Is your child hyperactive or mischievous?

Who does not know a boy or girl who is too agitated, who is always running around the house, jumping on the furniture, eating standing up and scattering the toys they are not using? In the classroom, they forget to do their homework or make mistakes in the exercises, out of pure distraction. School performance ends up being impaired, as well as the concentration of the surrounding students. This behavior is often associated with attention deficit and hyperactivity (ADHD), a disease that affects children but can continue into adulthood. And many parents end up looking for a psychiatrist, not realizing that, most of the time, these children are just being… children!
Psychologist Flávia Lemos explains how to differentiate hyperactive children from triggers. She is a member of the Federal Council of Psychology which, last year, launched the campaign No to the Medicalization of Life, against the indiscriminate use of medication to treat hyperactivity and other ailments.

The risks of medicating the child unnecessarily

How to differentiate mischievous child from hyperactive child?

Definitions of hyperactivity are controversial and there are different views among scholars. This means that there is a lack of more research on the disease, but it needs to be done without funding from the laboratories, because they profit from the sale of medicines. To discover a picture of hyperactivity, the doctor must take into account several aspects of the child’s life: the school situation, how the child deals with friends, the family’s financial reality, how his health is, among others.

What are the main causes?

It is not yet known for sure. But we live in a society that produces pain and discomfort for citizens, with inadequate schools, broken families, unbridled competition… All of this could be behind the emergence of this disease. Therefore, there is no point in medicating children without first investigating all the possibilities that can make them suffer.

What dangers will the child be subject to if he or she takes medication for nothing?

Medicines are drugs. And, although allowed, they also cause harm and dependence. Medicines for hyperactivity, specifically, have a black box amphetamine that can cause anxiety attacks and psychotic outbreaks, kidney problems, insomnia, loss of appetite, abdominal pain, headache, changes in blood pressure and heart rate.

Is there a treatment for hyperactivity without medication?

To speak of treatment is to limit the problem to just one aspect of life. We need to offer children care in different fields, not just in hospitals and clinics. The child needs to be fine not only in physical health itself, but also at school, in family life, in life with friends… The child also needs to have opportunities to practice a sport, go to the movies, to the theater…

Is it bad to be triggered?

No! Mischievous boys and girls annoy those who want them to be quiet, who avoid accepting that every human being is different from the other. To win over these children, schools need to learn to deal with differences, offer interesting classes, hire better teachers with good working conditions. Finally, it is necessary to create pedagogical projects that include not only teachers, but parents.

Too many stimuli leave the kids at a thousand

The risks of medicating the child unnecessarily Many children are diagnosed with ADHD when they are just taken out of the loop, they study at a school where the classes are boring or simply because they receive too much stimulation. If you think that your child is more agitated at home, the first step is to talk to his teacher and check if the behavior is repeated in the classroom. If so, reflect on the guy’s or girl’s routine. Lots of TV, computer and video games, sometimes all at the same time and when it’s time for homework, it leaves any child at a thousand per hour (have you noticed how hectic today’s drawings and games are?). Restlessness can also be a sign of a lack of boundaries or a way to get attention from adults. Is it not lacking firmness when saying “no”?