This week, the Jersey Evening Post has posted on Facebook two posts that seem to have been crafted purely to drive engagement through rage-bait tactics. Before we get on to those, I wanted to share a selection below of some other reporting that has been done on ADHD, where it was acknowledged that ADHD is a serious diagnosis, and that it has also been historically under-diagnosed:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g33xdj4e0o
ADHD conference prompts ‘the start of real change’
https://www.bailiwickexpress.com/news/what-being-done-tackle-jerseys-adhd-assessment-backlog/
https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2026/06/15/tackling-jerseys-adhd-crisis/
https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2026/02/24/adhd-two-fundraising-challenges/
Even back in April of this year (2026), it was understood that children were not getting the medication they needed:
Add now this weeks articles:
What is rage-bait? It is defined as follows: online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative or offensive, typically posted in order to increase traffic to or engagement with a particular webpage or social media content.
https://corp.oup.com/news/the-oxford-word-of-the-year-2025-is-rage-bait/
The idea behind the posts is simple: evoke a fear response. Our children are being given drugs, and that’s bad! Sounds way scarier than “Correctly diagnosed children are being given appropriate medication.” Just think about this for a moment. If you discovered your child had diabetes, and you gave them insulin, would you then take them off the insulin because “children shouldn’t be on drugs”? Why then do we have people querying why ADHD children continue to take their appropriately prescribed medication?
There is a lot of online commentary about ADHD from people that do not have ADHD. They think it is something to do with hyperactive children running about, and that if children were allowed to play outside more, they wouldn’t even have ADHD.
Well I’m from a generation that did plenty of running about, probably quite unsafely across the Ely fens, because I had undiagnosed ADHD and no sense of fear or danger at all, and I can tell you that exercise made no difference whatsoever.
There is also a general sense that people actively seek ADHD diagnoses for no reason. Again, I would like to present a different view on that. When a professional first asked me “do you know that you have ADHD,” my flabbers were GASTED. I did not have ADHD thank you very much, and how dare you even suggest it. They kindly explained to me all of the things that I had spoken about that in fact did indicate ADHD, but I was in no mood to hear it. I had spent years getting used to my Autism diagnosis, and having one more thing to deal with was too overwhelming.
The thing is though, pretending I did not have ADHD did not stop me from having ADHD. I had built a life full of routine and safeguards to cover up all the deficits caused by ADHD, and I had been crushing down my personality and behaviours for more than 30 years. Eventually, I was going to have another breakdown (I had my first when I moved from Secondary School to Hautlieu. A common experience for neurodivergent people who don’t have the correct support system in place).
Correctly identifying and diagnosing ADHD/Autism and other differences helps children and adults to better live their lives. It allows them to understand what is going on with their brains, and why they behave the way they do. It gives them the knowledge to work with themselves instead of against themselves.
Are too many people diagnosed with ADHD? No, in fact we are only just starting to correctly identify an accurate amount of ADHD individuals, and many people will still go through their lives undiagnosed, wondering why they are struggling, and adding to some pretty grim statistics in relation to drug addiction, suicide attempts and prison occupancy rates.
It’s time to interrupt the narrative that ADHD is just some quirky childhood thing, and we could fix it by giving kids less sugar. We all have a responsibility to call it out, challenge false narratives when we see them, and do better for children and adults with ADHD.
https://childmind.org/article/adhd-and-substance-abuse
https://www.ukat.co.uk/mental-health/adhd-and-addiction/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4414493
https://prevent-suicide.org.uk/neurodiversity-suicide-prevention-hub/adhd/
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