First off, I would like to state that most diagnosis of ADD/ADHD are pure BS made up by people who don’t want to face up to a kid who is too busy.

The biggest problem I have with the rampant ADD/ADHD mentality in our country is the way it is misused as an excuse for what the kids who are said to have it cannot do. I hate this because everyone is good at something.

I find it to be idiotic that because someone does not learn the same way as others, the majority, they need to be labeled as having a “disorder”. I find it hateful, and usually incorrect.

I teach martial arts. And the vast majority of the kids I work with are clinically diagnosed as ADD/ADHD.

In some cases, I see the diagnosis as having some basis. The child has trouble focusing on any one subject for any reasonable length of time. They have a case of ants in the pants.

They are overfull of energy, but this energy is just energy, and it is blind and uncontrolled. It is not useful energy at all.

At least, that is what the medical community would have you believe.

What I find in my work with ADD/ADHD kids is this – they are grossly underestimated, and terribly misunderstood.

I truly wish that I had a tenth of their energy.

In the rigid structure of a martial arts class, they tend to excell, provided the instructor has any slight idea of what ADD/ADHD really is.

It is stress.

As our world continues to bombard us with more and more stressful thoughts, images, and entertainment, our kids are not unaffected. They feel it too! Do you think that kids are not under stress when the parents talk about how they are unsure of where to get the money for rent? Or maybe they don’t even have two parents at home?

ADD/ADHD is pure unalloyed stress.

Look up the symptoms of stress…go ahead, I’ll wait.

Now go look up the symptoms of ADD/ADHD, I’ll still be here…

Surprised?

When I was first directed to do the very same thing, I was shocked and amazed, mortified and stupified. The symptoms are not similar…they are the same.

So, instead of putting your kid on meds for their ADD/ADHD, take them to a martial arts class. Let them swim and bike and…be a kid.

And it probably wouldn’t hurt matters to join you kid in these activities. If you relax, odds are the kid will too.

Just my two cents…