I find the article to lack nuance, but it is time that this hazardous trend stops, and if it needs to go through social media shaming for some people to realize this sucks, then I am all for it.
My 6-year-old is a pain in the ass (got thrown out of 2 schools already). His psychologist says he has a hard time controlling his emotions. You wouldn’t believe the number of people who suggested he has some form of mental illness (OD, ADHD, ASD, we’ve heard it all). Thankfully, here in France, both his psychologist and his teacher are really wary of the trend, and are very careful not to put a mental health label on a kid who doesn’t have any other problem than being a pain to adults.
See the main problem is the question of suffering. People would say: but your kid suffers from being a pain to adults. Wouldn’t you want to help your kid not suffer?
Well yes sure, but the suffering is society-induced. It’s not that his personality is a medical problem, it’s that he doesn’t fit within the expectations. If he’d been born the son of a monarch, it would be accepted that he talked back to adults and throw tantrums, and he wouldn’t feel like shit. And I am not trying to say my kid should be allowed to yell at his teacher, but all of that setting isn’t natural - as in primates don’t go to kindergarten - so who’s to say what’s normal?
It is the same for what the person describes in the article. We live in a society where people do suffer from not meeting society’s expectations. The suffering is real, and so the diagnostic is often oozing.
But when 10% of children are diagnosed with ADHD and given amphetamines so that they can get through the day, we should probably ask whether it’s not the society that’s sick.