Linda Keenan: “I felt as if my son would be at a disadvantage if he did not get the therapy offered by the school district. I wish I could say my decision-making had more integrity. Maybe I can blame my lack of spine on my (diagnosed) pre-menopausal anxiety disorder. I just hope my son doesn’t one day read this. I can hear myself saying to my rebellious teenager, ‘well, if everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?’ And his answer, rightly, would be ‘well YOU did, Mom!’”
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There are plenty in the health professions who are billing away for this stuff. The schools encourage it all.
Sometimes it seems like a teacher wants a zoned out/drugged up class so anybody with a brain and a spirit has a problem.
I guess I was disadvantaged. My teacher called me “wriggle worm” and “pack rat”, my parents punished every day for forgetting my chores. Classic ADHD presentation but not diagnosed, no meds, no labels–a lot of whippings though. Also IQ testing done in adolescence met criteria for a verbal learning disability–but their was no action then because even though I couldn’t say my ABC’s in second grade, i was reading several years ahead of grade level. I went on to graduate cumma sum laude and near the top of my med school class–still can’t spell and my grammar sucks but I do just fine.
I think some of this kids could be better served by being so “disadvantaged” as to eschew the labels, which all too easily become excuses, and held responsible for performing instead.
Or course schools then, at least in the South, still used traditional methods of attention enhancement–a red oak paddle. Their behavior modification techniques for dealing with bullies were pretty effective also–encourage the other kids to gang on him and kick the snot out of him. It never required more than once.
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