Everyone Has ADHD

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) runs rampant in American children today. The big controversy is whether ADHD is actually increasing as a disorder or if children are being misdiagnosed. I have so many opinions on both sides I could probably write a book. However, for sanity's sake, I'll try to explain the sides simply.

Reasons I Think ADHD is Actually Increasing

• It is genetic and about half of children diagnosed have a parent diagnosed as well
• video games and a surge in technology
• We have learned so much about it that doctors can spot it more easily, resulting in more cases
• food additives and artificial processed ingredients

Reasons I think Children Are Being Misdiagnosed

• Data supports that 70% of children diagnosed with ADHD don't have ADHD
• Pharmaceutical manipulation
• It's an umbrella label in which several symptoms fall under that could be caused by something else (something as simple as an irregular bedtime can result in a child demonstrating symptoms that fall in the ADHD category)
• It's an easy quick fix/excuse for parents, teachers and doctors

I work with a large population of ADHD students. I can say that I have many that I truly believe have ADHD and are befitting largely from their diagnosis and medication. Others, I'm just not sure. I don't see the symptoms and I think they may just be a typical kid. Then there are ones that are clearly misdiagnosed and are following the wrong plan and taking the wrong medication. This can result in more obvious and debilitating symptoms than ADHD.

In America today, being a child with atypical behaviors is a sad and confusing place to be. Of course doctors and technology are smarter than ever. Unfortunately, politics, ignorance and greed are dumber than ever and they're our worst enemy in working out the truths any myths about ADHD today.

I am interested in your thoughts and experiences on this topic so if you have anything to share I'd love to hear it!

Famous People with ADHD...Or misdiagnosed ADHD

Justin Timberlake

Jamie Oliver

Will Smith

Michael Phelps

Jim Carrey

Ty Pennington

Paris Hilton

Howie Mandel

Terry Bradshaw

James Carville

Solange Knowles

Thomas Jefferson
"Magic" Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Michael Jordan
Carl Jung, M.D.
King Karl XI of Sweden
John F. Kennedy
Robert Kennedy
Jason Kidd
Evel Knievel
Bill Lear
John Lennon
Lewis and Clark
Carl Lewis
Abraham Lincoln
Luci Baines

Johnson Nugent
Louis Pasteur
Gen. George Patton
H. Ross Perot

Edgar Allan Poe
Cole Porter
Elvis Presley
Dan Rather
Buddy Rich
Eddie Rickenbacker
Guy Ritchie
Joan Rivers
John D. Rockefeller
Nelson Rockefeller
Pete Rose
John Ruskin
Nolan Ryan
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anwar Sadat
Pierre Salinger
Charles Schulz
Robert Schumann
Pablo Picasso
Charles Schwab
Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf
George C. Scott
George Bernard Shaw
Tom Smothers
Socrates
Steven Spielberg
Sylvester Stallone
Robert Louis Stevenson
Jackie Stewart
James Stewart
Richard C. Strauss
Lord Alfred Tennyson
Nicolai Tesla
Henry David Thoreau
Leo Tolstoy
Ted Turner
Vincent Van Gogh
Jules Verne
Werner von Braun
Lindsay Wagner
Mike Wallace
General Westmoreland
Weyerhauser Family
Walt Whitman
Jamie Williams
Robin Williams
Tennessee Williams
Woodrow Wilson
Henry Winkler
Stevie Wonder
Virginia Woolf
F.W. Woolworth
Wright Brothers
Vince Lombardi
Robert Lowell
James Clark Maxwell
Steve McQueen
Mozart
David H. Murdock
Napoleon
Nasser
Isaac Newton
Jack Nicholson
Anthony Hopkins
Howard Hughes
Nostradamus
Albert Einstein
Ansel Adams
Ann Bancroft
Beethoven
Alexander Graham Bell
James Boswell
Sir Richard Francis Burton
President George Bush (both)
Admiral Richard Byrd
Lord Byron
Thomas Carlyle
Andrew Carnegie
Gen. H. Norman Charles
Thomas Chatterton
Samuel Clemens
Samuel T. Coleridge
Christopher Columbus
Tom Cruise
Leonardo da Vinci
Salvador Dali
Emily Dickinson
Patty Duke
Thomas Edison
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ernest & Marel
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Edward Fitzgerald
Malcomb Forbes
Henry Ford
Rick Fox
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Frost
Zsa Zsa Gabor
Tom Gainsborough
Galileo

Bill GatesSusan Hampshire
Handel
Mariette Hartley
Stephen Hawking
Wm Randolph Hearst
Ernest Hemingway
Bill Hewlett
Alfred Hitchcock
Dustin Hoffman