Creativity vs. Classroom Compliance

I have to admit I have a dog in the fight when it comes to the diagnosis and medication of America's hyperactive youth. Both sides of this conflict are clearly defined. On the one hand, you have people who claim that some kids need the (ADD and ADHD) medication in order to keep up with their peers, in order to not be a distraction in the classroom, or in order to not coerce an unfair amount of a teacher's time. These people tend to blame parents for producing hyperactive, or certainly frenetic, children and not teach them self-control. Or they simply argue that some kids are just born wilder, and need a little chemical taming in order to function in today's society. Whatever the reason, they are all in favor of medicating kids diagnosed as ADD or ADHD.

On the other side, you have people who argue that creativity is quashed by medications designed to "normalize" the active minds of the world. They conclude that better parenting, combined with better access to mental and physical outlets, would curb the destructive nature of ADHD children, and that medication is treating the symptoms, not the disease. They point to the slow disappearance of recess, the increased length of school days or school years, and suggest that kids need to be kids, and the surge in diagnosed kids with ADD and ADHD is a byproduct of America taking away the time kids need to express themselves and burn off energy.

I probably fell somewhere in the gray area between normalcy and ADD. I always had an active imagination, am easily distracted, always daydreamed, always struggled to sit through homework, always forgot to take simple things to school like pencils or my homework, etc etc, but I doubt any of my teachers thought I was lagging behind, or disruptive enough to suggest to my parents that I be medicated. Would it have helped? I don't doubt it. Did I turn out okay? You betcha. So I sit on the fence on this issue.
On the one hand, I want kids to be free to dream, and I think a varied and colorful society is a stronger one than a vanilla society. Daydreamers are often annoying, yes, but then again, they're also imaginative and creative and are responsible for dreaming up many of the technologies we take for granted today. On the other hand, the world is changing, and kids need to keep up. School is not getting any easier, classes aren't becoming more individualized. Instead class sizes go up and up, individual attention goes down, and students and teachers struggle to keep up with poorly-written, unreasonable assessments. Honestly, if I were a 12-year-old nowadays, I might ask for that bottle of meds to help me get my homework done.

But when I hear that a vast multitude of children have likely been misdiagnosed simply because they were younger and less mature, it makes my endorsement of ADD medication wane.

Nearly 1 million children in the United States are potentially misdiagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder simply because they are the youngest – and most immature – in their kindergarten class, according to new research by, Todd Elder, a Michigan State University economist.

The youngest kindergartners were 60 percent more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than the oldest children in the same grade. Similarly, when that group of classmates reached the fifth and eighth grades, the youngest were more than twice as likely to be prescribed stimulants.

Overall, the study found that about 20 percent – or 900,000 – of the 4.5 million children currently identified as having ADHD likely have been misdiagnosed.

Elder estimates that as much as $500 million is spent on medications in the US every year for children who don't even need it.

TAE wonders if the "redshirting boys" controversy might actually be the solution to the misdiagnosis of ADHD controversy found here. Give your kids a little longer to mature before you send them to school, and help ensure their scholastic success.


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