I think it impossible to sufficiently emphasize that not only is each child different (whether or not considered to be ADHD or autistic) but also each diagnostician differs! And so does each teacher and each school system and each state's educational expectations differ. I see the differences not only because my job involves special education eligibility (Federal, state, and county compliance), and not only because I am familiar with diagnosticians within both school and medical systems, but because my DD was among the first to be officially medically diagnosed as being ADHD. While I would give all due respect to those physicians who feel only medical doctorates are qualified to make a diagnosis, I would be far more impressed with their personal qualifications and experience on the subject, if they have any. In the past twenty years in this job, I have seen literally thousands of MD-signed "diagnoses" which were overwhelmingly obvious in their lack of supportive in-depth knowledge of both patient and disability. I have also seen some truly impressive evaluations which -doctoral opinions to the contrary- were as likely to be written by a clinical psychologist or pediatrical behavioral specialist as by a formal pediatrician or other medical doctor. The problem, of course, is that there is no single cause of the physical/emotional/behavioral spectra which is commonly termed ADD, ADHD, or autism. In each category, the legal definitions themselves are changing, and criteria which is acknowledged by one medical group or state or educational system may not be accepted by another. If one has a pustulent rash, swabs and microscopes and medical histories can determine whether the rash was caused by poison ivy or chicken pox or something else. When one has difficulty learning to focus and/or to behave with social appropriateness and/or to simply sit still -or any of the other several dozen criteria for ADD, ADHD,or autism, one learns that there is no one single defining cause nor is there any one single defining "cure" or amelioration. This fuzziness of both cause and cure can be beyond frustration for parents, teachers, and medical staff involved. Like others, I could talk for hours and days about my personal experiences with DD's ADHD which might or might not be of any help to you. Instead, I'd rather encourage you to do several things, each within your control. First: keep detailed diaries: record meals, drinks, activities and the child's ongoing behavior. NO one can make a diagnosis without supportive information, most especially when general behaviors are concerned. There is more to a child's behavior than is shown while s/he is at the doctor's office. Second (and this is more difficult than diary-type notes), eliminate sugar and foods containing sugar-replacement additives from the diet. The restriction includes sucrose, fructose, aspartame, saccarin, etc. To do this is a PIA, which involves much reading of labels and consistency in refusing to give in to demands and whines. I've been there and done that, and when it comes to compliance: adults are a bigger problem than the kid. (This restriction may or may not affect the behavior, but I guarantee the body will be healthier.) Third: do not accept any single person's diagnosis as being sufficient unto itself. I do recommend having at least one pediatrician [if at all possible one who has studied and reported on ADD/autism] AND a non-affiliated behavioral specialist and/or clinical psychologist make a diagnosis. And if the diagnosis is presented after one visit and consists of saying that little junior is obviously ADD and needs medication, go find another person to make an informed evaluation. The average evaluation takes many hours of one-on-one study by the diagnostician with the patient, and ends up summarized in a 15- to 30-page report. Anything written on just one page is probably an unsupported opinion which may have little to do with your child. Fourth, remember that there is a very large segment of the medical community which believes that no non-medically trained person needs the details or basis of any medical diagnosis. Period. They will be offended and/or appalled that any one else would question their diagnosis or evaluation. IMO, run-don't-walk out that door. There are too many intelligent, informed, and informative medical personnel around to limit yourself to someone who believes you are incapable of understanding basic English. OTOH, you need to show your comprehension of the issues involved. Keep a notebook going with a summary of what you have read [who wrote it/when, by whom, where published]. Be very cautious of medical personnel who discount or shrug off reports from the child's teacher/s -- that is similar to saying that what one person observes over a several hours every day, every week is of no importance. IMO, what a teacher sees over six hours daily has as much importance as what the parent sees over six hours daily --- and in both cases the views may or may not be of value in a diagnosis but neither should they be summarily dismissed. The odds are that either teacher or parent is far more familiar with the child than the doctor is! And last, remember to love the child no matter how exasperating the actions.

"I am hoping this will be helpful to create an awareness of the dangers of relying on medication to solve behavioral problems. " Before even reading your position statement, my immediate reaction was that you are going into this with at least two hidden biases: - First, that the adults are relying on pills to "solve the problems" rather than mitigate the severity of the issues that cause the symptoms, or to assist the child in overcoming the problems, and - Second, that the problems are "behavioral" in nature and not medical. But after reading your stance, it seems like your position is the familiar "overdiagnosing, overmedicating, underparenting" argument. I do hope you'll dig much deeper than this. As the parent of two boys with labels, I will admit that there is some truth to your stance. But that pendulum also swings the other way, with the "overdiagnosing" argument preventing children from receiving the legitimate medical treatment that can help them succeed. My older son was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, and is also gifted intellectually and artistically. Prior to his diagnoses, he struggled to learn to read and his self-esteem plummeted in response to his unexpected difficulties. I had always been an active and involved parent and had a close relationship with my son, and while he WAS very active, I did not experience ANY discipline problems at home. So when the educational psychologist I took him to (suspecting dyslexia) suggested ADHD in addition to dyslexia, I was surprised and reluctant to believe it. But teacher interviews overwhelmingly supported that diagnosis, and after considring the issue carefully, I agreed to a trial of stimulant medication. It made a significant, immediate and positive difference in his schoolwork. He was finally able to concentrate enough to benefit from his reading instruction, and caught up to 'grade level' relatively quickly. He was also able to curb his impulsiveness, which smoothed over some of his previous social and classroom difficulties. He was happier and doing well again. Then his stepmother got involved, citing the "overdiagnosed, overmedicated" argument, and his father, citing the "He's just like I was!" (therefore?) argument threatened to sue the doctor if he continued to prescribe stimulants, so I agreed to take him off the meds. DS's schoolwork began to slip and problem behaviors re-emerged, though with even more active parenting, those issues were held in reasonable check. He is still disorganized, forgetful, impulsive and very distractable, problems that were much less severe when he was medicated. Does he absolutely for-certain have ADHD? I guess I can't say for sure. Without a scientifically validated medical test, no one can say for 100% sure. But what I can absolutely say is that being on stimulant medication helped him significantly, and the "overdiagnosed / overmedicated" argument harmed him. My younger son is diagnosed with PDD-NOS, a mild form of autism, another of the "wildly overdiagnosed" conditions. There is absolutely no question in the minds of anyone who knows him that there is something going on, some disorder of some sort. What exactly that diagnosis should be is still up for discussion, among experts and parents alike, and PDD/NOS is simply the best (if imperfect) fit. But he too has been harmed by the "overdiagnosed / overmedicated" mindset. Even among treating professionals, there is a certain amount of "overanxious parent" skepticism. With some physicians you can see the skepticism when they first walk in the room, and watch it melt when they determine that there actually IS a basis-in-fact to the parent's concerns. "With this campaign, I hope to bring to light the exorbitant amount of children being diagnosed and medically treated for "disorders" like ADHD." Believe me -- this 'issue' is hardly in the dark. It is out there and being trumpeted far and wide; it needs no advocate. But please know also that this viewpoint harms some children as well as helping some of them. " It will show that many of these "disorders" can be corrected simply by a parent paying more attention, or a teacher altering the way a subject is taught. " Certainly, active, involved parenting and creative teaching strategies geared toward the needs of each individual child are good, effective tactics. But to suggest that medical biological disorders can be "fixed" by simple good parenting / good teaching are simplistic in the extreme, and harmful to the children who actually do have these problems. Now there IS good science being done that establishes how intensive behavioral patterning and effective one-on-one and small group teaching can actually change the structure of the brain, re-wiring neural pathways. (Look into dyslexia remediation strategies and Applied Behavior Analysis in treating autism.) To investigate how intensive training and instruction can actually "cure" medical disorders that originate in the brain by realigning neural pathways -- a similar but more scientific and greatly intensified approach to your 'active parenting/individualized teaching' argument -- there's some thesis material.

Gluten-gree is THE way to go. I dropped 20 pounds in 4 weeks doing nothing but eating gluten-free. have the "Wheat Belly" book, and I've read most of it. I have tried only two recipes, the Crab Cakes and the Pizza. The Crab Cakes were heavenly, the Pizza was... passable. My grand-daughters ate it (they're 6 and 2), but if it looks like pizza, they'll eat it. In my experience, nothing that is SUPPOSED to taste like bread tastes like bread. It's not soft, not doughy and yeasty, just... not. The breads you can buy or make are great for toast, french toast, breadcrumbs for cooking, etc. But they're not good for sandwiches or pizza doughs if you want a soft crust. I just had to learn to live without. I don't even save them for "special treats" because I'd rather just lose my taste and craving for such things. In ALL other recipes that aren't breads/muffins/bagels, I just replaced wheat flour with soy flour. I can't tell a difference really, or it feels so much better in my stomach that it SEEMS to taste better.

A__'s 8 (almost 9) He lives at four different houses - so his life in incredibly inconsistent (BM's, my BF's, BM's mom's, and my BF's dad's) We only have him on weekends (and the time frame is highly variable - sometimes we get him Friday night and BM calls Saturday morning that she wants him back, sometimes we have him until Sunday night. Sometimes we don't get him until Sunday morning and drop him at school on Monday) He plays soccer (usually one practice and one game per week) BF usually winds up taking him to that because even though everyone else says "Ooooh, it's soooo important for him to be in sports" they also can't be bothered to drive him or attend his games. (but that's an unrelated rant about hypocrisy and unreliability from A__'s other caregivers) Warcraft is a fantasy game (orks and mages and stuff do quests to find treasure and learn skills) that was originally designed for teens and up, but it's not graphic or adult themed, so it's really popular with 8-12 yo boys. He plays about 5-10 hours of it on weekend days at the moment. 5 is a lot, but 10 is just plain unreasonable. He plays for about 2-3 hours after he gets up (he wakes us up usually around 8, I get him breakfast, then I go back to bed until about 10 and get up to shower etc) We don't mind him playing in the morning before we're up and being allowed to play in the morning keeps him from sneaking up in the night and so on. Then he wants to play it all afternoon and evening too. I can't say that I blame him, there hasn't been much in the way of toys or other things to do at my BF's place lately (A__ outgrew the toys that BF had, and every time A__ gets presents, BM wants them all at her place. BF bought him a Wii, BM said it should be at her place, etc etc. BF asked BM for some ideas of what A__ is really playing with these days and she said "I'll send some toys over" but then changed her mind and wouldn't even give ideas because "He doesn't need toys at your house. He has toys at my house" - another unrelated rant in the making) The other thing is that A__ is very very high input (ADHD in action) so it's very hard to keep him at an activity for more than a few minutes. My BF really wants to do other things with him, but BF has always been at a loss as to how to keep someone with A__'s attention span focused on something other than Warcraft. He's a good dad, but he has trouble thinking from A__'s point of view sometimes and isn't all that creative when it comes to thinking up activities for A__ to do. Which is where the other thread (Hands-on/Active ideas) comes in. A__ is pretty good about listening when we say "Only one hour of Warcraft tonight" - he sometimes stalls by starting a quest with 5 minutes left in the hour or says "but I lost two minutes when I went to the bathroom" etc, but what kid wouldn't? So now that we're working on the activities stockpile so actually have other things for him to do, and we have decided to give up on toys from BM so just go buy him some, we were thinking of starting with 5 hours of Warcraft (for a whole day) that he can earn extra 15 minute blocks for with good behaviors. After awhile, we think we'll drop it down to 4. That means the structure of the morning can stay the same (which is good because all three of us like this system) but then he has to budget his time for the afternoon and evening and it legislates that he HAS to do something else. BF works some odd shifts and we don't live together (A__ asks me each week to "stay for the whole weekend pleeeeease?" and that's why I get him breakfast and stuff). So at present it's not all that practical for us to have A__ for a more structured time, but once we get engaged and move in together (probably this summer) we plan to ask for a more regular schedule, which will help with some of our troubles stemming from unpredictable schedules.