There are a disturbing number of kids on ADHD medication in the U.S. However, a recent article in New York Times Magazine discussing a new study reveals that such medicines aren’t really even helping kids. This “discovery” isn’t exactly revolutionary, though. The original 1999 study came to the same conclusion, and yet parents are still being pushed to put their kids on these behavior-modifying drugs to curb symptoms.

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) pathologizes the inability to pay attention and the unwanted fidgeting/negative behaviors that go along with it. National Review’s Rich Lowry accurately says that ADHD is an “overdiagnosed, overprescribed, highly ambiguous disorder.” I am not arguing that ADHD is a made-up disorder. As a former teacher, I have seen kids struggle mightily with impulsivity, hyperactivity, and inattention — the trademark symptoms of ADHD. But parents need to know that the pharmaceutical companies and doctors are scamming your children.

In recent decades, the number of people diagnosed with ADHD has grown exponentially. Lowry elaborates on the numbers, stating, “From 1997 to 2016, they increased overall from 6.1 percent to 10.2 percent. Today, 11.4 percent of kids are diagnosed with ADHD, and nearly one in four 17-year-old boys have had an ADHD diagnosis at some point.” ADHD isn’t an infectious disease, yet the growth is exponential.

Perhaps the problem is environmental. How much of the attention deficit is due to our children being exposed to screens from the time they could barely toddle? Instead of medicine, perhaps getting rid of screens and building up attention stamina the old-fashioned way might help their overall behavior.

The bigger problem, though, is that the modern classroom isn’t suitable for facilitating optimal learning for all children — especially boys. This is a problem across the board. Academics are pushed too hard on kids who are too young. Kindergarteners are encouraged to learn not through play but by sitting at desks. Public schooling is not structured for male success. Boys are not wired to sit at a desk all day. They become bored and act out accordingly.

This disruption starts them on the road to parent-teacher meetings, an official diagnosis, and medication. Teachers often don’t have time or energy to facilitate other interventions before simply setting these unruly or academically struggling kids on this path. According to political pundit Matt Walsh, “More than 21% of 14-year-old boys in this country now supposedly suffer from this condition. The number goes up to 23% for 17-year-old boys.”

To paraphrase The Federalist’s Joy Pullman, they are drugging children for adults’ convenience. Your child can’t sit still? Give him an amphetamine.

Walsh, a father of six, posits another interesting theory: phase theory. Perhaps being unable or unwilling to conform to the academic rigors of the classroom is simply a phase that your child is going through. This theory is no surprise to any parent who has weathered their children’s various phases throughout their lives. Once they finally find that spark that gets them going or discover something that interests them, they blossom. As Walsh pithily put it, “In reality, the cure for ADHD is simply doing things that are interesting.”

Perhaps Walsh is onto something with this phase theory. An ADHD “diagnosis” or mental disorder is akin to the overdiagnosis of gender dysphoria. A whopping 80% of those who struggle with gender dysphoria in their teens grow out of it when they become adults. Similarly, according to New York Times Magazine, “11 percent of the children who entered the study with an A.D.H.D. diagnosis experienced the symptoms consistently year after year.” Eighty-nine percent grow out of it. These statistics add credence to the phase theory.

Children are always the unwitting and vulnerable victims of such experiments. Their parents are similarly duped into believing that they are providing the best for their child. Now, those who have been on addictive substances like Ritalin or Adderall are much more likely to experience psychosis or other undesirable mental breakdowns. In the study cited in NYT Mag, another disturbing side effect is that the children taking Ritalin lagged behind in growth by an entire inch in height. They never caught up. Stunted growth and mental collapse — parents probably have no idea that these are the potential tradeoffs.

Perhaps our children are not the problem. Perhaps the problem is a society that has become increasingly unfriendly to masculinity, or society’s tendency to solve problems the quick way with medicine, or greedy pharmaceutical companies. Regardless, the medicine dispensed to our ADHD kids is likely doing more harm than good.