Why French kids don't get ADHD

[Anonymous]

Interesting summary of how ADHD is treated in France:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/suffer-the-children/201203/why-french-kids-dont-have-adhd

They use lots of therapy. They address social context a lot. They only medicate and DX 1/2 of one percent of children. (Vs. 9% in the US)

[Anonymous]

Read this article and as a mental health professional agree 1000% percent. We are so quick to medicate our kids when environmental changes and behavioral interventions can be as effective.

[Anonymous]

the title of your thread is misleading. It's not that french kids don't get ADHD; it's that they have a different treatment protocol.

[Anonymous]

The French have an interesting way of looking at ADHD. ASD too:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/18/french-kids-with-autism-psychotherapy_n_1527028.html

[Anonymous]

Oh it's dont "have" v "get."

[Anonymous]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
I am French. My son has mild ADHD, as yet unmedicated, and has an IEP at a MoCo public school.
He is treated so much better here than in France. We have raised both our children, only one of whom had ADHD, in the same disciplined so-called "French" parenting culture that the article claims partially explains the dearth of ADHD diagnoses in France (and produce better-behaved children).

French pedopsychiatry and educational philosophies lag light years behind the US and Scandinavian countries. The French public education system expects children to mold themselves to traditional narrow-minded teaching methods (lots of desk time, listen to the teacher's lecture, no differenciation, etc). While academic standards are much higher than in public schools here, they produce excellent results on the "normal" children only, of whom I was one. The State could not care less about the minority of other children (gifted, twice exceptional, learning-disabled) who thrive in a different learning setting. There is no integration of these children in this kind of set-up, and indeed there is rampant discrimination and bullying of these children in the public classrooms. When my son had to be educated in France, I put him in private school.

This is not to say that one should medicate first, think later. I see that the US is going completely overboard with lax parenting and over-medication of childhood ills. Part of the problem is that early diagnosis tools label many young, immature children who end up "being cured" or "growing out of" their syndrome. Rubbish. Once ADHD, always ADHD (or Aspergers', or ASD). These are obviously mislabeled kids that skew the statistics.

However that may be, clearly this article is not giving you the full, dreary, picture. I particularly take exception to the causal relationship the author attempts to establish between a more structured environment and the emergence of true ADHD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
I am French. My son has mild ADHD, as yet unmedicated, and has an IEP at a MoCo public school.
He is treated so much better here than in France. We have raised both our children, only one of whom had ADHD, in the same disciplined so-called "French" parenting culture that the article claims partially explains the dearth of ADHD diagnoses in France (and produce better-behaved children).

French pedopsychiatry and educational philosophies lag light years behind the US and Scandinavian countries. The French public education system expects children to mold themselves to traditional narrow-minded teaching methods (lots of desk time, listen to the teacher's lecture, no differenciation, etc). While academic standards are much higher than in public schools here, they produce excellent results on the "normal" children only, of whom I was one. The State could not care less about the minority of other children (gifted, twice exceptional, learning-disabled) who thrive in a different learning setting. There is no integration of these children in this kind of set-up, and indeed there is rampant discrimination and bullying of these children in the public classrooms. When my son had to be educated in France, I put him in private school.

This is not to say that one should medicate first, think later. I see that the US is going completely overboard with lax parenting and over-medication of childhood ills. Part of the problem is that early diagnosis tools label many young, immature children who end up "being cured" or "growing out of" their syndrome. Rubbish. Once ADHD, always ADHD (or Aspergers', or ASD). These are obviously mislabeled kids that skew the statistics.

However that may be, clearly this article is not giving you the full, dreary, picture. I particularly take exception to the causal relationship the author attempts to establish between a more structured environment and the emergence of true ADHD.

+1 Perhaps we can learn from each other and find a better way for both approaches.

[Anonymous]

French kids have pretty much the exact same prevalence of ADHD as the rest of the world

http://jad.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/07/16/1087054710372491

The US has a higher prevalence than the rest of the world by 2-3% - so it might be slightly overdiagnosed but the French have do not have lower rates of ADHD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
I am French. My son has mild ADHD, as yet unmedicated, and has an IEP at a MoCo public school.
He is treated so much better here than in France. We have raised both our children, only one of whom had ADHD, in the same disciplined so-called "French" parenting culture that the article claims partially explains the dearth of ADHD diagnoses in France (and produce better-behaved children).

French pedopsychiatry and educational philosophies lag light years behind the US and Scandinavian countries. The French public education system expects children to mold themselves to traditional narrow-minded teaching methods (lots of desk time, listen to the teacher's lecture, no differenciation, etc). While academic standards are much higher than in public schools here, they produce excellent results on the "normal" children only, of whom I was one. The State could not care less about the minority of other children (gifted, twice exceptional, learning-disabled) who thrive in a different learning setting. There is no integration of these children in this kind of set-up, and indeed there is rampant discrimination and bullying of these children in the public classrooms. When my son had to be educated in France, I put him in private school.

This is not to say that one should medicate first, think later. I see that the US is going completely overboard with lax parenting and over-medication of childhood ills. Part of the problem is that early diagnosis tools label many young, immature children who end up "being cured" or "growing out of" their syndrome. Rubbish. Once ADHD, always ADHD (or Aspergers', or ASD). These are obviously mislabeled kids that skew the statistics.

However that may be, clearly this article is not giving you the full, dreary, picture. I particularly take exception to the causal relationship the author attempts to establish between a more structured environment and the emergence of true ADHD.

Thank you so much for sharing!

Often, the grass is always seems greener on the other side -- or pond

[Anonymous]

I have one DC with ADHD and the other with AS and ADHD and I sure as hell would prefer to raise them here.

[Anonymous]

They are among the worst behaved from what a tour guide told me. German kids as well.

[Anonymous]

I think the diagnosis discrepancy might be explained by how many more neurotoxic chemicals, shit in food, etc are legal here than in France.

[Anonymous]

Having been in the French school system for several years, my observation is that the system is heavily dependent on rote memorization and mechanics and relies on tracking and national exams to determine at an early age whether kids are "college material" or not.

My guess is that kids with learning disaiblities are shuttled into the more vocational tracks early on where their learning disabilities don't hamper them as much -- regardless of how intelligent they are or how much academic potential they would have if treated.

This article is a great example of someone making some unscientific observations, talking to a few people, and from there creating a "theory" that then gets copied and forwarded on the internet, contributing to the shaming and judgmental attitudes towards parents trying to make the best decisions to help their children.

[Anonymous]

What a crap article. If I my keyboard weren't crapping out on me, I shine a light on the gaping holes and inconsistencies in her article. How in the world did she ever write a thesis with such crappy writing? How did she defend it?

I love how the author generalizes that all French parents are one way and all American parents are another. And, she totally disregards the research that shows brain differences in people with ADHD and people without (full disclosure - we participate in ADHD research at NIH). She also points out the French strictly deal with it on the 'social context problem'. My ADHD kid is primarily inattentive, doesn't have social issues at all and his ADHD rarely impacts our home life as we have the excellent structure and consistency she talks about. But, he is incapable of attending to classwork without medication. How do the French deal with that?

Some quotable passages:

French parents believe that hearing the word "no" rescues children from the "tyranny of their own desires."

Spanking, when used judiciously, is not considered child abuse in France.

As a therapist who works with children, it makes perfect sense to me that French children don't need medications to control their behavior because they learn self-control early in their lives. The children grow up in families in which the rules are well-understood, and a clear family hierarchy is firmly in place

.

That last one is a doozy, isn't it. What she's basically saying is that it's the parents' fault their kids have an ADHD diagnosis because we failed to teach them self-control. I'm SO glad she's not our therapist. I can only iimagine how low my DS's self esteem would be because of her insistence that it's within his power to improve his executive functioning. Fuck her and her opinion. I wish she'd move to France.

[Anonymous]

Also, French women do get fat.