Modern Science on Self-Control, and 4 Things You Can Do Immediately to Improve It

Caution, anecdotes ahead.

I was reading some symptoms of ADD today and was stunned by the fact that
they all were the exact symptoms of not having enough discipline in a
household.

• doesn’t pay attention

• doesn’t follow-through

• doesn’t listen

• unfocused

• unorganized

Try this: imagine a family that you know where the parents are pretty
strict. Not like beatings strict, but basically not tolerating backtalk, not
feeding their kids junk food, requiring that they keep their own rooms
clean, speak respectfully to elders, etc.

Now imagine that family with an ADD kid. Or any family like it. I myself
cannot.

Look, kids are kids. They play, they get crazy, they act up, the complain,
they get lazy, they get inattentive, and they occasionally go Tasmanian
Devil on you. It happens. And disciplined parents know to let it happen
sometimes. But those parents treat it like an exception that shouldn’t
happen very often and should be curtailed.

My opinion is that some parents let this happen constantly and call it ADD.
They don’t require their kids to bathe and brush their teeth every night.
They don’t discipline them when they interrupt adults. They allow them to be
rude to others in the name of cuteness. They don’t require to clean up after
themselves because they think it’s too much to ask. Etc. They basically let
their kids do what they want rather than spend the massive amount of time
and energy to force them to behave better.

In short, they don’t require their children to act right, so they don’t. And
in today’s world, children behaving poorly is called ADD.

As I said, my evidence is only anecdotal — picked up from many families I’ve
observed over the years. But there are two things I’m unable to ignore from
those observations:

1. Parents who run a disciplined household tend to not have kids with ADD

2. The list of ADD symptoms is eerily similar to the list of symptoms for a
   kid with no parental discipline

It’s uncanny. They run around doing whatever they want to, ignore
instructions from adults, interrupt others when they’re speaking because
they believe they’re the center of the universe, don’t do their homework,
don’t brush their teeth, don’t do their chores, don’t clean up after
themselves, etc., etc.

All identical symptoms for for both ADD and not having a healthy fear
and respect of the adults in their lives. Astounding.

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My advice to those who have kids with ADD: put in the extra effort to add
structure to their lives. Require that they respect their elders. Require
that they look presentable, require that they eat whatever you put in front
of them. Require that they keep their own rooms clean. Require, most of all,
that they immediately do whatever is asked of them by their parents, and
that any deviation from that is met with immediate discipline (see spanking,
heavy chores, etc.).

Try that consistently for two weeks and see if you still need to see the
doctor who specializes in “ADD”. I doubt you will.

But keep in mind: this doesn’t mean that nothing about ADD is real — perhaps
some kids do have something that gives them more behavior issues — but this
didn’t seem to be a problem in the 50’s when parents had control of the
household, and it doesn’t seem to be a problem in countries that produce
disciplined, educated children. Where are all the ADD cases in Finland and
China?

No, even if ADD does have some merit (which I don’t doubt), what’s changed
to cause this is the U.S’s approach to parenting — not the chemical makeup
of our children’s brains.

[ Oct 17, 2011 ]

Feb 26, 2019 — This is far too confident for my current quality of writing.
I was a much sloppier writer in the past.