Over Diagnosed

There are people out there who say that a sure sign of creeping old age is the fact that you can remember clearly what happened 30 years ago but you can't remember what you had for breakfast this morning.
Now that works for me. Who in the hell cares what I had for breakfast anyway.

I do remember some of my grade school days. I wonder what it would have been like if back then we had all these mood altering drugs, pseudo syndromes and named disorders.
I think I would have at least qualified for some behavior modification. Maybe they would have given me a set of initials like ADD or ADHD. Nope...instead I got a rap on the back of the head with a ruler. You see, I would sometimes stare out the windows and stop paying attention to the teacher as she droned on and on about something. She would tell my parents at every conference that I was a "daydreamer"
Actually I was totally bored out of my head. But no special programs. No initials.
No fancy drugs. Just "whack".

Or how about this. I was always bullied in school. All the bigger kids took great delight in making my life miserable. I think it was my ears. Back then I had full grown adult ears that stuck out like to open barn doors. Some of my school pictures I looked like a 1949 Buick with its doors wide open.
Ron Allen took special delight in sitting on my back and flicking my ears. Left, right, flick, flick.
If that happened today Ron would have been yanked out of school, given some form of anger management class, probation and some designer drug to help control his need to pick on some one smaller that him. I would have been taken to a counselor and made to believe that I had some form of PTSD. Maybe some cool drug to calm my nerves and to help me sleep. Maybe even sent to a special class with special teachers with all the other special kids.
No. What really happened was the PE teacher got tired of watching this poor pathetic little kid get his ears flicked every day so he took him aside and taught him how to box.
The first time I bloodied Ron Allen's nose was the last day my ears were flicked. Ron turned out to be a pretty nice guy, opened a car dealership and was a pretty successful businessman. Neither one of us became mass murderers or any other menace to society.

So what's my point? My point is I think that society now days is way too quick to slap a catchy name to child behavior. Too quick to drug them into acceptable behavior. Too lazy to take the time to just accept the fact that this kid may be different or he may be marching to the beat of a different drummer. Too consumed by our own life to stop and watch as these students grow and learn at their own pace and style. It is really something to watch. A youngster learning something new. You would be amazed.

I wonder what life today would be like if the drugs and programs of today were available say a 100 years ago. What if Albert Einstein was drugged. What if Beethoven was told to stop daydreaming. Maybe the world would be different if Eisenhower and Patton were counseled about aggression and slammed into a special program for anger management.

But thats just me.