Here’s Rachel Ragg – who apparently used to teach in a university – on the causes of ADHD in the Telegraph:

“It may very well be that ADHD [attention deficit hyperactivity disorder] stems from a culture in which young children are stuck in nurseries listening to lectures about diversity when they should be out splashing in puddles and climbing trees.”

I have to wonder when Mrs Ragg last went to a nursery.  And you have to wonder about her understanding of how disorders like ADHD is diagnosed.

Here’s what The Mental Health Foundation have to say about when a diagnosis of ADHD is appropriate:

We know that young children have lots of energy and like to be active. Young children also tend to have a short attention span – they soon get tired of an activity and want to move on to something new. So how can you tell whether your child has ADHD or is simply restless or bored? To a certain extent it may be a matter of degree – children with ADHD are not just very active but have a wide range of problem behaviours which can make them very difficult to care for and control. For example, one parent described her eight-year-old son’s behaviour as follows:

‘(he)… fidgets with hands and feet continually… great difficulty remaining seated… very easily distracted… difficulty following instructions… very poor short-term memory… difficulty sustaining attention on activities for more than twenty minutes… shifts from one uncompleted task to another… doesn’t seem to listen to what is said… loses things necessary for a task… engages in some physically dangerous activities – he acts before he thinks… poor social skills…’

Just in case you think this is just her using a soundbite to make a point, here’s Mrs Ragg expanding her point in The Ecologist:

William, 10, has just added smashing his neighbour’s greenhouse to his extensive list of crimes.

Other recent misdemeanours include breaking into an artist’s studio, turning his sister’s best hat into a plant-pot, almost blinding his aunties with a catapult, defacing school text-books, and locking a particularly awful relative in a shed.

This particular William is, of course, Richmal Crompton’s Just William, back in the days when such behaviour was put down to ‘boyish high spirits’, and merited a hefty slipper on the backside from Father. But what would happen to ‘Just William: the 2006 re-make’?

That’s obvious: he’d diagnosed as suffering from ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and given Ritalin until he sat still and reflected on his Personal, Social and Emotional Development, as dictated by the National Curriculum.

Really?  Here’s a description of life with an ADHD child:

The day always began from the moment he was awake with his exhausting and insatiable demands. No one was prepared to babysit because he was so exhausting and a liability. It was impossible to enjoy him and no fun to take him anywhere. His energy levels were incredible. As parents we wondered where we were going wrong.