There was this child screaming the other day in a supermarket. It was throwing itself along with items off the shelf around. The mother approached it intrepidly and said “Hunny stop that please” then she looked at the staring shoppers and said “She has ADHD”.

Now I’m not saying ADHD doesn’t exist, in some cases I’m sure the child has this medical disability, but I think now days if a kid is a brat it’s automatically got ADHD and given drugs. I mean when we were kids, as with my parents before me, ADHD was not heard of very much. There were very few docile kids on medication and yet most of us, if not all, were well behaved.

Could this change not be due to parenting? Schooling? Adults not having control? I mean heaven forbid we blame ourselves for bringing up children who don’t seem to have morals nor know the difference between right or wrong. I’m not saying children with ADHD have no morals I hasten to add. I mean, some kids are naturally energetic, I was one of those. Jumping about, never relaxed, always planning something, doing something or running around, aren’t most kids? That’s not the argument, they can be energetic and still well behaved. But many kids aren’t nowadays they think nothing of yelling at their parents, kicking and screaming at them. Perhaps this is due to health and safety gone mad.

Another thing I noticed is that lots of kids and teens are socially awkward. They can’t hold a decent conversation anymore. They don’t know how to act in social situations. Now some people have decided this is due to them being slightly on the autistic scale. Again I’m not saying some kids don’t have this problem but this surely can’t be the answer for every child can it? They have too much and are entitled now days.

Could the reason for this not be that most kids haven’t learned how to act with people because they spend most of their time on a iPad, mobile phone or on a computer? They simply haven’t learnt how to hold a face to face conversation without a screen in front of them. It’s not their fault. With all this new technology it’s easier to shove them in front of a telly to keep them quiet rather than spending time playing with them, building communication skills.

This isn’t the only reason though. When we were children we would be out playing on the street. Hopscotch was one of the favourites, which again has been banned because the chalk could harm the pavement. Yeah, because it never rains in London and won’t be washed away at any point *Rolls eyes*. How about Conkers, remember that? Banned because it may break and go in to a child’s eye or bruise their fingers. Marbles? Glass may brake. Kids have no imagination now days, remember the days when you would be outside with nothing but a piece of chalk, a ball and maybe an old stick, you had to make up games. The worst we would do would play Knock down ginger or mess up the street with polystyrene pretending it was snow, not stabbing and mugging people.