Not your grandma's ADHD

As a child of the 90's I distinctly remember my ADHD brother have a hell of a time in school. He was always in trouble. First it was not doing his school work in elementary school, then it was him knowing more than the current events and history teachers so he would argue with them. My Mom eventually learned he had ADHD, but there were limited resources and educators really didn't know what to do with him.

I saw a tic tok video recently that had me in stitches but also got me thinking. I wish I knew how to find it so I could plug it in here. This girl was Playing two roles, one of herself and the other of her Grandma. The Grandma kept saying we didn't have things like ADHD and autism back in our day. The girl would respond with something along the lines of OK Karen, with your cupboard full of special porcelain dishes that nobody's allowed to use. The basic gist of it is older generations keep saying we didn't have those types of things back in our day when really they did they just weren't diagnosed, or the way things were just so different.

I decided to look up when ADHD was discovered. I found a fascinating article, The History of ADHD: A Timeline (healthline.com). I learned ADHD was discovered in 1902 and how the name along with the understanding changed over time. It is no wonder my brother did not get the resources he needed. According to the article:

ADHD cases began to climb significantly in the 1990s. There may be a few potential factors behind the rise in diagnoses:

• Doctors were able to diagnose ADHD more efficiently.

• More parents were aware of ADHD and were reporting their children’s symptoms.

• More children were actually developing ADHD.

That last bit is what really gets me. I don't think more kids were developing it, I think our parents were starting to loosen up on how kids should act and behave. What if in the 60s-70s kids had ADHD but their parents were so strict or uninvolved that they just dealt with it and masked? Now those same kids are parents to our generations and they wanted better for their kids.

I still think there is work to do. We have the benefit of tic-tok and internet where we can see how much more common it is so it is accepted. I still see the older generation not understanding their younger ADHD coworkers and how their brains work. There is still some of that back in the day attitude. I personally am here for the younger generation speaking up and Always Disrupting How its Done (ADHD).