New York Times Magazine article questioning adhd commonplaces (including meds)

[Anonymous]

Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html?unlocked_article_code=1._U4._-ll.0ATwbKIyWMWk&smid=url-share

Lots of doxy questioned here. It makes sense to me though I don't question the necessity of meds, which we started this year is response to middle schooler's extreme distress about schoolwork and homework.

[Anonymous]

I just got through reading this. Tremendous piece of reporting!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html?unlocked_article_code=1._U4._-ll.0ATwbKIyWMWk&smid=url-share

Lots of doxy questioned here. It makes sense to me though I don't question the necessity of meds, which we started this year is response to middle schooler's extreme distress about schoolwork and homework.

I think if you read the article carefully it substantiates the notion that ADHD meds can have short-term benefit in changing the emotional reactions to a challenging context. So what you say you are seeing doesn’t go against anything that was written. What the article does say that is outside of the convention wisdom about ADHD meds (often present here in DCUM) is that the meds are not a panacea and are not actually going to improve learning or mastery. But that doesn’t mean they don’t help in the short term. To the contrary nobody disputes that stimulants have an immediate impact on behavior.

I have pretty severe anxiety and I think of it like benzos - I know I can take an Ativan and it will immediately remove my anxiety. But it does nothing to change my underlying behavior and the events that created the anxiety, which will be back (possibly worse) after the Ativan wears off.

[Anonymous]

I was diagnosed ADHD and put on drugs when I was 11/12. As an adult I have chosen to go off them entirely.
Most ADHD drugs are just uppers. Yes, they help you get stuff done in the moment, but they encourage long term dependence and I also just dont believe it's good for anyone to be hopped on speed in the long term.

[Anonymous]

to me it's so boring to make meds the centerpiece of this reporting and relitigate them. much more interesting to delve into what adhd actually is and the idea that if we chunked it out in more granular ways, like autism, we might find better and more bespoke treatment options. right now it's like us putting 25% of boys in a bucket of 'this is your problem now here is your medicine' when clearly it's not one homogenous issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html?unlocked_article_code=1._U4._-ll.0ATwbKIyWMWk&smid=url-share

Lots of doxy questioned here. It makes sense to me though I don't question the necessity of meds, which we started this year is response to middle schooler's extreme distress about schoolwork and homework.

I think if you read the article carefully it substantiates the notion that ADHD meds can have short-term benefit in changing the emotional reactions to a challenging context. So what you say you are seeing doesn’t go against anything that was written. What the article does say that is outside of the convention wisdom about ADHD meds (often present here in DCUM) is that the meds are not a panacea and are not actually going to improve learning or mastery. But that doesn’t mean they don’t help in the short term. To the contrary nobody disputes that stimulants have an immediate impact on behavior.

I have pretty severe anxiety and I think of it like benzos - I know I can take an Ativan and it will immediately remove my anxiety. But it does nothing to change my underlying behavior and the events that created the anxiety, which will be back (possibly worse) after the Ativan wears off.

I relate to this as someone who experienced a few episodes of depression in my 20s and benefited from immediate anti-depressants to lift myself out of the funk and start doing the longer-term work. I went off the meds within a few months each time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:to me it's so boring to make meds the centerpiece of this reporting and relitigate them. much more interesting to delve into what adhd actually is and the idea that if we chunked it out in more granular ways, like autism, we might find better and more bespoke treatment options. right now it's like us putting 25% of boys in a bucket of 'this is your problem now here is your medicine' when clearly it's not one homogenous issue.

Did you read the whole article? It goes into that issue. And I think the focus on meds is appropriate because they dominate the discussion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html?unlocked_article_code=1._U4._-ll.0ATwbKIyWMWk&smid=url-share

Lots of doxy questioned here. It makes sense to me though I don't question the necessity of meds, which we started this year is response to middle schooler's extreme distress about schoolwork and homework.

I think if you read the article carefully it substantiates the notion that ADHD meds can have short-term benefit in changing the emotional reactions to a challenging context. So what you say you are seeing doesn’t go against anything that was written. What the article does say that is outside of the convention wisdom about ADHD meds (often present here in DCUM) is that the meds are not a panacea and are not actually going to improve learning or mastery. But that doesn’t mean they don’t help in the short term. To the contrary nobody disputes that stimulants have an immediate impact on behavior.

I have pretty severe anxiety and I think of it like benzos - I know I can take an Ativan and it will immediately remove my anxiety. But it does nothing to change my underlying behavior and the events that created the anxiety, which will be back (possibly worse) after the Ativan wears off.

I relate to this as someone who experienced a few episodes of depression in my 20s and benefited from immediate anti-depressants to lift myself out of the funk and start doing the longer-term work. I went off the meds within a few months each time.

PP here. Yep, I also take the SSRIs to get out of anxiety spirals but only for a few months due to side effects. What is sometimes upsetting for me to read here is parents who seem to be subjecting their kids to really unpleasant ADHD med side effects.

[Anonymous]

I found this super interesting as the wife of an adult newly diagnosed with ADHD for whom stimulants did nothing, and the mother of a teen son who misses the diagnostic criteria by a whisper. He would have qualified at 8, but not at 14. He definitely does not at 18, though he still can’t focus on tasks he finds boring and has the grades to show it. I on the other hand am a machine for boring tasks. It makes sense to me to see our troubles as a mismatch between biological make up and environment. Sometimes we can change the environment, but when we can’t we use medication to tweak the biology, at least temporarily.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html?unlocked_article_code=1._U4._-ll.0ATwbKIyWMWk&smid=url-share

Lots of doxy questioned here. It makes sense to me though I don't question the necessity of meds, which we started this year is response to middle schooler's extreme distress about schoolwork and homework.

Can you explain? You don't mean doxycycline, do you?

[Anonymous]

Person means "orthodoxy".

[Anonymous]

NP. Moving what I wrote on duplicate locked thread over here.

****

My son is not ADHD but he dislikes most of his school. Fortunately he's accepted his parents' insistence that he get good grades. We talk a lot about how boring school is for him, even though much of his high school curriculum is the same as what his parents liked. This article hits really hard.

On DCUM, sometimes when people want to criticize what I write or what I mention about my kids, they give me an armchair diagnosis of some neurodivergence. To the point where I wonder if they are right, although I think it's more the result of the limited context of an anonymous Internet forum. I sometimes fall into what one quoted doctor called a category of people on "the left" who blame "post-industrial society" for the rise of ADHD.

Below are some sections of the article that caught my eye.

"Without the pills, they said, they just didn’t feel interested in the assignments they were supposed to be doing. They didn’t feel motivated. It all seemed pointless."

"Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 11.4 percent of American children had been diagnosed with A.D.H.D., a record high. That figure includes 15.5 percent of American adolescents, 21 percent of 14-year-old boys and 23 percent of 17-year-old boys. Seven million American children have received an A.D.H.D. diagnosis, up from six million in 2016 and two million in the mid-1990s."

"Sibley said it was important to remember that many of the symptoms of A.D.H.D. are actually pretty commonplace; at any given moment, she explained, the average American adult has two or three of them — halfway to an official diagnosis."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. Moving what I wrote on duplicate locked thread over here.

****

My son is not ADHD but he dislikes most of his school. Fortunately he's accepted his parents' insistence that he get good grades. We talk a lot about how boring school is for him, even though much of his high school curriculum is the same as what his parents liked. This article hits really hard.

On DCUM, sometimes when people want to criticize what I write or what I mention about my kids, they give me an armchair diagnosis of some neurodivergence. To the point where I wonder if they are right, although I think it's more the result of the limited context of an anonymous Internet forum. I sometimes fall into what one quoted doctor called a category of people on "the left" who blame "post-industrial society" for the rise of ADHD.

Below are some sections of the article that caught my eye.

"Without the pills, they said, they just didn’t feel interested in the assignments they were supposed to be doing. They didn’t feel motivated. It all seemed pointless."

"Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 11.4 percent of American children had been diagnosed with A.D.H.D., a record high. That figure includes 15.5 percent of American adolescents, 21 percent of 14-year-old boys and 23 percent of 17-year-old boys. Seven million American children have received an A.D.H.D. diagnosis, up from six million in 2016 and two million in the mid-1990s."

"Sibley said it was important to remember that many of the symptoms of A.D.H.D. are actually pretty commonplace; at any given moment, she explained, the average American adult has two or three of them — halfway to an official diagnosis."

The fact that 1/4 of boys get dx with ADHD is just astonishing!

[Anonymous]

TLDR; ADHD meds keep teachers happier but don’t actually result in better learning outcomes for kids at school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:TLDR; ADHD meds keep teachers happier but don’t actually result in better learning outcomes for kids at school.

And behavioral improvements taper off after 3 years too.