ADHD revisited

Jerry Pournelle (always worth reading. Always) has some interesting observations about ADHD… again (search his site for more).

“If children do not learn self-discipline in school, when and where will they learn it? …If boys don’t learn to take charge of themselves in school, and in Scouts, and without drugs, then what kind of men will they be? Our neighborhood lawyer found himself in middle age after “suffering” from ADHD all his life; and having found himself not only quit his job and became a bum living in his mother’s basement, but is now demanding that his wife sell the house so he can get his share. If this is finding oneself, staying lost seems preferable, for he is no longer a man at all.”

There’s more here, including the correspondent’s remarks that elicited Dr. Pournelle’s comments.

As a side note to Dr. Pournelle’s comments, when I was teaching and had a few students “diagnosed” (whatever that meant at the time—different strokes for different folks’ different ways on different days, as it were—with ADD/ADHD, I noticed the kinds of behavior modifications Dr. Pournelle talks about in his brief disquisition. When one (or more) would “forget” to take the meds that literally drugged them outa their (own) minds, they could and did learn to moderate their behavior in my classes. One or two instances of “or else” were usually enough. A firm hand, “the look” from me and… well-focused student.

Drugging kids (mostly boys, of course) out of their minds is not the answer, in most (approaching all) cases. Nor is giving adults an excuse to be babies.

Writing “I will not throw chalk” on the blackboard 500 times at The Real Ugly American.