With this in mind we can understand how crucial the multi-disciplinary team and their experiences working with and supporting families throughout the interviewing and consulting process. Research shows that family's reaction may directly influence parental attitudes, the child, and their actions with him or her. It is an accepted fact that parents' attitude is affected by the information received, compassionate understanding, and the level of attention shown by the physician and other professionals sharing the news. This article, in my opinion, is a road map that can guide families through the process and help the team to develop strategy to reduce family members' anxities.

Because ADHD has received mass media attention in recent years many in the general public have reached an opinion about ADHD that is not supported by scientific facts. I offer this brief quote from the article to established a foundation for the unsupported, but wide, belief about ADHD. The authors described the verbal exchange between Don and Mary Butler (pseudonym) who had just been told by their pediatrician that their son Tommy had ADHD and suggests Ritalin as the appropriate treatment. Don turns to Mary and said, "See I told you he was just a lazy and rotten kid, even the doctor thinks so; that's why he is putting him on medication."

ADHD Real or Imagined? Don is expressing a widely held belief that ADHD is not a legitimate medical illness. It has been suffested that many in the medical community has strayed from the scientific path and created a disorder to ease teachers and parents' anxieties regarding childhood inappropriate behavior by routinely drugging children into proper behavior. Those who continue to believe that ADHD is a medical myth must ignore a mountain of scientific studies and research literatures that documents the existence of ADHD as a ligitimate and serious disorder. Based on the criteria established by the DSM IV, ADHD accounts for the greatest number of referrals to child mental health clinic than all other psychiatric and behavioral problems of childhood adolescent.

The continued questioning of the validity of the diagnosis of ADHD has caused uncertainties about its management in the minds of many clinicians and the public at large. Inaccurate beliefs about the validity of ADHD may hinder the appropriate care of some patients and cause confusion about the need for approved treatment. As stated above, critics describe ADHD as a means to label difficult children who are not ill but whose behavior is the problem. They further contend that, far from having a biological basis, ADHD results from improper parenting and poor, ineffective, teaching practices. These attitudes further stigmatize patients and their families, and increase the burden of this debilitating disease. There is overwhelming medical evidence that ADHD not only cause specific disabling symptoms that often persist into adulthood, but many studies shows a biological connection and a characteristic response to approved treatment.