Controlling Children With Drugs

[bobbcat]

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It's about time someone put their foot down in an effort to stem this tide of turning kids into zombies pumping them full of drugs based on frequent patterns of misdiagnosing them as having ADHD or ADD. Whatever happened to discipline and support?

[prism68]

Originally Posted by bobbcat

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It's about time someone put their foot down in an effort to stem this tide of turning kids into zombies pumping them full of drugs based on frequent patterns of misdiagnosing them as having ADHD or ADD. Whatever happened to discipline and support?

My degree is in Behavior/Emotional Disorders and I have seen HUNDREDS of kids being abused by a system that allows doctors to prescribe them (most often based on pressure from teachers) drugs that were never meant for children.
It is an epidemic and some of the kids I have had were only 4 years old at the time they were 'diagnosed' and medicated. It is a disgrace and our educational and medical systems should be ashamed.

Whenever I got a new child in my class, I always asked they be taken off all medications to give me a baseline of behavior and then I'd let them know if I felt like they should reintroduce the drugs.
With only a few exceptions, my students stayed off the medicines. True, teachers are over loaded; but they should be receiving behavioral support services- not just drugging kids into submission.

Ritalin causes these kids to lose their appetites to such that they become malnourished, besides disturbing their natural sleep patterns.
In addition, their social development is stilted.

Of course there are exceptions, and I support medications when indicated. I just hate that it has become a FIRST resort.

[ShainaT]

Wow! Prism- you sound like a great teacher! I have to agree with you and Bobbcat.

Seems to me that a lot of parents screw up their kids lives with divorce, dating new people, etc. that the kids can't deal with it and are hurting so the parents take the easy way out and drug their children. Very unfair for the children.