Cynical teachers call it Naughty Child Syndrome. But ADHD – Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder – has become a common diagnosis and a reason for prescribing powerful drugs.

It started in the United States and swept across the Western world. But in some countries, it is still unheard of.

So what is happening to our children? Dorothy Rowe, a respected psychologist, has attempted to provide the answer.

Dr Rowe has been updating her thoughts on ADHD and similar diagnoses for a new edition of her best-selling self-help book, Beyond Fear.

When the book was first published, in 1987, ADHD was unheard of. Now it is part of the language – and an excuse for dosing children with drugs similar to amphetamines and cocaine, which appear to somehow counterbalance their natural jitteriness.

Ritalin is the best-known of the drugs in question – partly thanks to a story-line in Desperate Housewives. This involved Felicity Huffman as harassed working mum Lynette Scavo taking pills prescribed for her children to keep herself awake.

It has been estimated that, in the US, nearly one boy in every 10 of school age is on Ritalin or something similar, and the Americans are having a belated crisis of conscience about the monster they have created.

Last week, David Cameron and his Shadow Cabinet set out to make it an issue here, too, on the basis of the soaring number of prescriptions for drugs like Ritalin, Adderall and Desoxyn.

They raised the same concerns that Dorothy Rowe has.

"These drugs act on brains which are still growing," she says. "We have no idea what is going to happen in the long term.

"The other thing is, if you say to children 'You have problems – here is a pill', is it any surprise when they turn 16 and try to make themselves happy with cannabis or worse?"

The theme of her book is that fear, in a variety of grades and guises, is the common explanation for a range of human problems. And she believes ADHD is just a new way of describing the condition of children who are running scared of violence, rage, uncertainty, ridicule or some other adult weapon, used intentionally or unintentionally.

In New Scientist a few weeks ago, she asked readers to imagine themselves in a situation of extreme anxiety.

"You are at home awaiting the arrival of the person on whom you feel your life depends. The person is very late. You try to watch TV but can't concentrate. You move from chair to window, from window to door. You make phone calls, check traffic news. A friend phones to chat, and you rudely tell them to hang up. The line must be kept clear.

"You are exhibiting hyperactivity, impulsiveness, distractability. A psychiatrist might say you have been stricken with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Fortunately, as an adult, you articulate the reasons for your fear, and if the psychiatrist has any sense, she or he pours you a stiff drink.

"ADHD is not a diagnosis most mature adults face. Children, on the other hand, are being diagnosed with it in their millions."

Dr Rowe, 76, worked as a teacher and educational psychologist in Australia before getting a PhD at Sheffield and working for the NHS in North Lincolnshire. She has since written more than a dozen books, praised for their insight and common-sensical wisdom.

She has seen a lot of "naughty boys" in her career and she believes that behaviour which was once considered normal is now being diagnosed as illness. Schools are penalised if children do not fit into their systems. If parents cannot make them fit, something must be wrong. And it is easier to dose the child than to change the parents.

Few of the psychiatrists who diagnose ADHD or bipolar problems have spent much time with the children, she comments. They are usually acting on descriptions of the children's behaviour from parent and teachers. In short, all the adults collude to blame the child ...

"Parents fail to mention their own economic, social or personal problems, or underplay them. Doctors don't ask, because they lack the skills and resources to help the parents.

"If a child behaves badly, the child is at fault. If she or he can't be regarded as naughty and be punished, she or he must be mad."

Dr Rowe told the Yorkshire Post: "No physical basis has ever been discovered for this disorder. And it only exists in Western society. It is just a way of describing children – particularly boys – who cannot fit in to ordered situations."

Girls under pressure tend to withdraw, she says. Boys are more likely to act up – hurtle around, shout, scrap, knock things over. The girls probably grow up depressed. The boys may well become criminals. Meanwhile, nowadays, they are seen as ADHD cases.

Part of the answer, says D r Rowe, is more variety in education. "ADHD" boys commonly do better in tests of physical skill than they do verbally. Sometimes, they act up simply because they are bored. Whatever the reason, she says, their behaviour should be treated the way that common or garden naughtiness is – with a combination of fair discipline and reward.

Her book quotes Sami Timimi, a psychiatrist in Lincoln, who made some of the same points two years ago, in a book called Naughty Boys.

He said ADHD had become a "dumping ground" for problems arising out of the failures of adults and their institutions. And he commented: "Western governments spend billions to fight a war on drugs with the right hand, while the left hands out millions of prescriptions for stimulants."

He said this week: "ADHD is a cultural invention.We define what normal child behaviour is and what we call problems might be valued in another context."

In a middle-class neighbourhood in Mexico, he said, American doctors had looked at 200 children and found 18 who they would have diagnosed as ADHD but who were simply tolerated in their local schools.

He has been treating ADHD without drugs for years and has a new book out called MIS-Understanding ADHD: The Complete Guide for Parents to Alternatives to Drugs (Authorhouse, £11.99).



Beyond Fear, by Dorothy Rowe, is published by Harper Perennial, price £12.99. To order either book from the Yorkshire Post Bookshop, call free on 0800 0153232 or order on-line at www.yorkshirepostbookshop.co.uk. Postage and packing costs £1.95.