The "Special Needs" Epidemic
This is what some of my friends and I are discussing as we're each seeing parents we know insisting that their kids are "borderline" fill-in-the-blank disorder. What it seems to us--after supervising umpteen play dates and eating how-many-family-dinners together--is that many of these kids are perfectly normal. They just have parents who won't, or can't, say no.
Now, no one is going to name me parent of the year, either, nor do I think my kids are saints. And I certainly know plenty of kids who have very real disorders ,and I do not want to in any way minimize the challenge of dealing with that. But in most cases, the parents of these kids really, desperately wished that their child didn't receive that diagnosis.
So why are some parents--whose kids, for the most part, function pretty well, except at home when they're obnoxious, oppositional, and rule the roost---eager to label their kids as special needs? In some cases even seeking special provisions from the schools?
I know the popular theory is that they just want to help their kids get an unfair edge. I'm wondering if there is something else at work that is causing parents to tell anyone who will listen how their child is "borderline" ADD.
Is this what people did in the 1950s when psychoanalysis and Freudian theory filtered into the mainstream.? Labeled themselves or relatives as "hysterics" or suffering from the "Oedipal complex" when in fact, they were just selfish or bored? Have we been so inundated with information about autism, ADHD, auditory processing disorder, and sensory integration disorder (forgive me if I'm getting these terms wrong) that we're using these terms to explain away our kids' behavior?
Stumble It!
posted by pam at 12:03 PM
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