I have a confession to make | ADHD Information
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to much anything is bad.This is can over stimulate you. It also holds attention for you also. Well, count me in as another parent who thinks blaming extended TV viewing is "crap." My sister and I LIVED off TV as kids. I was diagnosed ADHD at age six, and she never had problems. My ADHD son watched a lot of TV here and there, but he had plenty of other interests. My non ADHD son (who is totally laid back and the total opposite of my son in countless ways) could watch TV all day if he were allowed to do it. I only WISH it were as easy as blaming TV.Wait. One thing I do want to agree to is that an ADHD kid can DEFINITELY hyperfocus on some forms of visual stimulation. My ADHD kid, mentioned in the above post, went through a completely OBSESSIVE period with video games (lasted over a year). I'm talking obsession to the point that the games were all he thought about at school, all he talked about with friends, all he wanted to do at home. He would lose it when I said he couldn't play them. Watching him react to being told no to video games was downright FRIGHTENING. I equated his obsession to it at one point with drug addiction-like behavior. It freaked me out! Things have changed for the better with it now, thankfully. Personally, I just hate those video games. The ones nine-year olds are interested in (at least in my son's group of peers) are FAR too violent and adult for their young age. It's horrible.Kids problems today are they won't play outside. Ours get no choice in this. We are so technology minded that is what they prefer. These are no the ones with hyper focusing Autism kids do this also. All the imfo we get's from SI people who have done this for years.Hi Dawn marie
I am at fault there to as well. The tele and the computer are my son's best friend.
Tammy
Newspaper articles, magazine articles and television programs about ADHD are a very poor source of information. The information is highly inaccuate because the agenda is to sell newspapers and elevate rating on tv. They use fear tatics to drive their point home. Please dont blame yourself because ADHD is a neurobiological medical problem. There are tons of random studies all over the place and more times than not, the studies point towards blaming the parents. People had ADHD long before television was even invented but unfortunately, medical science did not have the knowledge and resources that they do today to identify this disorder. Never make a deicision or draw a conclusion based on fear. Children with adhd have the ability to hyperfocus so television and video games will always hold their attention when its something that interests them. Its a great form of stimulation for them. There is plenty of credible research linking ADHD to a highly genetic cause and while the jury is still out in terms of conclusive evidence, not only should one question the information, but also question the source of information. As parents we always question our parenting skills and decisions we make for our children and at some point, we all feel guilt and blame ourselves but the more we learn in terms of accurate information, the less we fear and the better we understand. You are a great parent for if you werent, you wouldnt come here with doubts and questions. Hang in there and keep on questioning research and information. Thats how we learn to distinguish between accurate information and junk scienceI agree, but sometimes it get's so confusing to try to detrmine what is real and what is being exaggerated on tv about ADD/ and other disorders, you think that you are trying to get the right information by watching a piece on tv to help you and then come to find out it's not correct, i know some people who put all their trust into news.
redhead wrote:
but sometimes it get's so confusing to try to detrmine what is real and what is being exaggerated on tv about ADD/ and other disorders, you think that you are trying to get the right information by watching a piece on tv to help you and then come to find out it's not correct, i know some people who put all their trust into news.
Thats very true redhead. Its all very confusing but there are redflags along the way to help you determine what isnt true or should be highly questioned.
1. Those that are selling a product will always knock another form of treatment to substantiate a claim.
2. If the person doing the studies is also selling a product, the study is totally biased.
3. Scare tatics to get the public to beleive that the information presented is factual.
4. Sensationalizing, commonly done in tv and in the media. If they cant make it sound worse than it is, people won't tune in or read the article and that means low rating or less sales for magazines and newspapers.
5. Snakeoil salesmen that get on the internet and claim miracle cures.
6. Those that dont have children with ADHD nor do they have it themselves but claim to have all the answers.
As parents we can only trust our gut feelings to decide what is right or wrong in terms of information but knowing the redflags are very helpful in terms of coming to an informed decision. We all know whats best for all children because no one knows our children better than we do but I think its despicable that parents are constantly blamed or bereted for both the choices they make for their children in terms of treatment and also the fact that parents are blamed for their children having ADHD.. Its emotionally delbitating enough when a parent has to accept the fact that their child has a disability and then for society to finger point and place blame on the parents on top of it, that is emotionally devasting. There are parents that have children with disabilities and do nothing to help them and that in fact only makes the disability spin out of control but again, this is not the cause of the disability, its the effect and result of doing nothing.
Article was in 2004: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/04/040406090140.ht m
Here is more info: This new study that appeared in the April issue of Pediatrics suggests that it does. Children followed in this study were more likely to have attentional problems if they watched a lot of TV at age 1 and 3 years.
There were some limitations to the study. For one thing, the children weren't formally diagnosed with ADHD. Instead, their parents were simply asked if they had trouble concentrating, were easily confused, impulsive, restless, or had trouble with obsessions.
And most importantly, just because those children watched more TV, it doesn't mean that was why they had problems paying attention. It may just be that they already had ADHD, got easily distracted by other activities, and simply watched TV more because it is so stimulating. http://pediatrics.about.com/b/a/077604.htm
And this: http://www.parentmap.com/july_04/0704_2.htm
"Everyone is fixated on ADHD," says Christakis. "But that is not what we studied."
Dr. Ted Mandelkorn, an ADHD specialist on Mercer Island, says that's one reason the study "doesn't give all the answers."
Maybe, he says, the children who were studied had attention problems to begin with. "It could be that's why they were watching so much TV. These kids tend to get hooked into things that give them stimulation."
Further, the incidence of attention deficit disorders has remained constant at 8-10 percent, he says. "We have kids with it dating back to where there was no TV at all."
The study's authors also collected no data on what shows the children watched, Mandelkorn notes. Some educators, for example, might argue that programming such as Sesame Street actually promotes attention and reading.
The questions I would ask are:
1. Were these children already biologically, or genetically pre-disposed to having ADHD?
and
2. What type of evaluation/test was used?
If the child was pre-disposed to getting ADHD, they should try this with children in whose families the following do not run ADD, ADHD, ODD, bi-polar, autisum, & SID. Also, take children in whose families these disorders run in & do not allow them any TV & see what happens. After all, the 1st 7 day a week series was broadcast July 1931 so the following famous ADD people never had the opportunity to be planted in front of PBS, or any TV as a child: Ansel Adams, Alexander Graham Bell, Hans Christian Anderson, Beethovan, George Burns, Sir Richard Francis Burton, Admiral Richard Byrd, Thomas Carlyle, Andrew Carnigie, Lewis Clark, Agatha Christie, Winston Churchill, Harvey Cushing M.D., Salvator Dali, Leonardo DiVinci, Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Ben Franklin, Dwight Eisenhower, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry Ford, Galileo, Handel, Hemmingway, & I haven't even made it half way through the alphabet! See what I am getting at.
Now too much TV is not good for anyone, children or adults, but a cause of ADHD, please!
Thanks for the replies...it did give me a different outlook, I guess I just wondered...but I do go back to what his doctor said, it's the chemicals in his brain and she showed me how his brain just works different than others without ADHD.
Ok, then I think of the time when my son was in kindergarten and a other mom told me that I just need to exercise him more, then he would be so tired, he couldn't be hyper...well, that hasn't worked for the past 3 years, so she was full of crap too.
Dawn
Eastwest,
The T.V. saving a mom's sanity...When my son first moved in with us, he was a wild man. By about the second week, I was exhausted. Out of pure frustration, I turned on the Cartoon Network, and it was like a voice calling him from afar. He stopped swinging on the banister, and came over to the couch, sat down, and quietly watched T.V. Having never been a big T.V. person myself, I did not understand the hypnotic quality of it. Those first few months he was with us, the T.V. worked like a dream. When I had tried everything I could think of, CLICK, on came the Cartoon Network.
Now, he watches very little T.V., only at night when he cannot sleep. And the only channel he watches is the Cartoon Network .
I read a article a couple days ago about the link to children watching too much TV when they were little and having ADHD.
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I'd love to see this article! I think it is a bunch of crap. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's a great choice to plug your kids into TV and I know there are studies that kids with ADHD don't do well in front of a television or video games, etc. However, ADHD is NOT caused by too much television. There is too much evidence linking genetic components. Guilt is a waste of time.... spend your energy on ways to help your child. I think one of the problems with television and the ADHD child is that it keeps them still and they need to be working their energy out!
Yeah .. I call in the category that thinks that this article is crap. Yeah, I fall in the same category. when my son was alot littler he hated tv i couldnt get him to sit and watch tv at all and he has adhd i dont think that has anything to do with it but who knows i surley dont but i know my son hated tv when he was that age in matter of fact he still does he dont want to want tv now eitherI read a article a couple days ago about the link to children watching too much TV when they were little and having ADHD. Well, I was feeling pretty down after I read it, cause I was one of those mom's who would sit him in front of the TV most of the day. I was young and had no clue that wasn't healthy for him, but I sure know now, I have a 19 month old daughter, and doesn't watch much TV at all.
But I was wondering how many of you did the same...I want to blame myself for causing this and wonder if I didn't let him watch so much TV if things would have turned out different. Oh well, I know there is nothing I can do about it now, but I wonder sometimes.
Thanks,
Dawn