After reading "The Child Trap: The Rise of Overparenting" by Joan Acocella I was shocked to see how accurate the author, Joan Acocella, and the authors mentioned in the piece depicted life as a teenager. The issues they addressed are ones I have experienced personally making this a very interesting article to read. It was one I could really relate to.
One of the topics that I experienced firsthand in highschool was the fad of going to the pediatrician and having him or her diagnose you with ADD just because you were having trouble concentrating in school(but really because you had a lack of motivation and knew that if you were diagnosed with ADD you would get extra time on tests, including the SAT). I could say one of my best friends in highschool did that exact thing.
In the uber competetive private school I spent my highschool years in, where students went to college meant everything. Everyone knew where you were going to college and who could blame them? We were paying extra money to go to a select highschool in order to of course go to big name colleges where we could continue at a high level of education and in turn make more money when we graduate. SATs and GPAs ,in turn, meant a lot to students and when my friend who was always gifted in the class room couldn't break into the top scores of the SAT grading rubric, his parents attributed it to their underlying thought that he was 'distracted'.
Their solution: See their doctor.
My friend told me the play by play, he went to the doctor, she asked him a series of basic questions which he answered yes or no to and with passing this mere test he was immediately granted his 30mg of Adderol. Not only was he granted a prescription but he was granted 1.5x the amount of time regular students got on any in-school tests/quizzes. On top of all this, the most importat benefit of all this was extra time on the SATs.
Now whether my friend actually has ADD or not is besides the point because with the way they hand out medicines of that type these days, it is safe to say that some of the people who are getting these prescriptions don't actually have any issues. It shows how desperate some of these families are to get their children into these top tier schools, and I can understand the pressure. For a middle-class family to send their child to college it takes a scholarship most of the time, and who wouldn't do anything for one these days...
The article mention that on average the scores of the 7-9% who get extra time on the SATs do better than the national average. One would think this extra time should give them a fair-advantage not unfair-advantage to the rest of us issue-free students. The problem starts at the top, the doctors who administer these medicines need to create a better and more rigorous testing procedure for determining who actually needs medicine to help them concentrate. Not some test which asks "do you get distracted easily?" and a simple yes answer gets you pills in your hands.
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This situation the person described in the post is a common place, because I also had a friend who did not seem to be properly diagnosed with ADD. The first time she received extra time for a test, I asked her if everything was okay because she had spent time after class completing her test. She told me she has ADD and for the next 5 minutes, it seemed as if she was pretending to get distracted. She has never been distracted before when I’ve spoken to her but rather have listened to me with open years. Because I’m a very straightforward person, I told her “if you need extra time it’s fine but please don’t being to act as if something is wrong with you’re in front of me. I’ve known you for some time now and I don’t want you to be something your not.” She replied by saying: “yea, my parents thought it would be helpful for me to get some extra time on the SATs.” I was not surprised because it was not the first time her parents have intervened to help their daughter.
The situation could have been different in the way the students did actually have ADD and they did need the extra time. Then this would have nothing to do with overparenting. In this case, the person truly has ADD and getting him/her prescribed medication is for true medical reasons, not selfish desires to get into the best college. I agree with the writer to the post that doctors should have more specific questions to determine whether or not a person has ADD. The questions would have to be based on something a little more difficult that yes or no, so one friend cannot tell the other.
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