Go on, admit it, half the time you heard some rambunctious kid or other's got ADHD, you thought to yourself, it's either a parenting thing or a Big Pharma scam.
Well:
A new study published in the American Journal of Family Therapy showed for the first time a direct link between bedtime routines and behavior that mimics Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children.Faux-ADHD. I guess there's no unscrambling that egg is there? Couldn't we just call it Go The F*ck To Sleep Disorder and be done with it? Then maybe let our kids walk themselves to kindergarten like we did?The findings propose that of the over 5 million children who are now being treated with ADHD medication, a majority may be suffering from Faux-ADHD, a disorder linked to irregular bedtimes and bed sharing, and does not require medication.
Bedtime Habits May Cause ADHD-Like Behavior to Children [inquisitr via dt reader jj daddy-o]
The abstract has less info than the press release [tandfonline]
bed sharing, hmmm? Both the PR and the abstract reference kids who "don't sleep in their own beds" which could reference a lot of things, but I can't help but feel like this is a subtle way of saying "your co-sleeping causes your child to behave badly."
My son goes to sleep every night at the same time, gets 11 hours of sleep, has his own room, and as ADHD to the point that it's still dangerous for him, in grade 2.
Without his medication he'll run into traffic, stop in the middle of a crosswalk to sit on the ground and watch a bug, turn his bike into traffic without checking first, etc etc. Not to mention the rest of what goes along with it.
I don't think it's a parenting thing, because we went to half a dozen different classes, tried tons of different methods to try and modify behaviour, and what actually WORKED were the things that were structured to compensate for his different way of thinking (like social stories, behaviour therapy, etc), not more consequences or more charts.
We went through 5 different medications before we found one that didn't have any side effects and that allowed him to be able to keep one thing in his mind instead of having to listen to 20 different things in his mind all the time.
This could be true for lots of kids (I wouldn't doubt it, I know so many kids that stay up waaay too late, sleep is super important), but not for all kids.
Sounds like you're clearly in the ADHD half of the chart, and doing what you and the kid need to do.