Two of my friends have children who have been diagnosed with AD(H)D. As an outsider, I observe that the moms aren't firm with their children. They ask them to stop a behavior, and when the child ignores them, they don't follow through with the order. They just ignore the fact that the child ignored them. When their children punch each other or push each other, they aren't assertive in stopping the behavior. Their instructions to stop amount to little more than a quiet plea of "Please stop." Again, when their children ignore them, they do nothing.

Also, one of the children wrote me a sweet note saying that she loved me and that she thought I was all sorts of nice things. When I wasn't looking, the mother put it in the trash, although I was rather touched and wanted to keep it. When her child wrote her a similar letter, she put it on the computer for all to see and looked at it often.

Both of these mothers are overly attached to their children, it seems, and claim that their children throw fits when they leave which I think they encourage, to some degree. While their kids are attached to these moms, I think the moms like it and reinforce the behavior, meanwhile saying that their children have a disorder that makes them unable to be independent.

I'm not saying this is typical behavior for all ADD kids and their parents, but as an outsider, it looks to me like these kids have parenting problems more than ADD or ADHD.

What do you guys think? Are under-disciplined children sometimes misdiagnosed as having ADD or ADHD? Could this be what's happening to my friends' kids? I'm not going to do anything about it, I'm simply curious.

I don't know you're friends or their kids, so I can't comment on whether it is ADD or not. I do know that a certain amount of "battle fatigue" can set in with ADHD parents. There is a certain amount of wearing down and discouragment that can set in which makes it harder to follow through. Where most kids might have to be correct two or three time for the same offense and then it would stop, an ADHD kid might not have it after 30 + corrections -- this doesn't reinforce the parent's need to see some results. The ADHD kids still need the consistency -- even more than non ADHD kids, but parents are human and that level of intensity and follow through can be difficult to maintain. In addition to that many parents of ADHD kids also have ADHD which makes consistency even more problematic.

Scattered

Interesting. I can see how that would happen. Children always know how to push your limits, that's for sure.

One more thing: We were at work. The mom had to bring her kids as she didn't have a babysitter. When the mom left, the kids got up from playing video games on the computer (this is all they do other than watch TV, they've told me. The seven year old said, and I quote, "TV is my world."). They wanted to do something and grabbed a couple of bowls of mints. "Can we walk around to customers and offer them mints?"

"Sure," I said. "Actually, if you want to stand and hold the door open for customers and welcome them, that'd be awesome!"

So, they did. Not only did they hold the door open, but they laughed and told jokes to one another and came up with cute speeches to say to each customer who came and went.

When the mom came back, she was angry. "You all were fighting," she accused them.

"No, we weren't," they said. "We were laughing."

"No, you were fighting, I heard you," she snapped angrily.

It were as though she didn't want to believe they were happy without her. I am not kidding, that's really what I thought.

In my opinion, it was completely creepy. I felt bad for the kids. I realize that being a parent is hard ... but I don't know, it just didn't seem right to me.

Oh well, what is there to do? Absolutely nothing, that's what. :(

Okay this is a bit of an "irritant" of mine, so forgive me for just being blunt, but I'm always curious to know why some people think "an attached child" is a bad thing? Seriously, why is it bad? They all grow up, they all naturally break that attachment from their parent as they mature, so why must we force them to be independent as children? A strong attachment to a parent builds healthy adults. It should be encouraged, in my opinion.
I think many of the problems in today's society is how independent our children are becoming. We have 12 yr olds, thinking it's perfectly okay to act like little adults now days. The question should be, why do we continue to encourage THAT?

Okay off my rant:p

As far as the behavior, I agree with Scattered. I think it's pretty common for parents to just get beat down. It's all you would do all day long for some AD/HD children. Parents I think, just get tired sometimes, and would rather let a smaller thing go, over dealing out the 100th punishment for the day. Raising a child with a disability is TOTALLY different then raising a child without one. Trust me, I've experienced both. They don't compare in any way, shape, or form.
The other situation could be that they don't want to make a big fuss in front of other people, so they try to keep it as simple as possible when out in public. It's a mistake, but many people do it. Parents don't have all the answers just because they become parents.
It's very easy to judge how you would parent, or should parent a child with a disability when you are looking from the outside in. The answers always seem so simple.

To answer your question though, can lack of parenting cause behavior problems....absolutely! Can it cause AD/HD....nope! Behavior problems certainly can come from AD/HD for many many reasons, but that is not what AD/HD is all about, nor can it be diagnosed based on that. It's about not being able to focus, lack of attention span, lack of impulse control, possibly hyperactivity, trouble staying on task, trouble with memory, trouble organizing, etc. Most of which can not be caused by bad, or lack of parenting, and many symptoms must be present in order to get a diagnosis.

So yeah, there's a chance that some of the behavior is from lack of discipline, but that wouldn't be the reason for having AD/HD. It's more then likely that the behavior would be there regardless, and mom is just beat down. Could be why she's a bit moody too;) . It can be very isolating to have children with AD/HD, especially since most people think they just need to be disciplined more and it would fix it. You aren't the only one to think that way, trust me:p .

As far as the t.v. issue, it actually can be a very calming thing for an AD/HD child. Many adults with AD/HD find calmness in the computer:p . It's hard to be restless all day. When you find something that clams you, it is easy for it to become your world.
I do hope mom will encourage more time away from it though. :)