ADD Hyperactivity Linked to Lax Parenting

Hundreds of thousands of children prescribed the drug Ritalin for hyperactivity might simply be the victims of lax parenting, new evidence suggests. A British scientist has cast doubt on the existence of conditions such as attention deficit disorder (ADD), which will fuel the controversy over the increasing use of Ritalin.

Warwick Dyer, a behavioural expert, claims parents need to accept more blame for their children's "disorders" and move away from the chemical cosh of prescription drugs. He has developed a programme that focuses on the way parents behave towards their children - and claims a 100 per cent success rate over the past five years. Remarkably, he never sees the child involved, and has just one face-to-face consultation with the parents. The rest of his work is limited to a daily telephone briefing with the parents on how to treat their child.

Mr Dyer's theory is based on simple ideas such as a rigid system of rewards and sanctions for good and bad behaviour, with an insistence on politeness towards parents - and a demand that mothers and fathers control their tempers as well.

Mr Dyer said: "I am open-minded about whether ADD exists or not, but what is certainly clear is that a lot of symptoms ascribed to such disorders are in fact easily confused with basic behavioural problems that don't need to be treated with a drug.

Ritalin is an amphetamine with a similar potency to cocaine, and prescribing in Britain has soared one hundredfold in the past 10 years. In 1990, just 3,000 children were on the drug; today, there are 345,000 taking it, costing the NHS more than £3m a year. The drug is being given to children as young as 18 months old.

Now a growing lobby of parents, doctors and other experts is questioning whether ADD or ADHD exists at all.

In this context, this item is of interest:

Letter to the editor Old-fashioned values would benefit classrooms

as well as this one

The number of children taking the controversial drug Ritalin has jumped sharply, official British figures reveal. The BBC reports that the number of prescriptions for the drug increased by 22% last year. and that the number of children taking the drug in England now tops 254,000, double what it was five years ago.