Older People | ADHD Information

My mom would be one in this category...she thinks most ADHD kids are really just "bad" or "not parented consistently" or "TV addicts."

So that means my ds who seems very ADHD but hasn't been diagnosed by a dr. yet is a lot of negative things in her book. What's hard to take is knowing that I am *not* a wonderful parent, I am *not* as good a discplinarian as she was, and my ds does *not* seem to care about his grades as much as his TV shows, etc. etc. So maybe she's a little bit right?

She will tell you how she had up to 45 dc in her classrooms when she was a kid, with nary a discpline problem. And if there did happen to be a problem, it wa usually a boy, but the teacher dealt with it swiftly and that was that.

Somehow this school thing came up in small talk with a grandmotherly lady yesterday and she made similar comments. "kids just knew how to be respectful back then" she said.

I even have younger friends who are very strickt with their kids and they say things like, "it's all in how we as parents deal with them" and "well, attention skills must be learned, that's all...parents have to impress upon their dc to pay attention."

I've even had a techer email me (during class) and tell me my ds was sleeping. Um...wake him up? Ask if he's ok? Discipline him if you think he's being disrespectful?" I dunno. Is it really all my ds' and my fault like they say?
elizam39132.2718865741

I get lots of flak from all the grandparents in my kids lives.  It doesn't help with self esteem issues (his or mine). And they're cutting off their grandkids. Maybe it helps them, maybe they get a kick out of thinking they were better parents than me  (can't figure that out since THEY raised me to be this way) Anyway, I've tried to discuss it with them, directed them to this site and while that helped with some of my friends it hasn't helped with the grandparents.

I console myself with this. We're dealing with DIFFERENT circumstances. In their day as parents, life was DEFINITELY not as stressful. MOST mothers didn't work, the world was not in the situation it is now and the demands weren't made on our time as kids as they are on our own kids now. There was not as much external stimuli. All that pressure exacerbates ADHD. 

So the point of all this?

Today's parents are pioneers. We have issues that few parents before had to face. Our kids have issues that few kids before them had to face.  Couple their ADHD with the fact that many of us ourselves are being diagnosed with it as adults and so we have TWO diagnoses to deal with.  Our parents didn't have that.

So my opinion is yes - they raised me.  But I wasn't the same as my son is now.  My mom HAS had influence on my son as she did on me. Guess what? He has ADHD. Would he not have had it had she raised him entirely? I don't think so.

What some people don't realize is that in the past, there was not as much emphasis on getting through school. My father was left home at 15 to work on a road crew. My mother lived with various older sisters and school was hit or miss. Many of my parent's family members either worked on the farm or in the steel mills. When you were old enough to contribute to the family, you skipped school to work on the farm or for others. ADHD is not as noticeable in this setting.

Now with the emphasis on fitting more education into a shorter period (my kids are learning things 3 or 4 years earlier than taught when I was in school), kids that have difficulties in the school setting do not have many options but to find a way to cope with the school setting. We need our kids to have the tools to be successful in this day and age, not the past. Also, ADHD may have advantage for people in many high tech work environments if the negative aspects are in control.

I think the older generation often sees things through their "rose colored glasses."  They remember the "good old days", but memory is selective and  I think it's a combination of that and what Vickie said about the emphasis on education.  These kids were not nessecarily in the classroom, which explains why the older generations do not remember them.

Don't for a minute think that your son's behavior makes you a bad parent- it's easy for some one who has never raised a child to tell you to be more strict or teach him to pay attention.  They've never actually had to do it and do not know that you cannot make a child pay attention when his brain simply cannot do that.  You also cannot punish a child into good behavior when they have poor impulse control.  ADHD is nobody's fault- it just is.

Also realize that many of the children that that generation raised have required a whole lotta therapy to deal with the way they were raised.  Our kids are much better off with understanding and empathy.

*if you figure out a way to make them care about their grades, let me know.