 According to the American Psychiatric Association, about 5% of children suffer from ADHD, but 15% of children are given very powerful ADHD medications that can cause lifelong consequences. In this video, I'm going to share with you the story about one child with ADHD so it can maybe broaden your perspective just a little bit. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution and real quick I just want to thank all of you beautiful people out there who have subscribed to my mental health channel because you care about mental health and please do me a favor this video or any other video I have if you learn something from it if you find this mental health information valuable please share it with other people let's spread a message of hope together to help more people all right but let's get started so first before I jump into this story I do want to put a big fat disclaimer on it this is the story of one specific child with ADHD but this is not classify all children diagnosed with ADHD so I just want to throw that out there because I have a feeling when I make a video like this a bunch of parents are going to come at me all sideways and I don't want that to happen it's probably going to happen but at least I could say I put a disclaimer all right all right so this is the story about a young boy who was born to a mother and father who were on the rocks in their relationship and they thought that having a child might help so the parents ended up getting divorced the mom ended up taking care of the son the dad moved to another state and as this child grows older he's barely seeing his dad not only that but his father has a lot of mental illness issues of his own and he's a struggling alcoholic well the mother she works a ton she makes money she provides she is taking care of this son but as this child is growing older he doesn't get to spend that much quality time with his mother so throughout his childhood and the attachment he grows towards his mom he just wants to spend time with her but due to the mom's work schedule she's constantly traveling she works a ton and she's not able to spend this time with her son as this kid gets older he turns five years old six years old seven years old eight years old as he's growing up he's having more and more issues at school now as he's having these issues at school he's also battling for his mom's attention at home every time that he wants to spend time with his mom she's too busy or she's exhausted from work she gives him a tablet or turns on the tv or tells him to go play with something else because the mom just wants to relax and the kid is crying and he's begging he just wants to spend some time with his mother eventually this mom she finds a new guy and now she's splitting her time between work the new guy in her life and her child but rather than spending more time with her child she's allocating more time towards this new man and every time the mom leaves to go hang out with this man the kid is crying and he's begging just i want to hang out with you mom that's all i want to do as these things keep going the child begins to have more and more behavioral issues at school and the teachers not really sure of what's going on they begin punishing the kid they begin taking away privileges they make him sit by himself he's constantly getting in trouble letters are coming home and due to a lack of education or even a lack of self-awareness the mother can't figure out what's wrong with her child she's told him that he needs to behave she's told him this but the kid still keeps acting up in class over and over and over again why is that so the child is not only acting up in school and having behavioral issues but he's also struggling getting his work done and things like that so with the mom not being aware that the kid is just vying for her attention and since he can't get attention at home now he's seeking attention at school by acting out and the parents are stumped the school is stumped the teacher is stumped they don't know what to do so the next step obviously is to bring him to a doctor and explain to the doctor what's been going on now all of the symptoms all of the symptoms of the child sounds like he might have something called attention deficit hyperactive disorder why can't he sit still in class why is he always being disruptive why can't he focus and pay attention and do what he's told why can't he follow these rules well clearly he has ADHD so why don't we prescribe him a medication that can help him out with that this medication is Ritalin which is an amphetamine this type of drug is sold by teenagers it's sold by college students it's often abused by college students as well but we're prescribing it to a kid who's not even 10 years old yet this is a story that happens way too often like I said in the intro of this video more and more children every single year are being diagnosed with ADHD but as I mentioned in another video I did too many of us are trying to put out the smoke without looking for the source of the fire this is a child who is not getting the attention that he needs or deserves at home so he's trying to get it elsewhere which is leading to the misdiagnosis of ADHD symptoms amongst our youth now I promised you all in my last video I promised you that I would talk about how big pharma is actually manipulating these studies and advertising these different types of medications from antidepressants to opioids to ADHD medications you got to realize this is a multi-billion dollar industry and did you know the United States is one of the very few countries where you can directly market controlled substances to consumers okay Adderall Ritalin all these ADHD medications they are narcotics and they are controlled substances and only in the United States one of the only countries the pharmaceutical companies are allowed to market them directly to you you have a child who's having behavioral issues here's a medication that'll help you out you've been stressed out you've been worried you're a teacher who's having problems maybe you should recommend this medication that'll calm them down you given the medication gets rid of your headache big pharma makes a ton of money now just let you know again that I'm not some crazy person this is an investigative journalist by the name of Alan Schwartz and he wrote a book called ADHD nation so real quick I just wanted to read you a quote from it which states many kids have problems and need help but those problems in many cases will derive from trauma anxiety family discord poor sleep or diet bullying at school and more we must not abandon them we must help but we must also be more judicious in how we do that rather than reflexively giving them a diagnosis of what is generally prescribed as a serious lifelong brain disorder oh yeah what Alan Schwartz is saying is is that we're not saying that ADHD is a made up mental illness but it is not properly being diagnosed there's too many instances way too many instances in our country where there is a very snap judgment that a child has ADHD when there's often other issues going on at home the problem is is that we're creating a new generation of potential drug addicts so why am I making this video and why do I want you to share it with people because there are countless countless studies that have shown by simply spending more time with your child quality time not quantity quality there is a difference what I mean by that is simply being physically at home and not giving your child the attention they deserve that is not quality time but countless studies have proven that spending more quality time with your children can greatly decrease the symptoms of ADHD as well as childhood depression the other reason why I'm teaching this to you and want you to share this video is because there are even more studies even more studies that prove that meditation helps decrease symptoms of ADHD why is that because meditation is scientifically proven they've done the brain scans on it to increase the strength and ability of a part of the brain responsible for focus and concentration so I make these videos to give you as much truth and information about mental illness as possible so we can help more people get treated the right way and as a recovering prescription drug addict I think it's very important that we are careful we are very careful with the type of medications that we're dishing out so again thank you so much for watching and if you like this video please share it please share it on your facebook page or your twitter or your instagram or whatever you can just share this video all right let's get the information out there okay but if you're new here your first time meeting me I'm always making videos to help you out with your mental and emotional well-being make sure you click that little round subscribe button and if you would like click or tap on one of those thumbnails to check out some more videos on this channel all right thanks so much for watching be kind to each other and I'll see you next time