Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It

by Gabor Maté

Sometimes we forget teenagers have their own take on life. They look at things differently. They see many of our attitudes and concerns as irrelevant or, like Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye, even absurd. Their priorities are not ours. That much was evident in an illuminating conversation I had with Angus, a highly gifted sixteen-year-old in my practice. I have known him all his life, having been the attending physician at his birth. I saw him grow up. I saw his parents’ marriage fail as his father—a very personable and clever man, an accomplished juggler—sank deeper and deeper into alcoholism. Angus has ADD, and until he participated in a very demanding outdoors course this past year, he also had a heavy-duty drug problem. He was expelled from no fewer than five schools in the two years between Grades 9 and 10. I quote him at some length because he articulates very clearly the ambivalence many teenagers have toward the diagnosis of attention deficit disorder. Parents are best to respect that ambivalence, not to try to force the issue. Angus also voices the teenager’s demand to be accepted as he is. “I love history and English,” Angus said, “but in my other subjects the teachers are always saying that ‘Angus doesn’t pay attention. Doesn’t concentrate. Talks too much.’ I don’t take notes.” “Why don’t you want to try medications?” I asked. “It’s just the way I am. It might sound strange, coming from an ex—drug addict, or however you want to phrase it—a clean addic...