How Children Get ADHD Was Once Thought To Be The Flu

Let’s take a walk back in time to 1919 in a rural schoolhouse. Mrs. Smith has fifteen students half of which have the primary ADHD symptoms of hyperactivity, inattentiveness, and impulsivity. She is a smart women who keeps up with the latest research and all the experts agree that the reason half her children are so difficult to handle is because of the brain damage caused by the 1918 influenza encephalitis epidemic. After all almost everyone in her community has had the flu. She has discussed this matter with all the parents letting them know that their children likely have Minimal Brain Damage and an extra dose of discipline might be needed to corral this unruly behavior. 

If the story above wasn’t true it might seem like something right out of a fiction novel. Now let’s get down to business and determine how do children get ADHD? 

Today research is suggesting that the cause of the disorder is largely due to biological factors, rather than environmental ones like the flu or bad parenting. Brain imaging studies trying to determine how children get ADHD have discovered differences in the area of the brain responsible for control of voluntary movements and self regulation. Since biological factors like this tend to be inheritable, an individual has an increased risk of developing ADHD if one of their parents has the disorder. In fact, one well documented research study concluded that out of all the psychiatric disorders in children ADHD has the highest risk of being inherited. 

Nevertheless, just because a person is statically vulnerable doesn’t automatically assure them of inheriting the condition. The reason for this slight variance is fascinating. The reason is that some genetic codes are expressed only under certain environmental conditions such as stress, injury, and toxic environments. So one could conclude that how children get ADHD might be dramatically influenced by the actions of the mother during pregnancy. 

So in summarizing the conclusion to our question about how children get ADHD we can conclude that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is a somewhat unpredictable combination of biology and heredity. 

What Next? For those children struggling with ADHD finding the right treatment option that can help them manage their symptoms should be the number one priority. The most common form of treatment for ADHD are stimulant medications such as Ritalin or Cylert. While effective all stimulant medications come with a number of serious label warnings. The risk of side effects or perhaps lack of success with stimulants has prompted many to investigate other options. A couple examples of this are behavior modification therapy and/or homeopathic remedies. Homeopathic remedies for ADHD are a side effect free way to address such problematic symptoms as inattention, distractibility, impulsivity, erratic behavior and hyperactivity and can be used both as a standalone treatment or as a compliment to other nonprescription alternatives.