Childhood hyperactivity; what makes it a bad thing?

[ScienceNostalgia101]

People find hyperactivity so endearing that they pay good money to see it in fiction. (Eg. Pinkie Pie, Jessie The Cowgirl, etc...)

 

On top of that, it can also be a good way to burn the calories kids are generally known to want to consume in the first place. Society spends the first few years of a kid's life teaching them to walk and talk, and the next few teaching them to sit down and shut up.

 

So why are we holding hyperactivity back? Why aren't we embracing it? The response I usually hear is that hyperactive kids can injure themselves or damage valuable property. So why isn't the response to give them protective clothing that would cushion their impact if they fall, and put them someplace securely separate from anywhere that valuable property is stored? Is the difficulty with the parents needing to do work tasks without leaving their kids unsupervised? If so, why isn't there a tax credit/voucher for babysitting/daycare services for such circumstances?

[OldChemE]

It can be a bad thing due to disruption of other lives.  I had a boy in Junior High math class that was very hyperactive--we had to remove him from class because his constant talk and action was preventing the other students from concentrating on learning.  The interesting side to this instance was that the boy had a good mind for math.  We took him out of the classroom and let him spend his math time doing an equivalent online course-- and he mastered a semesters worth of math in three weeks.  In the meantime, with him out of the classroom, the other student's math scores went up.

[ScienceNostalgia101]

The irony is, when I was a teacher, I don't know if I'd know how to deal with hyperactive students in my capacity as a teacher because I'd been basically trained to deal with this iPhone-sedated generation. In their teen years.

 

But if we didn't suppress hyperactivity, could it have been the norm instead of the exception? Could we have made more content cross-curricular with P.E. than we do now? I'm just trying to imagine the possibilities. Role-playing atoms in different states of matter. Calculating "second differences" among times taken to run laps. All of this in addition to facilitating more fitness and finding a more constructive outlet for the hyperactive traits people plainly find endearing enough to flock to them in fiction. Who benefits from teaching them to just sit still for hours on end for years of their lives? People selling heart attack meds?

[iNow]

5 hours ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

So why are we holding hyperactivity back?

Who’s doing this, specifically?

5 hours ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

Why aren't we embracing it?

Who’s not embracing it, specifically?

5 hours ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

So why isn't the response to give them protective clothing that would cushion their impact if they fall, and put them someplace securely separate from anywhere that valuable property is stored?

Lol. Like an actual bubble?

5 hours ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

why isn't there a tax credit/voucher for babysitting/daycare services for such circumstances?

You seem badly unfamiliar with politics. Would likely be better to start with something much simpler, more universal, and with higher ROI like paid family leave. 

50 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

f we didn't suppress hyperactivity

Who’s suppressing it, specifically?

51 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

Who benefits from teaching them to just sit still for hours on end for years of their lives?

Seriously, we’ve talked before about your ridiculous fantasies and how you should stop rooting yourself in flawed conceptions of the world. I’m sad to see you’ve not taken those feedbacks onboard. 

[Peterkin]

6 hours ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

On top of that, it can also be a good way to burn the calories kids are generally known to want to consume in the first place. Society spends the first few years of a kid's life teaching them to walk and talk, and the next few teaching them to sit down and shut up.

I knew one father who came from work every evening and chased his 8-year-old son around the yard, playing soccer, doing calisthenics, laps, push-ups, whatever it took, until the kid was tired enough to concentrate on his reading lesson. The mother came home from her job, took care of the other two kids and all household chores. Embracing sounds fine, until you're just too tired to give a damn. 

[TheVat]

Education is pretty sedentary, unless you're in some alt-ed system like Montessori or Waldorf et al.  I don't doubt there are alternatives that would result in more relaxed children who are concentrating better.  More kinesthetic methods of learning would be one possible.  More five minute breaks with vigorous running around and so on.  Protective clothing, no.  Bumps and scrapes are part of development, learning to deal with physics and biomechanics in everyday life, and they shouldn't be magnified into traumatic events.  That said, I think there's also value in learning to sit quietly and be attentive to others.  I see a need for balancing both the kinetic and the stationary, in order to function in any society.