A high school teacher told me that the primary concern of almost every student is that they survive the day. High school is as bad as prison. (Lockdown...now where do you think they got THAT word?)
Feminism KILLS!!
its SO under discussed these days...but its broken everything its touched!
Ritalin=Instant Eunich!
this thread is bound to attract a bunch of people with a lot of opinions on medications, but without any practical experience with a kid who needs them. my daughter is going to be starting her freshman year of college next week. She has taken adderall since she was in 4th grade. she is not hyperactive, anxious etc. She DOES have a learning disability, and the adderall merely allows her to focus her attention more acutely on the subject matter at hand. Her mind is scattered otherwise, and she has trouble keeping track of what she is doing. It’s a tool to permit her to pursue her studies, nothing more.
Its really sad that so many kids are being drugged if not for ADHD but any number of other questionable things due to a hypochondriac culture and also the fact that the state encourages it by allowing kids diagnosed with ADHD to be declared disabled.
http://www.disabilitysecrets.com/adhd-attention-deficit-social-security-disability.html
I know of two boys that fit this mode. Their mother found a Dr. to label them as disabled so as to get social security checks for them. It makes me sick but there is nothing I can do about it but I can make sure my kids grow up without being drugged into submission.
Why are they anxious? Because they take Ritalin.
(I need to go back to primary school again to learn the difference between a single question mark, or exclamation point and three or, as we frequently see multiples of them.)
Kids who can control themselves (self regulate) enough to learn and participate in groups and not be shunned by everyone else who cannot stand their jitters, pokes, blurts, humming, punching interrupting floor rolling etc don’t automatically become better students
but it sure as hell-o gives them a tool to help resolving the anxiety of failing and being shunned!
been there
doing that
At around two years of age our son stopped taking naps and continually had circles under his eyes. And yes he was wound up. When he hit kindergarten the public school said we had to do something. If I had followed my gut I would have taken our son off all dairy, wheat and given him a drop of benadryl every night to help him sleep.
Drugs like Ritalin dull the senses to such a degree that children don't learn proper proper social interaction by observation. They teachers/parents, etc don't understand why the children don't know how to interact later in life.
We gave public roads up to cars and pushed the kids inside to sit in front of the TV.
I was lucky growing up, though. I lived in a rural area without a lot of traffic and could bicycle with my friends safely for miles.
But today, who would let their kid out the door without constant supervision? It's easier to warehouse them in a school drugged up all day.
I have twins with autism who take ADHD medications (not Ritalin per se, but similar) - in their cases, it helps them calm down enough to focus on the moment instead of obsessing over some other detail. We keep the dose as small as we can get away with, but especially with our daughter, there’s no denying the difference that it makes.
Funny thing is, these drugs are actually stimulants - they essentially “wake up” the section of the brain that helps them regulate themselves. If you’re dealing with a child who has minor attention issues, try getting them to have a caffeinated drink before a time they need to concentrate.
Some kids have the opposite problem.. My daughters are both smart, but had trouble concentrating, talked alot, didn’t pay attention. Teachers were saying add/ADHD. I said “they’re bored.” Teachers told me I was an idiot.
Spent some time with them working on stuff harder. So I started working with them.. They’re both at least 3 grades ahead of their classmates in reading and math and still learning. Hardest problem I have is teaching them to at least pretend to pay attention in school to stay out of trouble.
Hi Bruce:
You certainly got that right!!
When my son was in elementary school not so long ago, the (very overweight) teacher and (very overweight) aide believed that children should NOT have recess if they were struggling readers — so recess was canceled for the entire class and PE was honed down to a bare minimum of minutes, just three times a week for a very short time.
As the mother of a young son, I know how restless boys can be and sitting for that long for him was pure torture! Boys (and girls) need to run around, play, climb, yell, ride bikes, run — every single day. I told the teacher that PE and recess were just as important as anything she was doing in that room — and that’s why one of the reasons I believed my son was struggling with reading.
That and he was NOT ready to read until he was older — like around eight, which I found out runs in my family (of scientists, mathematicians and chemists).
Of course, he picked up reading by the 5th grade — after numerous tests to see “what was wrong” — done WITHOUT my knowledge or permission. Fortunately, a wonderful school psychologist tested him — said he was the highest kid she’d ever tested (he just couldn’t read!!). — the recommendation was to leave him alone and that he’d get it when he was ready, which is exactly what happened.
He spent time in a reading lab with a great teacher who was 100% phonics all the way and that’s what worked. The first book he read was Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy from our home bookshelf.
It would have been over MY DEAD BODY to prescribe him ritilin.
As a high school teacher, I’ve seen firsthand what ritilin does to kids — turns them into affectless zombies.
I was an excellent reader, but had anxiety every single day at school for any and every reason. It’s not about the ability to read.
At a private school, his teacher was all concerned that he wasn’t reading as well as others in kindergarten.
He also had a 2nd grade teacher who thought he was cheating because he always got 100% on spelling tests.
They were both wrong.
He learned to read summer before 2nd grade. Once he was ready, he picked it up really quickly, and never had any problems.
When he took the ACT for college, he got 34 out of 36 on the reading portion of the test.
He’s never liked school, and I think it’s because teachers made the kids anxious.
I thought Ritalin was a stimulant. In the MS community (I have MS) people who are taking it are those having problems with fatigue. As a side effect, it can cause anxiety type issues, or edginess. I wasn’t aware that it was ever used for anxiety...but that’s what this article implies. I’ll have to do some more reading on the med.
I remember being on Ritalin as a kid. I am in my 30’s now and I still suffer from ADHD. I could into detail but I will likely get distracted and never finish this post. That is literally the story of my life and my biggest struggle.
For all of you parents with ADD or ADHD kids, have you ever had your child’s IQ tested or done any form of intelligence or aptitude testing? Im curious how they score and would like to predict that a majority of them will test above average.
The U.S. public education system is not built for the mentally gifted or even the above average. It is crafted and built around the lowest common denominator and getting THAT child through, while silencing and stifling anyone different. Im guessing your kids tend to challenge authority, ask many questions, and likely overly critically think everything. School was boring and I missed massive amounts of it because that was the only way it could be challenging. I hated the monotiny and loathed the boredom, often getting in trouble for falling asleep in class. (I still have that problem to this day, despite full rest, at work when I am not challeneged) I missed 43 days my first semester of my senior year of highschool and 34 the second. I still passed all of my courses like they were a joke, except maybe Algebra. College was much more challenging, I attended class more, and made far better grades.
I really empathize with you parents of kids dealing with this. You know your children are capable of so much yet they cant seem to focus on any one thing long enough to reach the success. Nobody really knows why but some kids are just different and that’s a good thing. Structure and stability are what helped me the most.
Not buying it one bit. When my daughter was 4 months old her pediatrician told me to save for private school because she was on track for an ADHD diagnosis and Ritalin if we put her in public school. He was right. She is 20 now, skipped a grade, was a National Merit scholar and is still happiest when she has to do 100 hours of work in 40, or even happier when she has to do 200 hour of work in 100. It has nothing to do with reading and never has.
The boy on my street who was diagnosed is 14 and has no trouble reading but there is just not enough world to keep him busy and his teachers don’t know how to cope with that ... super smart kid. Just needs more to keep him busy ... and that is a challenge. Nothing to do with reading.
Many kids these days get put on Ritalin before they are ever expected to read. It is sad ... it kills their personalities and dampens true curiosity and energy.
I ran into this very problem with my son. He’s active and bright, proven above average IQ. He entered first grade at the same level as the other kids, though one of the youngest in his class. Did you know that the youngest children in a class are 30% more likely to be diagnosed as ADD?
By mid-year, his grades in reading and reading-heavy subjects were near failing. He didn’t want to read assigned readers at home, but a mixture of bribery, punishment and rote made some progress. Interestingly, math and memorization topics were fine. But he kept getting singled out for “acting out”.
I asked his teacher what to do. His teacher announced he had ADD and needed to be medicated. I asked how she came up with that answer. She said his behavior was classic, and the school psychologist agreed - based on her assessment and a kindergarten teacher who wouldn’t disagree with the current teacher and psychologist who made up his mind.
I asked if we could see the reading specialist at the school, since his reading comprehension was lagging. She calmly stated the reading specialist agreed with the assessment. No one told me until later that SHE WAS the reading specialist.
I paid over $1,000 out of pocket for three independent assessments, a reading comprehension test and IQ test. Came back with the results to the school to prove she was wrong.
The teacher from then on “passed” him on the reading intensive subjects, just wanting to get him out of the school. I had to work with him on reading nights and weekends, because she didn’t. I later found out she was rationing him to three questions a day because he asked so many, which is part of why he did so bad on daily work.
He caught up in second grade, mostly to the credit of Wimpy Kid books.
What galls me is that the ADD diagnosis was slapped on to cover up a teacher who couldn’t slap reading. And it was my responsibility to fight the school and then work on improving his skills. If I’d just gone along with it all, he’d fall further behind in school and the ADD - not poor literacy instruction in first grade - would be to blame.
So, when the energy inevitably comes out in class, they're called ADD and disruptive, and drugged into submission.
-PJ
So much ignorance about ADD in so short an article.