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GULFPORT, MISSISSIPPI, UNITED STATES, April 12, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ — Stanford A. Owen MD, owner of ADD Clinics, reviews the effect of parental decisions in treating their ADD or ADHD children. He treats only adult ADD patients as he is a specialist in Internal Medicine with certification in Psychopharmacology. This tilts Dr. Owen’s view, as an Internist, toward the biochemical aspects of brain function. He sees the brain as any other organ, building that organ structure from genetic, environmental, and social influences.

A majority of patients who seek treatment for Adult ADD (after age 18) have never been treated for ADD. Most of these individuals state they had lifelong symptoms and disabilities related to ADD but never treated, usually at the insistence of their parents and to the chagrin of their teachers.

May say their mother wanted to seek treatment but the father “didn’t believe in that stuff”. Occasionally, the parents have similar conviction about treatment. A majority of these patients struggled in school and a great many did not graduate from high school. Some attained a GED, some went on to college, and a majority end up in the trades or service industries to make a wage.

It is difficult to comprehend that parents “don’t believe in that stuff”, yet will allow their children to fail, drop out of school, and enter the adult world at enormous disadvantages, socially and economically. These parents beliefs are so fixed, so entrenched, yet so wrong that they would intentionally allow their children to be harmed. It is always disheartening to see case after case—with similar social, emotional, and economic outcomes.

After treatment reveals that all of the misery, all of the ostracism, all of the criticisms hurled at their children over and over, such as “lazy”, “stupid”, “bad”, “mischievous”, “up to no good”, could have been prevented, patients often develop extreme anger, extreme sadness, and pure disbelief toward their parents who failed to learn more about their condition. From their viewpoint, the parent failed to care.

ADD is a brain condition. Often, especially in childhood, it is genetic. It was inherited from those same parents who usually suffered the same fate. ADD can be seen on nuclear SPECT scans as areas, usually in the frontal lobes of the brain, that lack function. Yet, while under the same SPECT scans, these “inactive or dormant” parts of the brain may be activated by extreme stimulation or medication to function normally. This is the theory why ADD kids often seek dangerous or thrilling hobbies such as motorcycle racing, bungy jumping, excessive drugs or sex, or even criminal behavior—it is all stimulating and make the brain “work”, even if to social or physical detriment.

Many other parents do not want to allow medication treatment of their children. Often they want “natural” or behavioral-only treatment. While this sounds noble or desirable, and can be helpful, they often or even usually fall far short of securing the child’s potential. Certainly, everyone could use professional counseling or coaching. It cannot hurt and can only help. If an ADD person performs Focus or Tasking at a 2 out of 10 score, counseling and behavioral coaching can improve those scores by one to several points. This is great, but rarely reaches the goal of achieving 8/10 that is usually gained from medication.

According to Dr. Owen’s experience, ADD children who were treated successfully from an early age are shockingly, and he emphasizes, “shockingly” better off then those never treated. They do not carry all of the negative connotations, which are incorporated into the personality, into adulthood. They do not see limitation of potential. They do not feel bitter or resentful. Often, if not usually, they are successful in school and business. “Hindsight is always easier than foresight” states Dr. Owen, “but if I get one message out to the world it would be ‘allow your child to be tested and treated for ADD’, whatever it takes and whatever it costs. The returns will be huge and lifelong.”

Stanford A. Owen, MD is Certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine, the American Board of Physician Nutrition Specialists, and the Neuroscience Education Institute as a Master Psychopharmacologist. He practices in Mississippi and Louisiana.

Morgan Thomas
Rhino Digital, LLC
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