About one in nine children in the US between the ages of three and 17 have been diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) calls ADHD an “expanding public health concern.”
Researchers found that in 2022, 7.1 million kids and adolescents in the US had received an ADHD diagnosis—that’s a million more than in 2016. That increase is not entirely surprising since the data were collected during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The increase in diagnoses also comes amid growing awareness of ADHD—and the different ways that it can manifest in children,” reported Maria Godoy for NPR. The study’s lead author Melissa Danielson told NPR that this may help explain why girls are becoming more commonly diagnosed with ADHD compared to boys than they had been in the past. She says boys have long been diagnosed with ADHD at around two and half times the rate of girls, but the new report found that the difference is narrowing.
The treatment team at Turning Winds is well aware of the troubling trend as many of our clients arrive with an ADHD diagnosis. One of them was Ben (name changed to protect his privacy) who was diagnosed (as were his older siblings) when he started to have failing grades in elementary school. Despite being put on medication (Adderall), he continued to struggle. In fact, his academic struggles became more severe and evolved into disruptive behavior in middle school, including rudeness and defiance.
“It’s often difficult for parents to navigate that situation. They don’t know how to respond to certain situations. They’re not sure what’s driving this behavior and how parents can get ahead of it,” says Turning Winds’ clinical director Jared Sartell who speaks from experience since he has a seven-year-old son with ADHD.
It took four months for Ben to turn his life around. His parents were delighted with the change in their child. “We made the right choice and we would definitely choose Turning Winds again,” says his mother. “The Turning Winds team is made up of great, caring people, and they’re very patient, that’s a key factor. I trusted Turning Winds to be able to help him—they put a lot of effort into each individual.”
Children with ADHD have a hard time thriving in a contemporary school environment. “There used to be a place for those kids, there used to be traditional academics but there was also an auto shop and other hands-on instruction, there was lots of PE and intramural sports. There were ways for people to thrive outside the classroom,” says Sartell. “Now, our system has shifted away from that, and most of the time, students are required to strictly sit in the classroom. It’s ‘do your work, don’t question anything’—essentially, don’t make life inconvenient for the adults running the show.”
The educational and therapeutic approach at Turning Winds is much more fine-tuned to individual needs and provides plenty of experiential outlets. The program makes use of the expansive landscape of Montana to combine adventure therapy, experiential education, and psycho-educational therapy.
Experiential learning is based on the assumption that lasting change can occur when people are placed outside their familiar environment and immersed in new and somewhat challenging situations. “I really enjoy utilizing the mountains we have here,” says Sartell. “We utilize different resources that are available within our communities and just within this mountainous region. Getting them to do activities that are healthy, that are positive, can give them outlets for their stress so they can replace the negative patterns and behaviors they had with healthy ones.”
Over the past two decades, Turning Winds has been able to help many families overcome what seemed impossible odds. Our mission is to rescue teens from crisis situations, renew their belief in their potential, reunite them with their families, and put them on a sustainable path to success.
Contact us online for more information, or call us at 800-845-1380. If your call isn’t answered personally, one of us will get back to you as soon as possible.
