A.D.H.D.

I am not a great believer in labels for young people and especially the ADHD one. This is not the place to dig into the details of how and why.

Anyway, we had a fantastic festie disrupted by our new young man.

Actually by his standards he did rather well.

He started Friday morning announcing he would lose it that morning and that we were not going. This got him precisely nowhere. Gwion got talking to him telling him all the things they could do at the festie and to my eternal shock came the hour and even with management not here he got in the car. He was a bit fidgety on the way down but seemed to cope better than expected again.

There were a few minor spats but all in all he did OK till Saturday afternoon. Then he decided to start poking then hitting someone with a stick which she responded to by taking the stick off him.

This was a classic example of the type of thinking contact with conventional services engenders. Children are encouraged to explain themselves in terms of their ADHD. his take on it was that the adult was not allowed to take the stick off him and that she was in the wrong.

Hitting her with the stick was just a joke and a laugh, then when he started to get angry at her it was because she had taken his stick not that he had hit her.

He could not make the causal connection, that's not ADHD, it's not learning.

He said he should have "warned her" that he might blow, he said. We asked if she was warning him when he jabbed her with the stick and she asked him to stop.

No response.

Eventually, and here the out of control nonsense kicks in. He decided to go back to her for more but got very concerned when told his choices were walk back to the car or be placed in it by site security.

He got a grip on things eventually and went and sat on the car.

I feel he has used his behaviour to control others in the past as not long after that he "told" management that they were leaving now. She said no actually they were leaving in two hours, unless he planned to kick off in which case it would be later still.

Not much of one for psychology that one.....

So anyway he went and sat in the car and waited. Looking miserable and a little angry. But of course if his ADHD was real he would not have been able too do that as he would not have been able to control the behaviour.

The student went home leaving me and the rest of the crew to do a late shift as stewards. My did that ever turn interesting!! Hedge jumpers had been a problem the night before so we solved that one definitively.

Putting Bethan and Branwen on the high sky line of the field I went into one part of the field and Harley, Beths BF to the other. He was all in black and I had camo gear on. Nestling into the darkness and the long grass I was able to hear people as they approached along the nearby road. We had a simple system of torch flashes telling Bethan and Branwen how many and where they were heading.

It was quite funny, I would hear them coming up the road signal where they were headed and Bethan would lie in wait. As they cautiously stuck their heads over the hedge she would pop up in full stewards gear with a torch and ask "are you looking for me ?" I would know she had popped up as they would come running back past me in obvious panic.

It didn't take long for them to cotton on there was no way in up there and soon we were back in the main site where mayhem was ensuing. I think it was about 5 am by the time I got to sleep then back up at 9 and off again. Thank god for strong coffee!!!

We had a great time though, hopefully there was enough money to make sure we go again next year. Lots of the smaller festivals are folding with only the big commercial enterprises seeming to survive.

It will be a shame really, there is something nice about the small festivals run by volunteers which break even most years, the commercial festies can be soulless affairs. .