Early School Leaving and Your Heath

The ERSI has released a report about early school leaving. It cites the following among its findings that early school leavers had:

• Higher rates of anxiety and depression
• Higher rates of smoking and heavy drinking
• Greater dependency on medical cards
• Higher rates of lone motherhood
• High rates of imprisonment

All the above was cited by the reports author, Dr. Emer Smyth.

I have not read the original research but I have a suspicion that something is lurking behind these troubling statistics. Why do I say that?

It is well documented in the literature that children and adolescents with significant ADHD have high rates of anxiety and depression. It is also know that a significant number of them are smokers and that smoking is the gateway drug to further abuse in this population. (Nicotine acts on certain neurotransmitters that, when released, have a calming effect.) ADHD in older adolescents and adults I linked with heavy drinking. ADHD is well known to be more prevalent among juvenile and adult criminal offenders. American statistics indicate that untreated ADHD causes a rise in teenage pregnancy.

Now, I may be guilty of linking two things together that do not belong together but frankly I doubt it.

In this country we have an abysmal record of accommodating in our schools adolescents with significant ADHD. The secondary school system does not cater to teenagers with learning difficulties in general. It is far worse in accommodating those with emotional or behaviour difficulties.

ADHD in teens causes mood instability, problems with impulse control, attention and concentration difficulties and restlessness in the classroom. A student with this learning profile is not going to learn efficiently without accommodations. Many of these children are barely tolerated in secondary school classrooms, are frequently put out of class, are the subject of constant discipline and often get entirely turned off in the process of this relentless assault on their dignity, self-esteem and self-confidence.

I am willing to make a small wager that if one looked deep enough into our population of early school leavers we would find a statistically significant number of teenagers with ADHD that is well above the general population of successful school leavers. There is a problem here in this report that requires further anaylsis.