In a city where parents are often looking for a special label to attach to their child, such as “gifted,” one label that most overachievers might be happy to trade for another is “AD/HD.” And yet it is this label that I hear thrown around more than any other these days.

In fact, so many of my friends’ children have been labeled as having Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder that I myself was surprised when I discovered that recent studies estimate that the disability affects only 3-5% of American children.

What is going on here? Are normal boys (many more boys are diagnosed with AD/HD than girls) with ants in their pants being put on drugs unnecessarily? Are our children so cooped up in New York that they wouldn’t have these problems if they were given fields and tennis courts and backyards to play in? Are we New York parents to blame because we have such a narrow idea of what we consider normal behavior?

Or are we finally diagnosing extremely impulsive, inattentive children who will, with the help of medicine and other forms of therapy, be able to learn and socialize and function at a level that might otherwise be unattainable? Are children who 20 or 30 years ago would have been routinely punished in school, placed in classrooms for the emotionally disturbed, and suffered from poor self-esteem finally being given an equal chance to succeed or fail along with their peers?

One of the main reasons why the debate over the diagnosis of AD/HD is so heated is because medicating children – some as young as 5 years old – is often recommended for the condition. There is great concern about the possibility of misdiagnoses. But the critics of the medicine and the doctors who prescribe it are rarely found among the parents whose children have benefited from the results.

“I hate giving my son the medicine. Many doctors liken these drugs to insulin, but I don’t buy that,” said a friend of mine whose son is 12 years old and attends a mainstream private school. “The fact is, he has had problems in school with his impulsivity and the teachers cannot tolerate it. With a small dose of medicine on school days, he really does 100% better.”

My friend’s reluctance to put her son on medicine is echoed by many parents I spoke to who are raising children with AD/HD. “We spent years searching for an alternative to medicine,” says a father of a teenager. “We both didn’t believe in medicating our kid. And now, when I look back, what a waste of time it was for us – but mainly for him. When we started the meds it felt like we were giving in to societal pressure. In our heads, we gave it a couple months, max. But it was amazing. Finally, our kid could concentrate and learn, and our family functioned so much better. And our kid is happy. We wanted to kill ourselves for not doing it sooner.”

One doctor I spoke with admitted that as the diagnoses are made earlier and earlier, the number of misdiagnoses will most likely go up. “Sure, you can’t ignore the fact that some kids will be labeled AD/HD who aren’t really suffering from the disorder. But a far, far greater number of kids will be correctly diagnosed, and their lives will quite literally be saved,” he said. “With these drugs, any decent doctor combined with a caring parent will be able to tell if the drugs aren’t helping.”

Parents I spoke to confirmed the fact that ultimately deciding to medicate their children was a decision that they monitored closely. “This medicine isn’t without its complications,” said another friend. “The growth of your child is delayed and more than anything else, on a day-to-day basis, you have to deal with the fact that your kid has no appetite. There are sleep issues, too. You wouldn’t keep your kid on this kind of medicine if you didn’t see positive results,” she added.

For one of my friends, whose son attends a school that specializes in educating children with AD/HD, putting her son on medication felt like it was a requirement for his physical safety. “Some of these kids, and my son is one of them, are so impulsive, that they will run into the middle of the street. His grandmother was too scared to take him to the park because he wouldn’t listen to her,” she said.

And she pointed out that medicating some of these kids is just the tip of the iceberg. “The medicine is hardly a quick fix,” she said. “Our job as parents is to give our children life skills. They need to learn how to cope. And we need to learn how to parent these kinds of kids. Boundaries need to be crystal clear and you need to be so, so firm. You need to learn what your kind of education and parenting your child needs, because most likely these kids – on top of the AD/HD – will have plenty of other deficits that need addressing.”

According to recent studies, 65% of children with AD/HD have problems with defiance, non-compliance, and other conflicts with authority figures, including verbal hostility and temper tantrums. Twenty-five percent of students with AD/HD have other serious learning problems in one or more of these areas: oral expression, listening skills, reading comprehension, and math.

“Something that most parents take for granted as a success, such as organized sports, can be a disaster,” said one mother of a 7-year-old. “Just think of your average soccer game. Kids need to follow instructions. They need to cooperate with teammates. For your normal kid cooperating with teammates isn’t necessarily a learned skill. Kids with AD/HD often need to be taught the basic rules of interaction. If you teach them social skills, they will memorize those rules and apply them. What is intuitive for other kids needs to be taught to AD/HD kids.”

Parents I spoke with had conflicting responses to hearing their child’s diagnosis. “It was actually a relief for us to hear,” said the mother of the 7-year old. “This was our first child, and we didn’t realize just how hard we were working.”

On the other hand, many parents I spoke to felt uncomfortable sharing the information that their child was being medicated. “People still don’t talk about their kids being on meds. It’s pretty taboo,” the mother of the 7-year-old said.

Doctors diagnose, but ultimately parents must make the decisions about their children. “You’ve got to pay such close attention,” said the father who searched for alternatives to medicating his son. “But you have to keep in mind that what is really at the heart of this matter is your child’s quality of life.”