My son’s case wasn’t severe. The specialist basically said “I can diagnose him with ADHD if you want” after seeing him for a 30 min session (may have been an hour). The specialist laid out options and let us decide. They never recommended anything. That’s the way health care is these days in this part of the country. Don’t fool yourself into thinking the specialist just knew the right answer and we just ignored it; that’s not the way it worked in our case (and probably most cases).

I feel like you guys are crazy to act like this is a infallible binary diagnoses or that one solution fits everyone. Or that as parents we shouldn’t be cautious with a drug that will affect the way our child thinks. That’s just bonkers.

IMHO it’s really all about you being worried about how others react. Speaking as a 50 year old guy, I would walk around naked if it was normal in society. Put the bikini on and stand in front of a mirror. Make sure you’re confident that it looks normal (no tags still showing, nothing that is too revealing or pinching in the wrong spot or whatever… then put it on and go out in public and don’t think about it. It’ll be fine and nobody will think twice about it other than maybe saying “damn she’s keeping herself in shape!”

It’ll be fine. Don’t let others get in your head so much that it determines what you’re going to do or wear.

As a parent of a child with ADHD, bad grades are a signal they aren’t able to cope or excel in their normal state. If the child is able to get good grades then it’s really hard to justify putting your kids on a mood altering drug.

My oldest child has ADHD and is currently on drugs for him to be more successful. He started taking ADHD drugs in high school and that made it much easier as a parent to make the decision to put him on the drugs because he could provide intelligent opinion and feedback.

I know there is a tendency here to think that the parents are doing this for nefarious purposes, but wouldn’t it be more nefarious to put your kid on mood altering drugs because they were hard to deal with?

Everything is a shade of gray for most kids. If it were black and white it would be easy. I want what is best for my kid, but that’s not necessarily an easy thing to know what is best. If it’s a close call, then it seems the safest route is the one where you don’t give your kid potentially addictive mood altering drugs… and that’s where we were for several years in junior high after he was diagnosed. He actually did quite well during covid doing school at home, and when he went back he struggled.

Let me emphasize again, this is not an easy decision. Almost all parents are trying to make the best decision for the sake of their child. You can always come up with the shit parent examples, but for every one of those there should be at least two or three good ones trying to make the best decisions possible.

Dances With Wolves Last of the Mohicans

It’s funny, I hate clinical people like you almost as much as the evil people doing this to us. Democrats are not complicit, especially when they don’t have any power.

It’s stupidly low. It opens our government up to being bought very easily.

What? Really? Chiang Kai-shek just ran his army over to some other random country and took it over? That can’t be right…

I am 100% not convinced. It seems incredibly obvious that if you have a building that you can’t jump the windows of, do want at least two avenues of escape in the event of a fire?. What moron is arguing otherwise? If you want to argue that then show me statistics.

Also fuck whoever created that website, a constant upward scrolling was awful.

When waymo was first getting qualified, they had human drivers too. Once they had so many miles, they quit needing the humans.

If you can’t tell the difference between Biden and Trump, then you need to quit sniffing glue.

He plays one character, but the character is kind of likable and funny. To me he’s the definition of a popcorn flick actor.

Yes.

I was never a “kid person” growing up. I didn’t relate to children and didn’t have much experience with them, but I always saw having a family as the natural path in life. Just like dating leads to marriage, I saw kids as the next chapter after marriage. When I really think about why I wanted kids, it comes down to two main reasons.

First, the experience itself seemed undeniably compelling. I’m introverted and not naturally a risk-taker, but I’ve learned over time that it’s important to challenge yourself and embrace growth. The last thing I want is a life that feels stagnant or boring. Skipping out on something as profound as raising kids felt like missing out on a major part of life.

Second, my wife is incredible. The idea of taking on the adventure of parenting with her felt both exciting and deeply meaningful. It’s intimate, difficult, fun, scary, and rewarding — and I couldn’t imagine a better partner to share that with.

Now, fast-forward to the present: we have three teenagers, and we’ve genuinely loved raising them. I’m not looking forward to the quiet days after they head off to college — the energy and fullness of having kids around has been one of the best parts of our lives and I’ll miss it when they’ve gone on to start their own independent lives.

Holy shit, someone’s getting fired at the CBO! How dare they put out honest data.

I’m over 50 and every night somewhere between 8:30 and 9:30 I jump online and play 1 or 2 hours of strategy games with my friends. I don’t watch TV. I don’t watch sports. This is my evening entertainment.

I have three kids who are all teenagers now and I’ve basically done this throughout my adult life. This has been a way for me to keep my friend group together. I have about six friends who do this with me and they are from a variety of different places, some as far back as junior high and high school. I think it’s an extremely healthy way for a bunch of nerds to have a social group.

This is the real take away from all this. xAI is trying hard to keep up with the big-boys and has to pay a shit ton of money just to be in the game. xAI’s revenue will be in the deep red for a long time at this rate.

“but… but… Hillary made millions money giving speeches for oil execs!!! She’s as corrupt as he is!!!” - Lemmy probably

“digging thru trash and bunch of obscure websites for info, using critical thinking to filter and refine your results”

You’re highlighting a barrier to learning that in and of itself has no value. It’s like arguing that kids today should learn cursive because you had to and it exercises the brain! Don’t fool yourself into thinking that just because you did something one way that it’s the best way. The goal is to learn and find solutions to problems. Whatever tool allows you to get there the easiest is the best one.

Learning through textbooks and one way absorption of information is not an efficient way to learn. Having the ability to ask questions and challenge a teacher (in this case the AI), is a far superior way to learn IMHO.

The thing is… AI is making me smarter! I use AI as a learning tool. The absolute best thing about AI is the ability to follow up questions with additional questions and get a better understanding of a subject. I use it to ask about technical topics and flush out a better understanding that I ever got from just a text book. I have seem some instances of hallucinating in the past, but with the current generation of AI I’ve had very good results and consider it an excellent tool for learning.

For reference I’m an engineer with over 25 years of experience and I am considered an expert in my field.

Except it’s their kids who are impacted are the ones we feel bad for, not them. (and I know their own kids could be considered as part of a Darwin award through a strict interpretation, but I’d rather not.)

They could make a killing off making videos on YouTube or something like Khan Academy. Just never show him from below the waist…