[quote][url=http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/16/us-usa-health-children-idUSBRE94F11N20130516]Up to 20 percent of children in the United States suffer from a mental disorder, and the number of kids diagnosed with one has been rising for more than a decade, according to a report released on Thursday by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention.[/url] Which leads me to this (or these) question(s). 1: Is this an actual "increase" or are we/doctors just getting better at diagnosis? 2: Was the rate of disorders the same previously, but we just labeled the kids as "difficult", "spoiled", "acting out"? 3: If the rate of "disorders" is a significant fraction, could it be that we're too narrowly defining what is "normal" or "healthy"? It tends to remind me of an old saying that I heard when I was young. "Just because the doctor has a name for your condition, that doesn't mean that they know what is wrong with you or that they can do anything about it."[/quote] I'm leaning more towards kids sitting in the grey areas between full blown conditions and normal kids who may have a range of symptoms. The world isn't black and white, it's a thousand shades of grey. They are technically being labeled as ADHD or whatever even though he's not the definition of an ADHD kid. I myself suffer from OCD. It's extremely mild and I don't bother treating it. It mainly just manifests itself me being a completionist, to a rather extreme sense of the word and worrying about trivial things. My uncle on my mothers side however had the full monty. Habitual hand washing, fear of leaving the house.