I had a similar run in with Ritalin when my daughter was in first grade. The teacher kept complaining about her always getting up, needing a drink of water, needed to go to the bathroom, etc, she just could not stay in her seat. So, I took her to the doc and he said she has a very mild case of ADD, but in his opinion not to a point where medication should be used. I took his advice and no meds, yet. The teacher kept complaining. I took her back to the doc and his opinion was that in her case it was something that could be handled with discipline. Basically, the doc was saying as long as she was given the opportunity to get a drink, go to the bathroom before class she was fine. He said the teacher just needs to be tougher and just tell her to be quiet and just wait till the end of class. All this time her grades were fine. But, being a confused parent I asked the doc to try it. So after four months of being on ritalin nothing changed, grades unchanged, always needing to get up from her desk, etc, it did not change. So I get a call from the teacher saying her scrip needed to be increased. Thats where I lost it. I decided to revert back to the docs original remedy, discipline. I went to the school and picked up the meds. About 20 minutes later that teacher called me raising all sorts of hell with me. She literally asked me what kind of nerve did I have in taking her off her "needed" meds. I told her I wanted to try another approach. I told her to start disciplining her, if she starts being "over-active" to tell her to sit her ass down and be quiet. She complained about it and I simply said that if she cant or wont do it then I will come sit in class and do her job for her if she could not handle it. I never heard another word, and her grades came up and were straight A's, without drugs. But what I want to know is, where and how did teachers start making medical diagnosis for kids. This teacher would have been writing scrips for her class if she could have.
That said. I believe there are cases where meds are needed. But before docs start prescribing meds like candy for these kids other approaches should be tried first. I feel as if a lot of cases are mis-diagnosed as just flat out boredom, I get fidgety too when I am bored, not ADD. The doc was right, discipline over drugs.