Thanks to social media, we not only get updates of our friends and family but also a billion articles and pseudo “research.” The latest one I came across was this:
Why French Kids Don’t Have ADHD.
I find this article disturbing.
While I agree with her stance that ADHD kids should not be given drugs and more work should be done to treat the underlying social context problem, I find the following paragraphs disturbing:
“From the time their children are born, French parents provide them with a firm cadre—the word means “frame” or “structure.” Children are not allowed, for example, to snack whenever they want. Mealtimes are at four specific times of the day. French children learn to wait patiently for meals, rather than eating snack foods whenever they feel like it. French babies, too, are expected to conform to limits set by parents and not by their crying selves. French parents let their babies “cry it out” if they are not sleeping through the night at the age of four months.
French parents, Druckerman observes, love their children just as much as American parents. They give them piano lessons, take them to sports practice, and encourage them to make the most of their talents. But French parents have a different philosophy of discipline. Consistently enforced limits, in the French view, make children feel safe and secure. Clear limits, they believe, actually make a child feel happier and safer—something that is congruent with my own experience as both a therapist and a parent. Finally, French parents believe that hearing the word “no” rescues children from the “tyranny of their own desires.” And spanking, when used judiciously, is not considered child abuse in France. (Author’s note: I am not personally in favor of spanking children).
As a therapist who works with children, it makes perfect sense to me that French children don’t need medications to control their behavior because they learn self-control early in their lives. The children grow up in families in which the rules are well-understood, and a clear family hierarchy is firmly in place. In French families, as Druckerman describes them, parents are firmly in charge of their kids—instead of the American family style, in which the situation is all too often vice versa.”
It appears to me that this whole article is just a masked attempt to lead the reader from understanding more about ADHD into believing that, “setting limits” and “letting babies to cry it out” are all best parenting practices that prevent ADHD. And she does that while bashing the “American family style”, whatever that means. All these claims and accusations done without any empirical or clinical studies but simply because it is her opinion and what she perceives of French and American parents. Crying it out at 4 months to prevent ADHD? I suspect Dr Sears is crying it out having to read that from an “expert”.
For starters, not all French parents are structured parents and neither are all American parents “limitless”. That’s a gross generalization. Are there no French parents that do attachment parenting, because that means boobs on tap and definitely no, “crying it out.” So to declare French kids have no ADHD because they had to cry it out at 4 months old is just bewildering. That also suggests that many aspects of attachment parenting will lead to ADHD, which is hmmm, how should I put it. Oh yes, bollocks!
There isn’t any evidence-based research conducted or cited to conclude that a child brought up in a home with clear limits has less likelihood of getting ADHD. If there is, she should have included that in the article. Where is the proof for her claims?
The article comes across lacking in the logic department and seems to justify the use of “limits” and “crying it out” methods to further her agenda, whatever that may be but clearly does not help advance anything in the topic of ADHD. I wonder how many parents actually took her words for real and imposed “frame” and “structure” to their helpless babies, whom are still learning to trust in their caregivers?
I am of the view that every family requires their own parenting methods. The right method is the one that works for the family, be it structured or not, crying it out or nursing it out. It irks me to read articles like these that seem to suggest one parenting method is better than the other. Not to mention how she generalizes parents of different countries. I wonder what’s her view of Asian parents?
I say, get off your high horse. *Peace out*
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