Nearly any normal eight to ten year old boy can easily be classified with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Sadly, we seem to be incentivizing parents to seek such a diagnosis by dangling Federal Supplemental Security Income checks of up to 700.00 per month for each child classified as mentally “disabled”.

Long term damage to the child’s mental health and self-esteem is nearly always worse than the diagnosis.

From the Boston Globe:

SSI has clearly given some hard-up parents a strong financial incentive to seek federal aid by having their children classified as disabled — and in some cases to get drugs prescribed. “To get the check,’’ one regretful mother told the Globe, “you’ve got the medicate the child.’’

. . .

Some advocates for the poor defend the current system as a substitute for welfare, the only recourse for some needy families. But the damage done to children who are misclassified as mentally ill is incalculable: Some linger in special ed classes when they are capable of accelerated work; others come to believe themselves to be impaired when no such impairment exists.