An architect friend and I were recently discussing the various schooling options available to his kid who had completed her eighth grade and was moving to the ninth. Two more years, and she would be finishing secondary school already. How time flies!

Time was, when this friend of mine was considered the most mischievous kid in our class in grade six or thereabouts. Nary would a week pass without his parents being called to school for this or that complaint about him. Finally fed up with his antics, the principal asked that the child be moved elsewhere.

Because our families knew each other, we kept in touch somehow, even when we relocated to another city. He struggled in studies, of course, but managed to trundle through school. Later in college, I learnt that he eloped with some girl and got married, as the parents of the two frowned upon the relationship. Life was one huge rollercoaster for this guy! And after a few years, he finally settled down, set up a good architectural practice, and with time had two kids.

The kids giggle - and the mother joins in the mirth - when I recount to them how their father had once hidden a frog in the chalk-box, and how the teacher had the fright of her life when she opened the lid. All through my narration, the proud father would wear a smug smile and a nice halo around him, soaking in the wholesome praise that the family members would lavish!

Wonder therefore, if the friend had been born to parents who were, uh, from a different stock? What if the parents had not let the child grow naturally on his own accord, but had become concerned at the principal’s words, and sought medical intervention for “treating” him?

(The friend’s father actually roared with laughter when the teacher told him about the frog. Clearly, he approved! I suspect the father’s own antics of childhood must have flashed before his eyes in that moment. Some characteristics get carried forward, you know.)

So, what would have happened if the parents had been more paranoid about the child’s behavior being “different” from the rest of us lambs? What would have happened to his natural effervescence, his zest for enjoying other people’s discomfiture at their expense? What would have happened to his excitement about all things new and novel? We all enjoyed his antics - they were quite harmless; actually we looked forward to it, as they were a nice distraction from the usual drab of rote-learning that school used to be those days.

So, wonder what arc his story would have taken, had his parents been, uh, more concerned? Would he have had it in him to summon the courage to execute the romance-and-elopement-and-marriage project? Would he have settled down in life with a balanced head on the shoulders? Would he have been as successful as he is today?

Going by the recent trends in society, how the story arc would have turned out is the parents taking him to the school’s consulting physician. AND this expert labeling the kid “ADHD case”. AND prescribing him the routine medications that an ADHD patient gets prescribed. The medication becomes the MacGuffin of the plot, whose unfolding would from then on be both unpredictable and thrilling. Thrilling as in a psycho-thriller with a nail-biting climax.

His hyperactivity might have transformed into hallucinations, his cheerfulness would have yielded to nervous ticks and irritability, and his creativity would have been replaced by dizziness and depression. Innocent and defenseless, he wouldn’t have been able to rebel. The romance, elopement, the marriage and the two kids wouldn’t have happened. And I wouldn’t have been able to narrate to the family how the frog frightened the life out of the teacher, whose home was ultimately designed by the very same architect she complained against, almost 34 years ago. (At no cost, too, my friend tells me. His style of atonement, he says.)

Not an expert in this domain, my idle mulling stems from the fierce debate one gets to read in the forums and the news, raging between the two powerful lobbies of the pro- and the anti- psychotic-drug-treatment groups. The NIMH says the drugs are quite okay. This news report from BBC says no.

So as parent, who are we to believe? May be an approach which does not involve medication could be the best way to go for the time being? Let the researchers thrash out amongst themselves and decide finally who is right and who is wrong. May the best side win! But let us not be paranoid and change the child’s story arc from successful architect to one with a psycho-thriller climax.

Source: HULIQ, NC
http://www.huliq.com/60434/your-child-really-adhd