Pop your pills and off you pop. Adult ADHD care and how we got here.

This post is inspired by this article by Marie Le Conte, pointing out that even having lucked out in the NHS ADHD assessment lottery (as did I), she found the management approach pretty unsatisfactory. Essentially she was offered meds and nothing else. She very much has a point. Equally, whoever saw her was almost certainly…

Digital detox: examining the claims made by Katherine Birbalsingh to the ASCL conference, 2022

The celebrated headteacher, and chair of the government’s social mobility commission, Katherine Birbalsingh, made a speech this week to the Association of school and college leaders conference, in which she made some startling claims. Unfortunately the transcript of her speech doesn’t seem to be available, so I have to rely on the reporting. So if…

We can’t talk about neurodiversity unless we also talk about inequalities.

So I have just started what I guess you could call a neurodiversity podcast (www.extraordinarybrainspod.com) and very pleased with it I am too. But I’m also grateful to the person who contacted me to express concern that the neurodiversity movement is rather dominated by voices (like my own) which are otherwise privileged, and we miss…

What manner of beast is ADHD?

There is an old Indian story, which I am going to render less ableist by calling it the Blindfold Men and the Elephant. In the story, an unfamiliar beast comes to a town- three men blindly touch it and conclude its nature quite differently: the man who handles the trunk concludes that it is a…

Simple solutions for complex problems… A habit the Tories just can’t quit.

The government is in announcement mode. There is a need for rebuilding organisational infrastructure, and an opportunity for reconfiguration. Two new initiatives have caught my eye this week- both could be helpful additions, in principle, but both seem to display the fatal weakness of this government for simple, neat solutions to complexity. The office for…

If the Tavistock judgment feels unfair on under 16s, that’s because the law does.

The judgment in R v Tavistock came out today, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot. So I thought I would offer my personal reflections, on that case and on some things I’ve been thinking about as regards young people and consent to medical treatment. I am not a lawyer, but I have studied…

Election blog: the issue we’re not talking about

(given election rules I need to emphasise that this post is made in a personal capacity) I am, I’m afraid, a single issue voter. That issue, in my defence, is the health and well-being of children. Yes, typical paediatrician, I know, but the evidence that this is the most worthwhile long-term investment a country can…

ADHD and medication: a (mainly) personal view

This is my third post about my ADHD. You can read the first two here and here. If you’ve read my ADHD stuff before you’ll know my penchant for starting with caveats about how my views, though informed by years as an ADHD specialist, are essentially personal. This one needs a conflict of interest statement…

What ADHD feels like

This is a follow up from my first hello-i-have-ADHD post. You can read that first, if you like. All personal accounts are subjective. But in talking about my experience of ADHD I need a disclaimer ten feet high, in case anyone mistakes this for an authoritative account. Firstly, ADHD is not defined by subjective experience…

How I found my tribe

Now that I’m “some kind of expert or something”, I have met enough children and young people to realise that many spend their childhood and adolescence in an agony of self-reproach, fuelled by constantly measuring themselves against others. In retrospect, I’m rather glad that I had an insulating layer of social obliviousness, that prevented me…