Squirms and fidgets a lot, talks too much, forgets or loses things, has a hard time resisting temptation and has trouble taking turns.

These are all symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), but they are also typical in younger children. However, doctors are becoming too quick to diagnose disorders such as this.

Even though these symptoms are typical for little kids, you run into parents or kids around the age of 5 or 6 who have been diagnosed with ADHD. The number of diagnoses rose from an average of three percent diagnosis from 1997 to 2006, to five percent diagnosis from 2003 to 2011.

Another disorder which has appeared more frequently recently is social anxiety disorder. Students at the high school level often avoid getting into stressful situations such as missing an assignment because of this disorder. In my research on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website it didn’t even come up as a disorder.

The problem here is that parents now have access to the Internet. They can look up or stumble upon these symptoms and assume that because their kid seems to display them, the child has this disorder. The parents then go into the doctor’s appointment already looking to get the diagnosis; so then, the doctors, pressured by parents, diagnoses the child with the disorder.

When I was around age nine, my mother, who at the point just recently graduated from medical school, took me in to see one of the doctors where she worked. The doctor was quick to diagnose me with ADHD and put me on a medication for it. That lasted for a year before they realized “oh he probably doesn’t have it and this has no effect for him.”

That type of behavior from doctors is common and it needs to stop. I believe doctors should more thoroughly investigate the patient’s behaviors before they diagnose the patient.