<p>Unfortunately sometimes the schools and teachers put pressure on the parents of particularly active and squiggly little boys who just can’t sit still in class. My SIL had to deal with this for several years with her bright, but active son when he was in elementary school. SIL works for the school system as an occupational therapist with kids with a large number of disorders and respects the need to properly identify kids who really do have conditions like ADHD. But she knew there was absolutely nothing wrong with her son and resisted much pressure to have him “tested”. And she was quite correct: my nephew was then an ordinary boy with the need to be physically active; he is now a well adapted rising high-school senior who earns decent, respectable grades in a competitive IB program having never been medicated or receiving any kind of accommodations. And he still enjoys lots and lots of physical activity in his life.</p>
<p>I am a director of a summer camp for elementary age kids and (this is just anecdotal) appprox. 1/3 of the kids are on some kind of behavioral/mental disorder medication ranging from ADHD med, to anti-anxiety meds, to anti-psychotic meds (for an 8 yr. old!!). Our camp nurse verifies that it is becoming a much bigger issue than 10 years ago when she started at the camp. I can imagine that this applies to college-aged kids as well. </p>
<p>And, just for the record, I’m on the laid-back parent team. My kids never knew their GPA’s until final transcript after graduation. Although D knew she was in top 10% for in-state acceptance purposes. We also have no idea what our kids IQs are, they took the SAT once and it was “good enough” and they only take the AP tests to get out of taking finals.</p>
Pretty much our exact experience, S’s 2nd grade teacher just didn’t feel like dealing with it. We let the school bring the OT in (it cost us nothing), and the OT’s opinion was pretty much “Why is this kid here wasting my time? Whose idea was this again?”</p>
<p>No drugs for him! And what do you know, today he’s a great kid without any issues.</p>