Does bad parenting cause ADHD? It seems crazy to even ask the question, but some concerned doctors and parents say that’s exactly what a recent opinion piece in the New York Times suggested.
It started with an essay called “Ritalin Gone Wrong,” by L. Alan Sroufe, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development. He questions whether ADD and ADHD are over-diagnosed, and if we’re relying too heavily on drugs for kids. Fair enough. In 30 years, he points out, usage of attention-deficit drugs has increased twentyfold. Is it too much? Maybe.
But Sroufe raised hackles when he started theorizing that attention-deficit problems are caused not by inborn brain differences, but by bad parenting. He wrote:
Behavior problems in children have many possible sources. Among them are family stresses like domestic violence, lack of social support from friends or relatives, chaotic living situations, including frequent moves, and, especially, patterns of parental intrusiveness that involve stimulation for which the baby is not prepared. For example, a 6-month-old baby is playing, and the parent picks it up quickly from behind and plunges it in the bath. Or a 3-year-old is becoming frustrated in solving a problem, and a parent taunts or ridicules. Such practices excessively stimulate and also compromise the child’s developing capacity for self-regulation.
Putting children on drugs does nothing to change the conditions that derail their development in the first place.
So, you have a kid with ADHD, you’ve tried everything you can to help him, and now it’s your fault because you put him into the bath too quickly when he was a baby?
Ouch. Dr. Nancy Snyderman responded to the debate on TODAY as NBC’s chief medical editor – and also as the mom of a child with Attention Deficit Disorder.
“The maternal guilt of, ‘what did I eat wrong, was delivery too fast, what did I do wrong?’” Snyderman said. “There is a lot of self-doubt when you raise children that don’t fit into societal norms, when you have a child who can’t sit in circle time… that’s seen as bad behavior, but it means the brain wiring is different.”
It’s true that some children may be over-medicated or on ADHD drugs unnecessarily, Dr. Snyderman said, but many parents have seen medication work wonders for their children. The safety and side-effects of these drugs need to be studied long-term, she said, but “in the meantime, you want your kid to get through high school, be socially aware and go on to have a decent career.”
What do you think: Do you worry about attention deficit medicine being over-prescribed to kids? Or do you worry more about a backlash blaming parents for ADD?