Subjective Observations aren't Legitimate Diagnosis
For example:
- Parents and teachers might be emotionally lazy or fed-up with the child.
- Parents and teachers may suffer from some kind of mental issue themselves (like a personality disorder).
- The child’s behavior may simply be a result of the parent's or teacher’s bad middot.
The following true story illustrates this problem (all identifying aspects have been changed):
Mrs. Gold suffered from deep-seated passive-aggressive tendencies and a disdain for men.
Her sneering barbs had pushed her husband away into a stiff silence (although he became warm and alive when dealing with his children).
Sandwiched between quiet girls, her son was a boy born with a naturally bold and assertive personality (along with many other fine qualities). Unfortunately, his mother dealt with him by sniping at him, too.
Being in an environment in which both he and his beloved father were under constant snipe-attack was obviously stressful.
Even worse, the boy couldn’t really pinpoint the source of the tension because his mother always shot out her poison quietly and with a little smile, making it seem like she wasn’t really angry.
And since naturally aggressive people tend to act out when under stress (rather than “acting-in” by withdrawing, cutting, undereating or overeating, etc.), the boy’s acting-out got really out of control when he reached his teens.
So his mother carted him off to a psychiatrist who spun a reassuring explanation about “teen brain” (an inaccurate description of less ideal brain functioning...not caused by adolescence, but by poor decisions, immature thoughts and behaviors, and a poor diet).
Then the psychiatrist diagnosed ODD (Oppositional Defensive Disorder) and prescribed antipsychotic medication.
And that way, the mother was able to continue her hurtful behavior without suffering any more consequences from her son.
As an aside, children trapped in America’s foster care system suffer most from this misguided approach to mental illness.
Some foster parents and teachers just want the kids to be manageable.
Many foster kids are on 6 (!) different medications.
Sometimes, drugs are prescribed to treat a reaction to or withdrawal symptoms from another drug (partly because when switching from one home to another — a tragically frequent occurrence in foster care — the prescribed doses aren’t kept up).
One girl kept reporting flashbacks from different traumas she’d undergone, which the psychiatrist diagnosed as hallucinations (!) and then prescribed psychotropic medication.
Furthermore, children who a very energetic or very intense or very sensitive can be pathologized by parents or teachers who don’t feel like dealing with these wonderful albeit challenging personality types.