Most kids with what is called ADHD are perfectly normal kids, who are suffering from sugar shock from the crap they drink, from toxic reactions to the coloring and additives in the "food" they eat.

Passive bovine children are certainly easier to manage. But fidgeting and interruption is NORMAL BEHAVIOR FOR CHILDREN. It's not a "disease"at all - we're treating childhood and all it means as a pathology.

This article in the New York Times has this snippet:

"Peg L. Smith, the chief executive officer of the American Camp Association, a trade group with 2,600 member camps and three million campers, says about a quarter of the children at its camps are medicated for attention deficit disorder, psychiatric problems or mood disorders."

25% percent of the population of children can't be so mentally ill (and ADHD is a mental illness) that they need drugs. It's like saying that 25% of the population has cancer or AIDS. A population with 25% of the members suffering a pathology can't survive, no matter what the pathology.

Children are not convenient.
Children are not alway easy to deal with.
Children are not machines to be turned on and off when it suits parents and teachers.
Children are smarter than you think and less rational than you can imagine.

Children are small people with limited experience. As a result, they don't know how to act like adults, and they should net be expected to do so.

You've hit a raw, raw nerve with me here, because I've seen what Ritalin and the other drugs do to exuberant, brilliant, but excitable children.
"The Onion" a satirical weekly paper, had a brilliant "news" article about Ritalin a few years ago:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/32261

"WORCESTER, MA—Area 7-year-old Douglas Castellano's unbridled energy and creativity are no longer a problem thanks to Ritalin, doctors for the child announced Monday. "After years of failed attempts to stop Douglas' uncontrollable bouts of self-expression, we have finally found success with Ritalin," Dr. Irwin Schraeger said. "For the first time in his life, Douglas can actually sit down and not think about lots of things at once." Castellano's parents reported that the cured child no longer tries to draw on everything in sight, calming down enough to show an interest in television."

OK, I'm stepping off this thread because I'll go totally ballistic if I see another post extolling the virtues of easy-to-manage drugged children.