ADD/ADHD or Normal?                

Part 1

DID YOU KNOW THAT THE GOVERNMENT CAN FORCE YOU TO DRUG YOUR CHILD?

I hear a lot of stories in my job. Every once and a while I hear a story that makes my blood run cold. Sadly, when it comes to Attention Deficit Disorder and Hyperactivity Disorder, and various other catchall pseudo-scientific psychiatric labels, almost all the stories I hear make me sick and very frightened for individual human rights.

Let me share with you the most recent outrageous story I have heard. This story is about my friend, Laura (not her real name), who is a very hard working single mother of a dynamic eight-year-old boy, Albert (not his real name either). Albert is not an easy child. He is full of life (he calls it “God Energy”) and has always had a difficult time with school. This is a kid who has never done well with structure and demands that his personal needs be attended to in a way that is respectful of him. Not a good thing for a kid in school…

Albert has been bounced from school to school. Teachers have a hard time dealing with his “God Energy” because he doesn’t fit the system. So, instead of finding a way to work with Albert within the system, or even modifying the system a bit, the schools have always opted to throw Albert out. Imagine what that has done to his self-esteem.

Recently, Albert started a new public school. He made it a few months. In fact, his mother reports that the teachers gave her satisfactory reports and told her that they were willing to look at different ways to support Albert in the classroom. But, as usual, things didn’t work out and Laura was called in for a meeting with the principal. At this meeting, Laura was told that Albert would not be allowed to continue in school until she put him on medication. And, that if she chose to keep him out of school, they would send the Truant officer to arrest her. Laura is seven months pregnant and a working single mother. Imagine her panic and fear.

In America we have compulsory schooling. Apparently, as I investigated this story further, the state (public schools) can also enforce compulsory drugging of children. Laura and Albert’s story are not my any means unique. Schools can use legal threats and force parents to medicate their children.

Let me share another story with you. This story comes from the website www.ritalindeath.com and is told first hand by Lawrence Smith, Mathew’s father:

“Mathew’s story started in a small town with Berkley, Michigan. While in first grade, Mathew was evaluated by the school, who believed that he was ADHD. The school social worker, Monica Fuchs, kept calling us in for meetings. One morning at one of these meetings while waiting for the others to arrive, Monica told us that if we refused to take Mathew to the doctor and get him on Ritalin, child protective services could charge us for neglecting his educational and emotional needs. My wife and I were intimidated and scared. We believed that there was a real possibility of losing our children if we did not comply with the school threats.”

To make a tragic story short, Mathew was ultimately medicated with Ritalin.

A few years later, according to a coroner’s report, Mathew died from “long term use of methylphenidate (Ritalin)”.

Here are some more frightening facts:

Schools receive additional money from state and federal government for every child labeled and drugged.

Parents receiving welfare money from the government can get additional funds for every child they have labeled and drugged.

If your child is labeled with ADD/ADHD, they are classified as having a mental illness by the DSM-IV.

Children taking psychotropic and psycho-stimulant drugs after the age of 12 are ineligible for military service.

The subjective checklists that are used as criteria for diagnosis of ADD/ADHD are similar to the checklists used to determine Gifted and Talented children. These two checklists are almost identical.

According to the Drug Enforcement Agency, Ritalin will affect normal adults and children the same way as ADD/ADHD children, meaning that any “improvement” in behavior is not indicative of ADD/ADHD.

According to many independent studies, NOT funded by pharmaceutical companies, children who take stimulant medications have brains that are much more susceptible to the addictive power of cocaine and use of stimulant medication doubles the risk for substance abuse.

There are over 50 medical and environmental conditions with symptoms that mimic ADD/ADHD.

Stimulant drugs cause withdrawal symptoms, some of them so severe that they can result in death. Abrupt withdrawal can produce potentially life-threatening reactions including fatigue, depression and suicidal tendencies.

Drugging children habituates them to altered states of consciousness and does not allow them to learn to manage more challenging behaviors. Consequently, these children may have a harder time managing themselves as they grow older.

In animal studies we see that stimulants cause chimps to act “meaningless” and “lack spontaneity”. In children we call this “improvement” because they will now comply with school activities, sit still and stop talking to their classmates.

Attention “induced by drugs” doesn’t involve the making of rational choices or acts of will. It is drug-induced obsessive-compulsive attention to rote activities brought on by OVERSTIMULATING the brain.

Stimulant-induced brain damage and dysfunction demonstrated in human and animal research includes the following: reduced blood flow, reduced oxygen supply, reduced energy utilization, persistent biochemical imbalances, persistent loss of receptors for neurotransmitters, persistent sensitization (increased reactivity to stimulants), permanent distortion of brain cell structure and function and brain cell death and tissue shrinkage. ANY AND ALL OF THESE CHANGES CAN OCCUR WITH THE FIRST DOSE.

One last sobering fact before I am quiet for the week…I can “diagnose” an ADD/ADHD child by simply looking at their Human Design chart. There is nothing wrong with these children; they simply do not fit the traditional school system. Their unique learning needs are not being met. I believe that we are witnessing the evolution of our species. We must radically change our approach to educating these children or our diagnosis rate of ADD/ADHD or whatever the “diagnosis du jour” is will continue to escalate.

We have over 6,000,000 prescriptions for Ritalin being written every year in the United States. In some communities, the diagnosis rate of ADD/ADHD is almost 30% of children. I leave you with this question: Is there really something “wrong” with one in three of our children or are we seeing the symptoms of a school system that is on the brink of collapse?

Are you comfortable with compulsory drugging by the government?

Next week, the American Psychiatric Association diagnostic criteria for ADD/ADHD and how it relates to Human Design.

Love,

Karen

P.S. I am aware that there are a few children with REAL organic brain disorders or injuries that truly benefit from medication. This article is not meant to offend or hurt anyone dealing with unique circumstances.


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Karen on her soapbox again...

Part 2

"DIAGNOSING ATTENTION DEFICIT / HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER"

In my last article I wrote about the potential dangers of Ritalin and other psychoactive medications that are often prescribed to children to control their behavior in school. Today I would like to share with you the diagnostic criteria for ADD/ADHD set by the American Psychiatric Association and I want to discuss some correlation between a child's Human Design Chart and his/her behavior in school.

Even if you don't have children, I believe you will find this information very interesting and enlightening. So let's begin…

Few parents understand exactly how a physician actually arrives at the diagnosis of ADD/ADHD. The following criteria constitute the official "symptoms" of ADD/ADHD as dictated by the American Psychiatric Association. Read carefully, because there is going to be a test afterwards:


DIAGNOSTIC CRITERIA FOR ATTENTION-DEFICIT/HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER

Either (1) or (2):

(1) Six (or more) of the following symptoms of inattention have persisted for at least 6 months to a degree that is maladaptive and inconsistent with developmental level:

Inattention:
(a) often fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork or other activities.
(b) often has difficulty sustaining attention in tasks or play activities
(c) often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly
(d) often does not follow through on instructions and fails to finish school work, chores or duties in the workplace (not due to oppositional behavior or failure to understand instructions.
(e) often has difficulty organizing tasks and activities
(f) often avoids, dislikes or is reluctant to engage in tasks that require sustained mental effort (such as schoolwork or homework)
(g) often loses things necessary for tasks or activities (e.g. toys, school assignments, pencils, books or tools)
(h) is often easily distracted by extraneous stimuli
(i) is often forgetful in daily activities


(2) six (or more) of the following symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity have persisted for at least 6 months to a degree that it is maladaptive and inconsistent with developmental level:

Hyperactivity:
(a) often fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat
(b) often leaves seat in classroom or in other situations in which remaining seated is expected.
(c) often runs about or climbs excessively in situations in which it is inappropriate (in adolescence or adulthood may be limited to subjective feelings of restlessness)
(d) often has difficulty playing or engaging in leisure activities quietly
(e) Is often “on the go” or often acts as if “driven by a motor”
(f) often talks excessively

Impulsivity:
(g) often blurts out answers before questions have been completed
(h) often has difficulty awaiting turn
(i) often interrupts or intrudes on others (e.g. butts into conversations or games)

B. Some hyperactive-impulsive or inattentive symptoms that caused impairment were present before 7 years of age.
C. Some impairment from the symptoms is present in two or more settings (e.g. at school [or work] and at home).
D. There must be clear evidence of clinically significant impairment in social, academic or occupational functioning.

Source: American Psychiatric Association, 2000.



WHO HAS ADHD?

SOME COMMENTS ABOUT THESE CRITERIA…
Maybe it seems easy for some people to look at lists of symptoms like those above and decide whose child has ADHD and whose doesn't. But notice that these symptoms listed above require a subjective evaluation by the physician or by the person who describes the child's behavior to the physician. I'm not trying to belittle the hard work that went into making these lists, but I do want to point out that an ACTUAL HUMAN BEING must ultimately decide what behaviors constitute "hyperactive behaviors" and what behaviors can be considered normal childlike behaviors. Ask a hundred people for an opinion and you will get a hundred opinions, so whose opinion holds sway?

In addition to subjectivity, there is nothing in the above criteria that would offer the opportunity to list the circumstances that might have influenced the behavior. Let me give you an example of what I mean:

"Often fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat," for example, clearly indicates hyperactive behavior according to the criteria. But there can be extenuating circumstances that contribute to the behavior. A kinesthetic child sitting in a lecture class, for example, will have a hard time not fidgeting with hands and feet after a few minutes. On the other hand, an auditory learner in a hand's-on class like Home Economics might have difficulty staying on task during a cooking lesson and might start juggling the spatulas out of boredom.

Would this constitute "fidgeting with hands and feet"? Would such a child be diagnosed as ADHD? (My husband is like this. A totally AUDITORY human, he cannot focus for very long on kinesthetic chores. During a hands-on activity, such as any craft project, he has the attention span of a flea and will often start fidgeting with hands and feet in the first few minutes. Then he proceeds to start juggling the craft tools and maybe the glue bottle, and then I send him out of the room to do something else.)

Fidgeting with hands and feet isn't limited to children and husbands either. Adults exhibit many signs of ADHD in certain situations.

Have you ever been to a full performance of a classic opera? Attend the next opera in your area, look around the room at about the three-hour mark and take a tally of what you see. You may find 25% of the patrons glued to the music (the true fans) and another 25% asleep (the very elderly, the young children, and the Projectors). The remaining 50% of attendees will be exhibiting signs of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder as defined by the American Psychiatric Association -- "often fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat…" (These are the 50% whose spouses made them attend.)

I would never suggest that opera causes ADHD, only that there are extenuating circumstances that might account for the exhibited behaviors such as fidgeting. We've all experienced fidgeting at one time or another, haven't we? Have you ever sat in a dull lecture-style class in High School or College, or in a very long church service, and felt after an hour or more that your insides were turning to stone? Would you forgive yourself for fidgeting with your hands and feet, or would you run out and purchase some medication for your "hyperactive" behavior?

Again, I'm not attempting to belittle the criteria set for by the APA. But, please note that these symptoms listed above might describe any child you have ever met at some time during the day, or they might describe your spouse or yourself at certain times as well. My husband, a former public school teacher, says that these "symptoms" could describe the typical behavior of teachers at boring all-day inservices, especially during the last week of school, or anytime there is a box of free donuts in the room. So I have to wonder--based on these criteria--how many of us grown-ups are running around with undiagnosed ADD/ADHD? Yikes!

Are we all hyperactive? Or is there some other way to examine ADD/ADHD and figure out what is going on in a society in which as many as one-third of students in schools are diagnosed as having a behavior disorder that requires drug treatment? The examples above relating to learning styles present challenges to the diagnostic criteria given by the APA. We could probably come up with a dozen more such examples that would illustrate the subjectivity of the criteria.

Nonetheless, many kids do act "hyper" at times and some act "hyper" all the time, and teachers and parents want to know what to do about it. As a parent, I have been driven to near-insansity many times by bouncy flouncy pouncy kids who make Tigger look tame. So what can a parent or teacher do about this "hyperactivity?"

I believe some "hyperactive" and "attention deficit" type behaviors can be explained by examination of children's Human Design charts.


USING HUMAN DESIGN TO ACCOUNT FOR ADD/ADHD SYMPTOMS
In the last year I have begun to use the Human Design System to "diagnose" ADD/ADHD in my practice. When I look at the design of a child with an ADD/ADHD diagnosis, I can usually see where the supposed dysfunctional behavior originates. Many of these children have common elements in their design.

In the Human Design System, there are nine centers. When you look at your chart, unless you are a Reflector, you will see that some of your centers are colored in and some of them are white. The white centers are called "open" or "undefined" centers.

When you have an open center, you take energy from the world around you into that center. Moreover, you don't just take in energy in those open centers--you amplify it!

It is through the functioning of the open centers that I see many of the symptoms of ADD/ADHD materialize.


THE OPEN MIND AND "ADD"
Many children diagnosed with "ADHD" that I see have undefined Head centers and/or Ajna centers. The Head center and the Ajna are the two triangles at the top of the Human Design body graph. One of these, the Head, is a pressure center, and the other, the Ajna, is an awareness center. Individuals with open Head and Ajna centers are designed to process information from the world around them. In other words, information comes into those centers and then it goes out again, amplified. These people have the potential to become deeply wise about the world around them because they are open to receiving so much information from everyone around them.

If you are an adult with an open Head and Ajna you may experience the phenomenon of taking in information in your daily life. When you go to the grocery store, for example, or any busy place, you will absorb much from the people around you and might even feel distracted with thoughts that you weren't thinking when you first arrived there. My husband, Kyle, has an open Head and Ajna. He HAS to take a list with him to the grocery store, otherwise he becomes distracted and forgets what he is supposed to buy.

And, because the open mind is constantly taking in information, he may actually buy things that he got from other people's minds. It might sound as if having an open mind causes only problems. There are benefits as well, however, since people with open minds make great mind readers!

If you put a child with an open mind in a classroom, all the mental energy surrounding him may easily distract him. These children can have difficulty paying attention and focusing on the task at hand. It is not a deficit of any sort to have an open mind, but a child with this configuration could benefit from learning in a quieter setting.

These kids can sometimes be accused of cheating. If you put a child with an open mind next to one with a defined mind, the child with the open mind may actually pick up the answers from the child with the defined mind. And, these children won't be able to explain how they know the answers because it will seem to the child that they just "knew" the information or just had a lucky guess. (Note: There are other reasons that would also account for the phenomenon of intuiting answers. Extremely right-brain dominant children frequently intuit answers and they have no idea how they know what they know. They just know. It would be unfair to make these kids prove their answers, since they don't always know where the information came from.)


THE OPEN ROOT CENTER
Another common factor that I see in Human Design that relates to hyperactivity is an open Root center. The Root center (at the bottom of the Human Design bodygraph) is the center for adrenaline energy. When the Root center is open, a child can take in the adrenaline energy of the classroom and amplify it. Someone with a fixed Root center will have a consistent sense of their adrenaline energy, but those with an open Root center have an inconsistent sense of this energy and can feel a rush of pressure when they enter a room full of people.

If you have a child with an open Root center, you can see this in his behavior at home. This is the child who gets all silly and wound up when someone visits your family or who feels overwhelmed by guests and has to hide or leave the room. At Christmas time, this child might not sleep for days in anticipation of Santa Claus.

In the school setting, this is a child who has a hard time sitting still, may act as if she is "driven by a motor" (the root center is a motor), or who is constantly "on the go". These children may also fidget and squirm in their seats, jump up, or run around unexpectedly. Sometimes they talk excessively.

Because the Root center is a pressure center, these kids also feel a lot of pressure to answer questions in the classroom. (If they have an open Head center--another pressure center--they may blurt out answers because they are under pressure and they want to answer the question while their mind is still processing the task at hand.)

Open Root children, like all kids, could benefit greatly from more time outside to burn off some of this "hyper" activity. And, these children would also do better in a classroom with enough room to move around. It is cruel to force these kids to sit in seats for extended periods of time. A child with a fixed Root center can have a hard time sitting still, (can't we all?) but a child with an open Root in a room with fixed Root children will feel even more pressure. Eventually, the pressure does build and these children may shrink away from the pressure and be called "shy" or they may just "explode" out of their seats into some kind of inappropriate behavior.

By the way, in adults, the open Root will manifest in similar ways. You might feel constantly under pressure to get things done so that you can be "free" (When I finish painting the house I can rest. When I get these papers filed, I can take some time off…). This can sometimes translate into "subjective feelings of restlessness".


GENERATOR ENERGY: THE SACRAL MOTOR
The open centers described above account for some of what I see diagnosed as ADD/ADHD behavior. There is another source for high-energy type behavior, however, that has to do with a fixed center, the Sacral.

So far, every child in my practice who has a diagnosis of ADD/ADHD is a Generator type. The Sacral center that defines a Generator is the most powerful motor in the body. These kids definitely act as though they are "driven by a motor" or "on the go" because…well…THEY ARE!

Generators are here to work. The Sacral motor (the red colored square underneath the diamond in the center of the body graph chart) is capable of incredible amounts of sustained energy if it is used properly (responding to things). A healthy generator must burn out her motor before she can go to sleep. A generator can't go to sleep unless she is exhausted.

What I see frequently in Generator children is that they have a hard time falling asleep. This starts them on a vicious cycle of chronic sleep deprivation. Because they aren't getting enough sleep, they start to exhibit the symptoms of seratonin depletion that accompany sleep deprivation. Interestingly enough, the symptoms of seratonin depletion are the same as the symptoms of ADD/ADHD!

Generator children who are having a hard time falling asleep are simply not getting a chance to burn their motor out! In schools, children have little time to run around and burn off their energy. With stricter and heavier academic guidelines mandated at earlier and earlier ages, children are losing their NATURAL time to experiment and explore the world. Most children HAVE to physically burn off their energy or they will go nuts! (And they will drive their parents nuts as well.)

In one of my children's classes this year, there is a conglomerate of very active young men. These boys have been "in trouble" since the first day of school. They talk loudly, get into fights, and generally act rowdy in class. On some days, the teacher's solution to this problem has been to keep them in from recess and make them sit in their desks. The problem hasn't improved all year!


WHAT TO DO ABOUT "HYPER" CHILREN
Could it be possible that the one easy, FREE, and non-life-threatening thing that we could do to prevent ADD/ADHD diagnosis is to allow children more time to run around and burn off energy? If we were to limit time spent watching television, playing video and computer games, sitting in desks all day, etc., and replaced those activities with playing in the mud, climbing a hill, hiking a trail, or swinging on some monkey bars... perhaps children would all seem healthier. Perhaps we would all feel healthier! Perhaps the diagnosis of ADD/ADHD would become more and more rare. It's worth trying!


THERE'S MORE
There are many other possible connections between a person's Human Design definition and the diagnosis of ADD/ADHD behavior. I will discuss some of these possibilities in future articles.


TO CONCLUDE:
It is true that many children do exhibit symptoms of ADD/ADHD as outlined in the criteria listed at the beginning of this article. Most teachers, school counselors and physicians are doing the absolute best they can to deal with this issue, and I intend no criticism of the invidivuals who have to face the ADD/ADHD issue up close and personal each day in their jobs. Taking into consideration the circumstances faced by most schools in the United States, it does not surprise me that more than 30% of children fit the diagnostic criteria for hyperactivity. I truly believe, though, that there is nothing "wrong" with most of these children who have been labeled "hyperactive" by the school/medical system.

I feel strongly that we all need to examine our educational system very closely and ask why one third of all children are having a difficult time with behavior management as diagnosed by standards of the American Psychiatric Association. We should use tools like Human Design to come to new understandings about why children act the way they do.

Unless we ask questions now about how we can change the current system, and unless we take action soon, we will lose an entire generation of kids. These kids deserve better than to be put on drugs for just being who they are. They deserve much better.


Okay, I'll get off my soap box now. Until next time…

Love,

Karen