I once rang to make my son an appointment with the pediatrician. Before I could even say what I wanted, the receptionist had told me “We are not taking any new ADHD patients.”
So what gives? Why is there a plague of ADHD in young children?
Children, even more than adults need good quality sleep to grow and flourish. For sleep to be good quality, it has to be undisturbed, so that you can progress from stage 1 and 2,
( light sleep), to 3 and 4, (deep sleep), to REM, ( rapid eye movement, or dreaming sleep). Very quickly, you do your growing in deep sleep, and you organize your memory and thinking in REM sleep. If you don’t do that, then you can’t think properly or concentrate the next day, and you will have growth disturbances ranging from lack of growth to obesity.
When this happens to an adult, we are whacked out and it shows. We can hardly keep our eyes open. Kids are different. They fight tiredness with a passion, hence the terrible 2s, and the 5.00pm crankies, when you have to get dinner, baths, homework, chores and bed organized with kids that are running around and snapping at everything that moves.
ADHD kids are like that all of the time. They go to bed tired and wake up tired. Yes foods can exacerbate the problem, both by acting on the nervous system, and by irritating the soft tissue in the nose, and making it grow larger. Increasing levels of asthma is one consequence of increasing numbers of allergens in our world, and airway irritation is another.
There is never only 1 cause of anything, and ADHD is the same. But it is worthwhile having your child assessed to see if dental development, and airway issues, ( which are linked together), are part of the problem. If they are, there are ways to treat it other than medication. These include an airway assessment at the Ear Nose and Throat doctor, evaluation of food and environmental sensitivities to help keep the nose happy, and expansion of the palate to make more tongue space, and make the nasal airway bigger.