Recommended Reading
Another Perspective: Cultural and Social Pressures and ADD/ADHD

Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood
by William Pollack
Holt, 1998
ISBN: 0805061835

Reviving Ophelia
by Mary Pipher
Ballantine, 1994
ISBN: 0345392825

In his 1998 book Real Boys, Dr. William Pollack reports the affects of society's expectations regarding male behaviors. On pages 36-37, he describes the "shame" experienced by boys for displaying emotions and how this can lead to ADHD type behaviors:

For [some boys] dealing with the trauma of separation -- and with the intense shame they felt about the feelings it produced-- meant turning inward, trying to handle their problems quietly and alone. Yet in many cases boys deal with the pain of separating from their parents and the shame they feel by "acting out," by using dramatic or disorderly conduct to call for help. I believe that an overwhelming number of elementary school boys diagnosed with conduct disorders or with what is often called attention deficit disorder, or ADD, are misbehaving not because they have a biological imbalance or deficit but because they are seeking attention to replace the void left by their mothers and fathers. Their problems paying attention or regulating impulses may not be "faulty wiring" or "testosterone poisoning," but simply the result of accumulated emotional wounds and years of paralyzing shame. These desperate last-ditch efforts to assuage the pain or resist the thrust of premature autonomy are frequently misread as symptoms of an illness rather than as a natural part of coping with the trauma of separation. When boys act rambunctious and their activities spiral into aggressiveness and violence, what they are often expressing is far from some sort of macho desire for power or vindication but rather a longing to be nurtured, listened to, and understood, to engage in all of the needy, dependent behaviors they're being told are girl-like and forbidden.

Certainly there are boys with significant psychological disorders in need of appropriate diagnosis and treatment. Attention deficit disorder is a real illness (actually a constellation of psychological syndromes housed under one name). In fact, in 1995 more than five million children were classified as "learning disabled," 25 percent greater than a decade ago. Within these categories of disability, ADD is the fastest-growing illness, with numbers doubling over the last five years.

Perhaps most shocking, the ratio of boys to girls of such newly diagnosed ADD cases can range as high as 10 to 1.

But when millions of boys are diagnosed as having attention deficit disorder, and when far fewer girls are given the same diagnosis, I begin to wonder whether this diagnosis is sometimes being applied inappropriately to what are normal episodes of boy behavior. I also wonder whether diagnosing boys as having this disorder reflects society's tendency to misunderstand how the trauma of separation affects school-age boys. The diagnosis of "hyperactivity" is often made on the basis of a checklist of behaviors that, in reality, could reflect boys' grief over losing emotional connection -- a loss that we have learned cannot be fully expressed or mourned but rather expresses itself through action or anger.

While not specifically addressing ADD/ADHD, Dr. Mary Pipher, in her 1994 book Reviving Ophelia, outlines the pressures society places on girls, and the developmental reasons why girls so often change during adolescence, a change that can negatively affect grades, self-esteem, and even I.Q. scores.

Pipher notes that "junior high is when girls begin to fade academically. Partly this is from the very structure of the schools, which tend to be very large and impersonal...partly it comes from a shift girls make at this time from a focus on achievement to a focus on affiliation." Adolescents also tend to read deep meaning into the casual events of daily life because many are not yet able to think abstractly. Girls can be egocentric, feel that everyone is watching them, and "have limited ability to sort facts from feelings."

Teenagers are "under great social pressure to abandon their families, to be accepted by peer culture and to be autonomous individuals...[even as ] girls want to stay close to their parents." Girl behavior, as troubling to schools as the "boy behavior" described by Pollack, may come from similar societal pressures.

Both Dr. Pollack and Dr. Pipher are addressing issues not previously considered as related to ADD/ADHD but which may be important to consider in an overall evaluation of a student's behavior and learning.

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