ADHD – An Alarm Bell, at Last
MATTHEW
On Tuesday 18th August 2026 Channel 4 broadcast The Great ADHD Myth, which questioned the current thinking on the current zeitgeist and felt like a first serious stand. One question was how a diagnosis that was unheard of ten years ago is supposedly to be found in 2.5 million of the British population today. The programme was fronted by psychiatrist Max Pemberton and the contributions were from professional health experts throughout. The consensus was that it is a mistake. It was also revealed that the private sector is a part of the diagnosis craze. There is money to be made.
As someone who experienced a very brief and mild form of mental ill health about thirty years ago, I know what a can of worms the subject is. Year on year, the virtue signalling on mental health has become more laudable and audible, but for me what the ADHD phenomenon represents is the arrival of mental health as a tsunami. A wave of damage is drowning out the benefits. As a country with very little design, manufacturing or creative opportunities, there are not too many careers offering a future which is not going to be undermined by foreign competition or AI. I have noticed how many pupils are taking psychology as a school subject when offered. Hence, why are there so many potential ADHD diagnoses out there – could it be because mental health is going to be, if it is not already, a growing industry?
As someone who also teaches chess to children in both a club and a school, I have become familiar with the prevalence of the term, and yet, save for a few children with genuinely challenging issues, the vast majority – 98 percent, I’d say – are just kids. If you turned it into a quiz programme, spot the ‘oddball’, no one would win. After all, what is your definition of a normal kid? For me: loud, energetic, fun-loving, inquisitive, or shy, and a combination of the simple and sophisticated – meaning all different.
Children surprise their parents all the time, but however smart a comment, they are simple souls. Also, I am used to parents saying how they are waiting on a diagnosis and excusing their children’s behaviour on this fact. There is nothing wrong with their child’s behaviour, but ADHD is their answer for everything! That is not to say that were you to walk into an adult chess club you would not find plenty of candidates for a diagnosis on the mental health spectrum, and if tested in their childhood most of them would have been classified with something – although generally it is poor social skills.
In that sense, a chess club is almost an oxymoron. Also, I have had at my club genuinely afflicted kids, silent as the grave (it is the silent ones which worry me), or some with curious behavioural issues – but they grow out of it, or learn to manage it. I have one child who has to come with a carer, has not given me one moment of concern, and plays perfectly good chess. And yet it is everyone else at the club with the new diagnosis or waiting for one.
So, what are the symptoms? As revealed in the programme, basically everything you would associate with normal behaviour in children. As one expert remarked: if you want the diagnosis, you can get it. Also – and quite chilling – the handbook on mental health has expanded five-fold in recent years. No one is going to be allowed to get away. It would seem the State is using psychiatry as a form of social control. In the absence of corporal punishment, difficult behaviour is now being met with a chemical cosh and a lifelong label to go with it. This is not only a school problem but an issue of poor parenting – and yet the psychiatric solution is permanent and not a short sharp rebuke, be it verbal or some form of punishment, usually to be sent out of the room.
In fact, at my chess club one child never passed my one-to-one entry test for the chess club, which was a great shame for his younger brother, but I refused to let his poor attitude into the club; another child was excluded permanently for their behaviour; two children have been sent home early – in over ten years and hundreds of kids at the club. At no point was anyone’s mental health questioned and my actions were all about preserving mine, and the experience of all the children.
Nor do I think that parents, teachers and society have thought through the consequences. What is an employer going to think when they read the words ADHD on an application form: fidgets, lacks attention, bored easily, impulsive? There is an irony here – many parents want their children to be diagnosed so they can get more specialist help at school, but what is an education going to be worth if you have already told the employer to pass you by? This is the next generation of welfare recipients.
Rather than being given coping skills – e.g. taught how to behave, or allowed to grow freely into themselves – these children are all Tiny Tims, cripples on crutches, all because it is easier to see the fault than to achieve a better outcome. It is quite sinister. I understand Germany is a nation obsessed with pills, and famously fought World War II on drugs! It would appear a similar craze is descending on this country and it is a national problem. The politicians are not speaking out – except Nigel Farage, who has expressed his concern. Unfortunately, like all social problems, they are not going to stir until countless lives have been ruined. Perhaps some of them will heed the alarm and respond!
Matthew Graham is the author of the Abram’s Empire Substack:
(UKR)