A report from Massey University called Children With Additional Needs shows that, in New Zealand, between 2005-2019:
+ There has been a 43% increase in the number of recorded incidences of types of disability. While this percentage comes with cautions (eg, greater awareness of needs, better diagnostic tools, etc) they do not explain away the increase.
+ The most significant increases have been in
Anxiety disorder (+59%)
ADHD (+52%)
Autistic Spectrum Disorder (+73%)
ASD or Asperger’s Syndrome (+61%)
Developmental Delay (+79%)
Language Delay (+89%)
Speech Delay (+82%)
+ These needs are disproportionately clustered in lower decile schools. The report states there is a high association between children with needs and poverty.
But we know that don’t we?
What are you feeling? What part of your body does that information hit?
Because there’s this:
“In the Lakota idea … we need to celebrate and support people who are ill because they’re the canaries in the mine. They’re the ones who are showing us that our society is out of balance, and we need to thank them for taking that on and doing it for the rest of us. All of us need to participate in their healing, because if not for them, where would we be? We’re all responsible for whatever ails them. We have the responsibility to contribute to their healing for everybody’s benefit.”
(Lewis Mehl-Madrona, quoted in Gabor Maté’s book The Myth of Normal, p,474)
There’s an increase in the number of children who are unwell. While we can’t categorise all of the above increases as illnesses, the increase in such things as anxiety should give us pause.1 What are they telling us about our society? Whose responsibility is it to do something about that?
Today’s message from Pluto
“That bird is flying because of me. Wooff!!!”
This is an edit of the original version to make it clear I did not mean things like autism and adhd are sickness to be cured.