Kid Blames ADD for Slugging Other Kid
This is what it’s coming to.
A 17-year-old boy was arrested at Mayfair Mall after he punched another 17-year-old who told him he looked like one of the Jonas Brothers, a music group popular with young teenage girls.
The teen, who blamed his actions on attention deficit disorder, was cited for disorderly conduct.
Seriously? ADD? Last I checked, ADD meant that you had trouble paying attention for any length of time. It did NOT mean that you couldn’t avoid slugging someone for a perceived slight. Yet look at the excuse that this boy offered up. We are teaching our children that they are not responsible for their actions. We are teaching them than anything bad that they do is the result of some disease or disorder than can be treated with medication.
Our society will be the worse for it.
That’s the “Therapeutic Society” thing. “Taka a pill, see a shrink, all will be well.”
Posted by dad29 on September 13, 2008 at 0838 hrs
If he was on medication, shouldn’t that have prevented this behavior? Why bother to take the medication, when you can act up and then just blame it on ADD. I can’t cite any sources, but I know I have seen other incidents like this. I think some parents are real quick to pull out the “ADD” card instead of having to discipline their children. Now, I know that for some people, this is a real challenge to deal with, but as usual, there are always people willing to “latch on”.
What this is, is a “culture of victimization” - it underlines everything. It is never about personal responsibility, or God forbid, fate or luck.
Just listen to the political discourse and how it plays to people’s need to feel victimized: “wealthy people getting all the tax breaks”; Palin picking on “community organizers”; trying to establish integrity to the voting process “disenfranchise voters”; corporations running “amok” and taking “your jobs” overseas; WalMart employes need to be unionized to protect them from Walmart. The list goes on.
The problem with the “culture of victimization” is that when you have established that everyone is a “victim” of something, you set the stage for competing interests amongst the victims. Some victims will win, some will lose, and then the “losers” become “revictimized”.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 13, 2008 at 0900 hrs
My oldest nephew just turned 12.
He is very hyper-active and can’t sit still for more than 2 seconds, but does alright in school, drives my other niece and nephew CRAZY.
You know what they call that?
Being a 12 year old boy.
ADD seems to be diagnosis that gets thrown around for everything nowadays.
What ever happened to letting “boys be boys”?
Posted by Michael J. Cheaney on September 13, 2008 at 0931 hrs
What ever happened to letting “boys be boys”?
1) Teachers unions. It’s a hassle teaching disruptive students (from experience).
2) The Federal government. The Individual with Disabilities Act, among others, made it possible for schools to get more money for kids with disabilities, so classifying kids this way gets them dough.
3) Liability lawyers.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 13, 2008 at 1005 hrs
ADD is the non-Hyperactivity version. Characterized by lots and lots of daydreaming. Not violence.
Next excuse please.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 13, 2008 at 1043 hrs
Owen-
How nice of you to bring this topic up the day before National ADD Awareness Week.
It is obvious that you and the commenters have a lot to learn about this very real illness.
ADD can cause very low impulse control, causing a person to react before fully thinking through the consequences, such as striking out at someone.
There are many people in the community that have it, but are able to function adequately enough with the help of medication and a structured environment and structured schedule for each day. Unfortunately, as we all know, life doesn’t always follow our schedules, and the disruptions can through a person for ADD for a much bigger loop than for “normal” people.
But y’all might not care about that. It’s just much easier to bitch about it than it is to understand it.
Posted by capper on September 13, 2008 at 1147 hrs
capper - my daughter has ADD.
I stand by my “Next Excuse Please”
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 13, 2008 at 1258 hrs
Did the 17-year old bring up ADD as an excuse, or did some -s-h-y-s-t-e-r- attorney?
As for any ADD advocates here, shouldn’t you be even more outraged by the defendant’s excuse than the commenters are? Isn’t it that young man or his attorney who is making a mockery of ADD sufferers?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 13, 2008 at 1301 hrs
I’ll take a whack at this one. There is no excuse for violence but ADD is often given as a reason for “acting out”. I am an education student (yes its tough being in education and a student and conservative) and we are taught that ADD can lead to destructive behaviors. How? Children become frustrated because “they really do want to be good little boys and girls but they just can’t concentrate enough to do so”. They are constantly “badgered” by teachers to do their work or to take notes but it’s too hard for them (which is a legitimate reason) so they become disturbances and are sent to the principles office. Now they are labeled as a trouble-maker and so they take on that persona. Call a kid dumb enough times and they will believe it. Same applies here. It is still no excuse for violence. It is still that kids responsibility to be responsible for his actions and it is his parents responsibility to teach him responsibility. ADD should not be an excuse for violence and by making excuses for people with ADD we perpetuate the cycle.
And why is it that only children seem to have this issue? When was the last time an adult blamed his punching out the soccer coach on his ADD?
Posted by Dave on September 13, 2008 at 1308 hrs
Time to take a pill (and I don’t mean Ritalin) and calm down. Some teenage dirt bag says he has ADD and right away teacher unions and trial attorneys are being burned at the stake and we’re debating if ADD is real.
No one knows if he really has ADD! For all we know, he’s doing what people of his ilk do: lying. In a few years, he’ll say his wife “asked for it” when he’s arrested for slapping her around or “I only had two beers” when he drives into a tree.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 13, 2008 at 1345 hrs
“ADD can cause very low impulse control, causing a person to react before fully thinking through the consequences, such as striking out at someone.”
Yeah, you know what I call that? Being a JERK. Jerks have been with us throughout history, and I’m sorry, but their poor decision-making still doesn’t equate to them having a “disease” that requires medication. You know what their behavior does call for? PUNISHMENT.
Oh yeah - modern, more enlightened parents today don’t believe in punishment. Despite thousands of years of effective operant conditioning through spankings and the like, modern parents believe in time-out and Ritalin.
I’m sorry, but all you people who advocate medicating everyone else who doesn’t live up to your personal standards will one day be sorry for that. We will have quite a Brave New World on our hands one day. Couple that with the left’s desire to prevent us from even entertaining unpleasant or antisocial thoughts, and we’ll all be subject to the Dream Police eventually.
BTW I’m the other Dave (the one from Texas), not the one who posted above.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 13, 2008 at 1432 hrs
Yah, Cap. Give ‘em a pill, make it all go away.
We had one diagnosed with that. I tossed the pills and had the teacher give him extra work to do in class.
See, the kid was smarter than the others in the class, so he got bored easily. He didn’t slap people around, though.
If he’d done that, I would have prescribed about 15 open-handed swats on the ass.
Either one works.
The pills? Good for the pharmaceutical company, no one else.
Posted by dad29 on September 13, 2008 at 1528 hrs
Dad-
That is the most God awful ignorant ass statement I have ever seen.
If any of you ever knew someone with ADD, and was on meds. You can easily tell the difference in their control, their focus, and their level of functioning.
I have someone in my family with ADD and I can tell within 30 seconds of conversations if that person has taken their meds. And there is no zombie effect from the meds. Just a sharpening of focus and memory retention.
The meds also allow this person to do better at school and at work. If you think that’s only benefitting the pharma companies, you’re a bigger fool than I thought.
As for the kid, anyone that has any knowledge of the system knows the kid will have to prove his diagnoses in court, and then prove that he didn’t know what he was doing. That is a lot harder than one might think. Either way, the kid should be held responsible for his actions. The consequences should be meted out with any possible diagnoses in mind.
Posted by capper on September 13, 2008 at 1729 hrs
If you think that’s only benefitting the pharma companies, you’re a bigger fool than I thought.
Yea! Odds are Big Pharma is also paying the shrink for every scrip written!
Posted by Michael J. Cheaney on September 13, 2008 at 1810 hrs
I could easily imagine that the kid was upset at being likened to one the Jonas brothers is that they all profess to be virgins and proudly wear Purity Rings. He must have thought he was being dissed for being a virgin.
That makes it better, no?
Posted by Steve Burri on September 13, 2008 at 1916 hrs
Think of it.
2000+ years of recorded history until someone discovered ADD.
Damn. Modern shrinkology is just….dandy.
Posted by dad29 on September 13, 2008 at 1916 hrs
ADD became an excuse when something as stupid as two 17 year olds in a one punch fight became police business.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 13, 2008 at 1955 hrs
Dad=
How many centuries was it before people admitted the world wasn’t flat?
How long was it that people recognized all sorts of diseases that weren’t demon possessions or blots from the gods?
ADD was there for a long time, it just took people long enough to recognize it. But you just stay in your little cave and pretend it’s all different.
Posted by capper on September 13, 2008 at 2111 hrs
Augh, As some one with ADD and have known I have had it for over 20 years I find all of you who are dismissing the disorder as “Modern Shrinkolgy” should go fly a kite.
Walk in my shoes for a couple of days and you will regret saying that. I don’t take pills to get around my disorder. I use everyday modifiers to be a productive person in society. But if I don’t use those modifiers I become a different person and lose focus and go off in to lala land.
Now I would never strike out in violence when I have an episode and this kid has no excuse for what he did. But don’t go off labeling us who have ADD…
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 13, 2008 at 2120 hrs
Dad - I usually agree with you, but I gotta back capper up a little here. I can attest that it is real as well. My daughter was struggling with focus in school and falling behind. Since she couldn’t concentrate, she would go into her own little day-dream land.
We agonized about giving her the meds, but since on them, she is near the top of her class. You actually would not know she is taking them, there is no visible difference in her demeanor. She is just more engaged in the classroom.
But using ADD as an excuse for punching someone…I’ll say it again - find another excuse.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 13, 2008 at 2211 hrs
ADD is a real, if nebulous and overused, diagnoses. Those who say it’s not are flatly ignorant.
This is what what’s coming to? If you’re suggesting that psychiatry and psychology are making “excuses” for people’s bad behavior, then I disagree. This idea is a myth. A myth well-loved by people who like to cling to very simple definitions of right and wrong. Everyone loves to decry how criminals plead not guilty by reason of insanity, for example; but none of them likes to admit that this defense pretty much never works.
Posted by scott on September 14, 2008 at 1027 hrs
The kid should be punished fully, and be given help for his ADD. How hard is that?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 14, 2008 at 1210 hrs
absolutely agree with you, John. The kid should be punished. It’s as simple as that.
Posted by San Antonio Lawyer on September 14, 2008 at 2333 hrs
This kid has no excuse for what he did, he should be punished.
Posted by kawasaki fairings on September 24, 2008 at 0033 hrs
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