite the contrary is to observe in other topics).
Well, maybe this is because rhetorics, the art of debate, game theory, useful statistics and optimization problems are not part of the curricula in school for a very long time, if they have been this side of the channel at all - not even our very own tax system and how to make an income tax declaration. Only calculation of zero crossings with no connection to real world problems. To a very substantial amount just like when Frederick II firstly ordered compulsory schooling: (to teach them enough to read, write and calculate the amount of gunpowder per rifle shot. Make them good subjects, soldiers and dead sons sad mothers could be proud of). That and group rule are bad for people with a genetic trait for oppositional behavior and being different 
1 Like
The problem as you state is not for lack of resources. It’s for a lack of additional inputs and outputs being possible within the systems.
Yeah, every time they get asked for input to an assessment for ADHD/autism, they have this weird tendency to play it all down like there’s nothing wrong. I’ve never really been able to understand it fully, but I put it down mostly to schools not wanting to have to abide by the Education Health and Care Plan that will come along with a diagnosis, or to put it more bluntly, they just can’t be bothered to accommodate the kids’ needs and want their parents to take them somewhere else.
2 Likes
Yes and leaded gas may have an impact, too. (statistics suggest that and there might be something to it). But the ADHD features are described over centuries. Lots of literature about „born criminals“; many traits in adventurers etc. and there were so many wunderkinds with ADHD/ASD features. Also (example only) Dostojewski described so many of the variants before modern concepts of psychology were established with astonishing accuracy. Boheme Parisienne etc…
Contains most variants. Only anorexia nervosa which is also portrayed in a story doesn’t fit. 1845 or so.
3 Likes
Yeah. Education system needs pulled down and rebuilt from the ground up as its still stuck in the times of the industrial revolution when it was last updated and certainly needs more than just funding. Needs a big reset button 
2 Likes
For me: dates for tests and personal choice how to obtain knowledge and skills. Present or absent (just like in university). As long as they have average grades: (insert pink floyd line of famous pop song here). 
3 Likes
Trying to get back to baseline , this helped:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5F76FD2B5049EA9B
(First video is raggaeton as far as I can tell, with genre typical visuals - the rest of the list: many calming classics)
Night everybody
1 Like
If they avoid acknowledging material differences between humans, they can pass off massive systemic failure as failures of “personal responsibility”! Kids can’t be failed, kids can only fail the system.
Anyway, obviously nothing you aren’t already familiar with.
Stronger middle-school support is a must, definitely.
2 Likes
Don’t know if I understand correctly. I learned all the stuff despite school and had lots of fun with theatre groups, bikes (although not talented) and all the art and techno people and lots of free time to be in the clouds and tinker with stuff. Didn’t take drugs. Glad they let me sleep in school most of the time so I wouldn’t disturb. Would have been glad to appear for tests only (well basically I did, if sleeping doesn’t count as presence). I was lucky - never got bullied (in a psychological sense) - difficult situations with the local nazi-skin-group were rare and we survived without the police who was watching you - from a distance.
Curiosity and proper books - proper degrees in 2 different fields.
3 Likes
Different experiences, but middle-schoolers are a bit crueler leading into high school, coping strategies to navigate adult worlds that we are forced to create lose effectiveness, puberty and emotions can introduce a lot of problems for persons and not even taking into account physical development and gender non-conforming.
Would have been glad to appear for tests only
Definitely, I made it through school and Uni by virtue of deep focus and being able to read intention and design of standardized testing, the day to day participation was scattered.
I needed minimal support from teachers, until I required tutoring to unblock myself on one particular thing or another where it was rarely available to me.
Yeah, the nice thing about the “weird” goth collective I found myself in (beyond associated music, art, history, and culture between us and in subculture) was that the various local gangs didn’t need to fuck with us, though that changed for the younger generations once Columbine created targets on young non-neurotypicals backs for further harassment and bullying.
Friends’ families were concerned about (not for) them, not from outside harassment and bullying but the moral panic peddlers projected that the kids who were already put upon could/would become “school shooters”.
Not even going to get into the current culture of reactionary indoctrination present on popular webforums…
1 Like