My son was only diagnosed at 16 , of course that was 20 years ago.

Then it was called LD, to this day he refuses to accept ADHD , his father has it too.

I can't imagine ever being lazy in my life let alone when my children were born. I am European by birth and spoiling children is not my "thing". I can say that we shed more tears with him once he went into High School.

He is so smart yet the school reports never reflected that. Finally a child psychologist gave the diagnosis and told us that he needed to be tested alone and orally. The school never complied with it. As I said it was 20 years ago. The statement from some teachers came to us that perhaps this was because he was "slow".

There was nothing slow about him. He was just bored to death in High School. We had him in a private school until then and that at least was an enormous help as he had an almost one on one teaching.

Today it all changed, I am guessing, it is no picnic to have ADHD and to live with a person who has been diagnosed as such.

Lazy parents have nothing to do with it.

The parents aren't the one's doing the diagnosing -- it's the pediatrician who is responsible for accurately diagnosing the condition.  I am a firm believer that while there are many children who genuinely suffer from this disorder, our managed health care system is combining with elements of our public education system to cause the diagnosis to be widely overused. Because of the No Child Left Behind policy and other factors, many public school teachers don't have the time or power to discipline disruptive children, but are (at least in my state) empowered to recommend that those children be screened by a physician for possible ADD/ADHD.  The physician, pressured by the managed care provider to keep costs down, tends to  diagnosis without further testing (especially when a teacher validates the behavioral concerns).  I'm currently doing a college research paper involving the reduction/elimination of recess at school, which is what brought me to this website -- I'm wondering if keeping the kids bottled up in the classroom for longer periods of time might be part of the underlying problem.

That statement shows the authors ignorance!  Someone needs to clue him/her in on what ADHD really is... a medical condition.  Would he/she also blame a parent for their child's diabetes or epilepsy?  His/her thinking is archaic and absurd.