Battle just to live a normal life

Behavioural problems have been an obstacle for a 14-year-old Shropshire youngster. Ben Bentley meets David Jones and his mum, Sandra.

Fishing makes David Jones a different person. Casting his line into the River Severn, the 14-year-old cuts a contented figure, at one with the peace and tranquillity of his rural surroundings and patient in a waiting game characterised by a lot of nothing followed by a rush of carp.

It’s an idyllic picture, but certainly not the whole one. Forgotten are the violent rages, the fights with his mum, being scared of paper and a “fetish” with salami.

David, you see, has ADHD. That’s “the label” that hangs around his neck, that plays devilry with his head and sees him take everyone at their word.

At the family home in Ludlow, David is whirlwind of energy. Between riding his bike and his skateboard and casting his fishing rod in the living room in anticipation of an afternoon angling, he says: “It makes me feel angry, people take the mickey and they wind me up because they know they will get a reaction.

“Fishing is very relaxing and peaceful and you forget about other things. I am trying to beat my record - my biggest fish was a leather carp that weighed 17lb.”

Mum Sandra recalls the first signs of behavioural difficulties: “David was always on the go from being a baby. He never stopped and wanted to play all the time. I wondered whether it was because I was a new mum but I was just exhausted from it.

“My sister commented that when he was three and riding his bike down the road he looked like the evil-eyed kid on the bike out of The Shining, his little legs going ten to the dozen and us behind him trying to keep up. His nursery complained that David had done this, that and the other and it was a nightmare.”

Then he started at school and life went from bad to “horrendous”.

“He wasn’t in most lessons,” Sandra continues.

“He could not keep still and was disrupting the class. They said he was ignorant because he wasn’t listening. The school just said it was me, I was being dramatic about it and I was not doing what I was supposed to be doing. At the school gates I could hear whispering going on behind my back.”

But Sandra was doing something about it, seeking medical reasons for her son’s behaviour, and by the time he was eight his condition was diagnosed. ADHD. Or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder to give its full name.

His new school, Ludlow School, is “brilliant” but public reaction to the types of behaviour David displays underlines how ADHD is a four-letter word. A lot of parents have kids that are inattentive, impulsive, restless and “a bit hyper”. That’s kids for you. Or is it?

Says Sandra: “People just see them as naughty kids. They say ADHD is a figment of the imagination, that it’s a made-up illness, but it’s real - very real.”

This week is ADHD Awareness Week, a campaign aimed at addressing this perception of a condition thought to affect between three and seven per cent of school-age children. In Shropshire, this means that between 1,815 and 4,235 children aged between five and 15 are likely to have a diagnosis of the condition. Boys are three times more likely to be sufferers.

A report by the Parent Partnership Service for Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin councils says ADHD is strongly inherited and can be passed from one generation to the next.

Contrary to some opinions, it also states: “There is no evidence that poor parenting, a disrupted home life or diet causes ADHD. However, some children with ADHD can react badly to certain foods, and good parenting and a supportive home can help children with ADHD to cope successfully with their problems.”

Sandra believes ADHD is latent in many people but can take a traumatic experience to trigger it. She thinks changes in modern lifestyles and social situations could hold the key and in David’s case believes the condition could have surfaced because he was adopted at six weeks old. His nan’s death is also cited.

Sandra is not a fan of Ritalin, the drug used in many cases to treat the condition, saying the tablet that gives you a “four-hour feeling of being normal” is cruel.

Instead she enlists the help of a family therapist, addresses David’s diet, heaps him with love and indulges his creative side. She also makes sure he does all the activities he loves and which help him to control his condition: fishing, climbing (”rock climbing, but he’s always climbing on top of the wardrobe”), football, cricket and playing music.

“He can be violent. He has punched me and his dad and I have to sit on him if he’s in a rage. But I’ve bought him a drum kit and he takes out his anger on that.”

There is hope for people like David however, and no shortage of celebrity role models - singer Daniel Bedingfield and comic actor Robin Williams are just two ADHD sufferers who have gone on to great things. Olympic swimmer and world record breaker Michael Phelps, also a sufferer, is one of the most famous men on earth.

• Sandra has set up a support group for parents of ADHD sufferers, called Allsorts, based at the Rockspring Centre in Ludlow.
• For more information call 07813 043841.