First things first, recent observations have shed light into the theory making it now fact that more than 70% of children who suffer from ADD have one or both parents who have had the disease. This is interesting because bad parenting can now be ruled out as a reason why many kids end up suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorders.

Talking about bad parenting, up to a certain extent, trouble at home with a child's parents can be included as an aggravation for the ADD affected child. Where as good parenting can help calm the child. Keep in mind though, parenting is no cause of the disease, it can either help in the cure or it can make things harder.

Moving on, another reason for causing ADD is the diet. Records of many ADD patients have given enough evidence that a poor diet, lacking some key nutrients such as zinc and amino acids, can actually cause ADD. This without doubt comes as pure logic that these two elements are necessary for proper brain and body functioning. A recent study on ADD sufferers shows a great improvement when these missing nutrients from a previous diet is supplied.

Another very common cause of ADD is exposing children to excessive television and video games. Doctors have linked this with poor parenting. It was practical that kids who were exposed to television as toddlers, wound up with ADD. The symptoms only begin to show at the age of seven when children cannot concentrate in school. The reason behind this discovery is because TV life and video games move at a much more rapid rate than real life. This hardwires the infant's brain into thinking that real life unfolds at the same rate, and this becomes normal.

Television causes a baby's brain to become over stimulated causing permanent changes in neural patterns. It's a fact that from birth until the age of three, infants become conditioned in very unique ways, but when you allow the child to watch TV all day their neural paths are not created which is very essential for the brain. Again this happens between birth and the age of three. Television stunts this neural pathway development of a child's brain and ends up with defects such as ADD.

So as you can see the roots of ADD come from several causes and although heredity is a major cause, it can't be ruled as the main one. All the sources of ADD development mentioned above play a role together on the level of severity on the affected persons.