Wretched Radio made a good program concerning a new book called Lies MY Therapist Told Me.
Following are some quotes from that program. It starts out with a discussion about the number of young American adults taking medication for ADHD and that has nearly doubled in recent decades. The rates of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) diagnosis are on the rise.
We're seeing more and more use of ADHD drugs in general because there's increased awareness—for children who have problems with attention—and I think parents want to help them maximize their performance.
You receive the dreaded phone call, and now you're scratching your head wondering, What do we do with our child?
Parents are brought into the educator's office. They receive the call:
“We need to talk to you about your child.”
With fear and trepidation, you sit in a little teeny-tiny chair that doesn’t affect you at all, and the teacher informs you that your child has ADHD.
Amazingly, they open up their drawer that just happens to have business cards where you can go to “professionals,” and “experts,” and “doctors,” so that you can get your child a prescription for an SSRI.
What do you do?
That story is so common. Dr. Greg Gifford has written a book titled Lies My Therapist Told Me.
We could all probably tell a similar story—of our kids being questioned regarding their learning capacity, or being suspected of having a learning disability or ADHD.
And now, our school psychologist has a test—a written test, by the way, not lab work, not a CT scan or MRI—a written test to diagnose them with a mental disorder from the DSM-5.
So we’re in a generation where, if your kid isn’t doing well sitting in a chair for six hours, they must have a disorder. Right?
We should just pause and say:
“Hey guys, there’s a bigger narrative. There’s a bigger story going on here.”
No—they’re not sitting well for six hours, so we must diagnose them with something.
Yes, six hours for a kid—for some of us, that was like waterboarding. We were just fidgety.
Which, by the way, is one of the “marks” that your child allegedly has ADHD—they fidget.
My daughter’s story was that, if someone walked down the hall, she’d turn her attention from the teacher to see who it was.
I call that inquisitive and curious—they called it ADHD.
It’s true that the author’s son was brought up on charges of being ADHD. It even came up again this spring.
“When I wrote the book, it was around fifth or sixth grade—I forget which—when we did the whole school psychologist evaluation. They said, ‘We want to test him to see if he has learning disabilities or ADHD.’
But even this past spring, again, same son—two school psychologists sat us down to explain how anxiety works in kids. They even sent us a YouTube video about how anxiety affects the brain. And now, all of a sudden, I’m sitting in front of two counselors making mental health assumptions—because my son's grades were bad.
So we went from bad grades to:
‘There must be a mental health explanation for why he’s doing what he’s doing.’”
Wow!
“Was there encouragement to not just watch videos, but maybe get a prescription?
You're going to love the encouragement. My wife and I still chuckle at it.
When he gets tense, they told us to encourage him to take his hands, push them together, and then squeeze and release.
That was the advice—for anxiety.
And I had gone into that meeting clearly communicating:
‘If you use a mental illness term at all, we’re out. Don’t use that term with my kid.’
So they didn’t. They used the word ‘anxiety’ and talked about ‘the brain’ much. They gave us weird recommendations, but we didn’t walk out because I was so assertive and clear about how I didn’t want diagnostic labels thrown around.”
If we walk a Christian parent through how they should process receiving the call, then being told their child has ADHD.
“First, our kids are created differently, and ADHD is a very standardized way of evaluating everyone's giftedness.”
Why is that conversation even coming up?
“It’s probably related to poor academic performance at school—maybe some behavioral stuff too.
So what your school psychologist and teacher are trying to do is access additional resources that come through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).”
“There it is!”
“That’s what I was looking for—the nefarious reason.
There’s money in this.
That’s right. You need a diagnosis to access those resources. So:
“I don’t want to withhold what’s good for my child. These are the experts. This is what they’re recommending…”
So you get pulled into this lazy river, funneling your child into therapeutic terminology. You have to pause and ask:
“Wait a minute. How are you diagnosing them? Who are you comparing them with?”
You mentioned this on Wretched last week:
The youngest student in the class is the most likely to be diagnosed with ADHD. The greatest predictor? Their birth month.
If you're born in August vs. September, and school starts when you're five, the youngest kids are often boys—less mature, less developed—and they are the most likely to be diagnosed.
So what do we have?
“Wait a minute. If this is actually a disorder, let’s take them to a medical doctor. Let’s do scans, tests, labs, and find the physiological problem.”
And if there is no proof of a physiological problem, then say:
“School psychologist, thank you—but please keep your labels to yourself. Don’t label my child with your made-up illness.”
We just talked about this: the reason kids are being diagnosed is because they’ve got ants in their pants and can’t focus on assignments.
You used the word “giftedness.” So what—they don’t have a super long attention span?
That’s how God made them!
Should I give a kid like that a prescription for being young?
Right. Let them mature a bit. Let them get out of junior high, into high school—see how they learn to discipline themselves.
Ask yourself:
They're just learning to handle boring or difficult tasks—and sometimes (sorry, school), school is just boring and difficult.
Students need to learn to persevere.
And to give them a label and medication?
I would bet money that, if you took a struggling ninth grader—rather than giving them an SSRI—and had them repeat the ninth grade, their grades would improve because of maturity, not medication.
Dr. Greg Gifford’s book is called Lies My Therapist Told Me.
It will help you, Mom and Dad. You need this book. Pastor, you need this book.
Because we are the experts when it comes to mental health.
You can get the book at:
👉 fortisinstitute.org/lies
Following are some quotes from that program. It starts out with a discussion about the number of young American adults taking medication for ADHD and that has nearly doubled in recent decades. The rates of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) diagnosis are on the rise.
We're seeing more and more use of ADHD drugs in general because there's increased awareness—for children who have problems with attention—and I think parents want to help them maximize their performance.
You receive the dreaded phone call, and now you're scratching your head wondering, What do we do with our child?
Parents are brought into the educator's office. They receive the call:
“We need to talk to you about your child.”
With fear and trepidation, you sit in a little teeny-tiny chair that doesn’t affect you at all, and the teacher informs you that your child has ADHD.
Amazingly, they open up their drawer that just happens to have business cards where you can go to “professionals,” and “experts,” and “doctors,” so that you can get your child a prescription for an SSRI.
What do you do?
That story is so common. Dr. Greg Gifford has written a book titled Lies My Therapist Told Me.
We could all probably tell a similar story—of our kids being questioned regarding their learning capacity, or being suspected of having a learning disability or ADHD.
And now, our school psychologist has a test—a written test, by the way, not lab work, not a CT scan or MRI—a written test to diagnose them with a mental disorder from the DSM-5.
So we’re in a generation where, if your kid isn’t doing well sitting in a chair for six hours, they must have a disorder. Right?
We should just pause and say:
“Hey guys, there’s a bigger narrative. There’s a bigger story going on here.”
No—they’re not sitting well for six hours, so we must diagnose them with something.
Yes, six hours for a kid—for some of us, that was like waterboarding. We were just fidgety.
Which, by the way, is one of the “marks” that your child allegedly has ADHD—they fidget.
My daughter’s story was that, if someone walked down the hall, she’d turn her attention from the teacher to see who it was.
I call that inquisitive and curious—they called it ADHD.
It’s true that the author’s son was brought up on charges of being ADHD. It even came up again this spring.
“When I wrote the book, it was around fifth or sixth grade—I forget which—when we did the whole school psychologist evaluation. They said, ‘We want to test him to see if he has learning disabilities or ADHD.’
But even this past spring, again, same son—two school psychologists sat us down to explain how anxiety works in kids. They even sent us a YouTube video about how anxiety affects the brain. And now, all of a sudden, I’m sitting in front of two counselors making mental health assumptions—because my son's grades were bad.
So we went from bad grades to:
‘There must be a mental health explanation for why he’s doing what he’s doing.’”
Wow!
“Was there encouragement to not just watch videos, but maybe get a prescription?
You're going to love the encouragement. My wife and I still chuckle at it.
When he gets tense, they told us to encourage him to take his hands, push them together, and then squeeze and release.
That was the advice—for anxiety.
And I had gone into that meeting clearly communicating:
‘If you use a mental illness term at all, we’re out. Don’t use that term with my kid.’
So they didn’t. They used the word ‘anxiety’ and talked about ‘the brain’ much. They gave us weird recommendations, but we didn’t walk out because I was so assertive and clear about how I didn’t want diagnostic labels thrown around.”
If we walk a Christian parent through how they should process receiving the call, then being told their child has ADHD.
“First, our kids are created differently, and ADHD is a very standardized way of evaluating everyone's giftedness.”
Why is that conversation even coming up?
“It’s probably related to poor academic performance at school—maybe some behavioral stuff too.
So what your school psychologist and teacher are trying to do is access additional resources that come through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).”
“There it is!”
“That’s what I was looking for—the nefarious reason.
There’s money in this.
That’s right. You need a diagnosis to access those resources. So:
- They have a ‘C’?
- Let’s test them.
- Why are we testing them?
- Because we need a label.
- Why do we need a label?
- To access IDEA resources.”
“I don’t want to withhold what’s good for my child. These are the experts. This is what they’re recommending…”
So you get pulled into this lazy river, funneling your child into therapeutic terminology. You have to pause and ask:
“Wait a minute. How are you diagnosing them? Who are you comparing them with?”
You mentioned this on Wretched last week:
The youngest student in the class is the most likely to be diagnosed with ADHD. The greatest predictor? Their birth month.
If you're born in August vs. September, and school starts when you're five, the youngest kids are often boys—less mature, less developed—and they are the most likely to be diagnosed.
So what do we have?
- We need more resources.
- Who’s being diagnosed?
- The youngest, least mature kids.
“Wait a minute. If this is actually a disorder, let’s take them to a medical doctor. Let’s do scans, tests, labs, and find the physiological problem.”
And if there is no proof of a physiological problem, then say:
“School psychologist, thank you—but please keep your labels to yourself. Don’t label my child with your made-up illness.”
We just talked about this: the reason kids are being diagnosed is because they’ve got ants in their pants and can’t focus on assignments.
You used the word “giftedness.” So what—they don’t have a super long attention span?
That’s how God made them!
Should I give a kid like that a prescription for being young?
Right. Let them mature a bit. Let them get out of junior high, into high school—see how they learn to discipline themselves.
Ask yourself:
- Can they focus on things they enjoy?
- Can they watch a movie for 90 minutes?
- Can they play video games for 2–3 hours with no break?
They're just learning to handle boring or difficult tasks—and sometimes (sorry, school), school is just boring and difficult.
Students need to learn to persevere.
And to give them a label and medication?
I would bet money that, if you took a struggling ninth grader—rather than giving them an SSRI—and had them repeat the ninth grade, their grades would improve because of maturity, not medication.
It will help you, Mom and Dad. You need this book. Pastor, you need this book.
Because we are the experts when it comes to mental health.
You can get the book at:
👉 fortisinstitute.org/lies
-
2
-
1
- Show all
just how much schools get per child that is identified and officially 'given' services through IDEA.
