Posted on 05/25/2013 7:35:47 AM PDT by TurboZamboni
“ADHD is a prime example of a fictitious disease.”
These were the words of Leon Eisenberg, the “scientific father of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder),” in his last interview before his death.
Leon Eisenberg made a luxurious living off of his “fictitious disease,” thanks to pharmaceutical sales. Coincidentally, he received the “Ruane Prize for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Research. He has been a leader in child psychiatry for more than 40 years through his work in pharmacological trials, research, teaching, and social policy and for his theories of autism and social medicine,” according to Psychiatric News.
(Excerpt) Read more at freedomoutpost.com ...
It’s worse than profiting from a fictitious disease. He’s responsible for drugging millions of children. He’s also responsible for causing millions of kids and their parents to make excuses rather than fix the problem.
I’m not willing to say that there are zero kids who need some sort of intervention. But I have seen dozens whose attention deficit is a deficit of attention from their parents. So they act up to get attention.
I’ve seen dozens of parents who can’t accept that their kid is a B student or a C student, so they will grasp at any excuse to explain it away.
I’ve seen dozens of kids who are bright and high energy but have been drugged because it’s too much work for the teacher to deal with them and the parents have been suckered into it by “experts.” It might remove some of the rough edges a kid has, but it also removes all of the best things about the kid, his/her passion and drive.
The threat of that diagnosis prompted us to homeschool.
As a teacher myself, I knew that my “wildman” son would drive any poor elementary teacher with a room full of kids crazy.
I was able to make him run laps BEFORE “classes”, and had no problem letting him read his lessons while standing on his head (literally).
Handstand reading?
How novel!
The entire model of a little red school house wherein docile children listen attentively while some school marm fills their heads with IMPORTANT FACTS, TIMELESS WISDOM, and MORAL RECTITUDE is so contrary to human nature and human experience that one wonders how anyone could ever come to have taken it seriously. Mark Twain, H.L. Mencken, and Thomas Edison were all people who were completely antagonistic towards formal education as they encountered it. They wouldn’t have that problem today, educrats would have them all sedated during the decade of their lives encompassing seven through seventeen to keep them from making trouble.
Many lives have been ruined because of this and the drugs it spawned. A lot of these kids are so stigmatized, put into ‘sped’ classes, or into classes with some really bad kids and it never wears off.
A superb Family Practice Doc, who retired this week after 35 years of practice was in total agreement with you. He refused to make the diagnosis or rx drugs for this non disease.
He said that his brothers, his sister, he and two sons would have had this terrible pseudo diagnosis if not for his parents and his refusal to recognize a diagnosis to excuse lazy teachers.
Word got around the educational community not to try and force him to make this vile diagnosis. Some of the teachers trying to push this pseudo diagnosis were or ended up as patients of him. He told them if they tried to push this stuff with him, they needed to find a new doctor.
About a year after Prop 13 became the law of California, schools in our areas dropped the gifted classrooms and put all of the kids in the same class. So we had gifted children in with not very bright and the beginning of the gang bangers and students not able to read/speak English.
That is still being done in the local mid and high schools.
One of our sons got very bored and irritated with this bs, was labled as ADHD. We refused to have the drugs and ADHD label pushed on him. He later dropped out of hs, took his GED course and finished it, passed the test in a few months and went to work and has done well.
I had a friend who was told by her young son’s teacher that he should be tested for ADHD. She watched him as he did his homework...sure enough, he was fidgeting and losing focus after a while...but ADHD? She bought the boy a “standing desk” and presto, no more problems when he was doing homework.
She asked the teacher if she could buy one for him (or any other child) to use in the classroom. Teacher said nix nix - Ritalin was probably the best solution. The boy is now in a private school, he and his classmates can use the standing desk that the mother provided, and he’s getting good grades and enjoying life.
Just a story about something that happened to someone I know. YMMV.
Many lives have been ruined because of this and the drugs it spawned.
Don’t forget the overall costs to society from excessive taxation to fund the special education requirements, the pensions for the highest density of teachers in the system, and most often overlooked - the loss of revenues from kids who may have grown up to be more productive if they had not been classified as ADHD by greedy/lazy parents and helpless teachers.
ADHD is a progressive dream - government assistance, more unionized teachers, more “disabled”, more government bureaucrats in social services, and future rat voters.
I am also very concerned about the consequences of “big pharma” and modern medicine treating these kids with drugs that may permanently change the chemistry of the brain during development. I don’t anyone understands the true consequences of this.
I have been asking for over 20 years for someone to rationally explain to me why the parent of a “hyperactive” kid deserves a social security disability check. How is it more expensive?
John Maynard Keynes came to a similar conclusion regarding his”Keynesian Theory”!Government spending NEVER brought back ANY economy and yet the LEFT still embrace it as “DOCTRINE”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
While I do believe some children are naturally overly hyperactive (not that it is a disease) I’ve always been skeptical of ADHD. The methodology for diagnosis is so loose that any child under the right conditions can be labeled diseased or increasingly it is disabled. I know of a mother who is just not a very good parent who managed to get both of her boys labeled disabled because of ADHD. I feel bad for the two boys and it pains me that so many kids suffer because of their idiot parents.
Its also very clear that far too often ADHD is used as a way to define maleness as a disease since boys are far more likely to demonstrate behavior that fits the list of symptoms and since teachers are mostly women many who don’t have children of their own they don’t have the context nor the incentive deal with boys from homes that lack discipline and stability when they can just recommend they be drugged.
I personally believe the advent of the increase of behaviors labeled “ADHD” is a product of modern broken homes where boys don’t have fathers that act like fathers if they see them at all nor do they often have mothers that behave like real Moms if they are even there. If they are lucky they are raised by a grandmother that has some sense but the problem with that is if the Mom isn’t a good Mom the likelihood that the grandmother isn’t an enabler is low. We also have the advent of the two parent working families where kids have less interaction with their real parents and less clear stability with kids being bounced around from event to event and care giver to care giver.
ADHD I believe to a certain point is just an excuse to drug young boys and neuter them to fit a leftist progressive society not that I believe it is purposeful as much as a symptom of leftist progressive ideas related to feminism and the general feminization of maleness in America. Expect this to get worse with the lgbt and feminist agenda in schools. The deviants are already being elevated to special status while those boys that have normal male drives are being demonized more frequently.
Us too. We moved to VA before my oldest entered first grade, and the counselor and teacher called us and told us that he had ADD, because he would not pay attention. One out of four kids had ADD, they said, so it was normal to take Ritalin, they said. I asked if they tested him, because he might just be bored. No...they had not, so I requested that before agreeing to continue the conversation.
They tested him....4th grade reading and math skills in first grade (just as I knew it would be).
I told them to go fly a kite.
After investigating more, I found out that they received hundreds of dollars per student that they could claiisfy as disabled in any way.
Follow the money, always.
We moved back to Alabama, started homeschooling him, and he ended up with a full ride scholarship, graduated with honors in mathematics, and got his masters in mathematics all in less than 5 years.
You know him here...he is our very own freeper UltraSonic007.
The scam is on multiple levels....parents need to be prepared.
iPad typos.
Some friend s of mine have a kid who was brilliant well beyond his age. I taught him in Sunday School and he was always correcting me because I was dumbing down the lessons for the rest of the 5 year olds. His parents home educated him otherwise he would have been drugged badly.
At the age of 12, he was awarded a full ride to John’s Hopkins Med School. He’s 15 now and holding off the med school till he’s a bit older.
Mostly, it’s all about lazy parents. A string of fancy letters and some Ritalin clears them of having to take any responsibility and actually having to work at being parents. It’s the easiest marketing campaign there is, with the exception of a pill that lets you drop 50 pounds of ugly fat.
1. Constant climbing — even when instructed not to do so.
2. Continuous movement, such as bouncing a knee constantly, the inability to sit without squirming, or restless feet, accompanied by frequent needs to get up and move around.
3. Running and moving so quickly that it results in serious injury, such as stitches, even after having been told to stop.
4. For 4-year-olds, an inability to hop on one foot.
5. An inability to play peacefully with others, and the occasional show of a level of aggression that requires removing the child from a situation.
6. Being louder and noisier than fellow playmates.
7. Often befriending strangers with little caution.
8. Showing unusually low fear in situations that can lead the child into danger.
9. The inability to focus for more than a few minutes without losing interest.
10. Refusal to participate in an activity that requires the child's attention for more than a minute or two.
There are safe and effective treatments without drugs (including special diets) that can help manage these symptoms.
Did you read the thread? There is no such thing as ADHD - - the dude made it up.
Good grief, my husband has #2, #7, #8, should I put him on mind altering drugs, he’s already on a special diet?
Constant climbing? Can be corrected by constant correction, we used to call it punishment for not obeying parents.
Moving quickly? Surely that is a joke, I can’t count the number of I know kids who have moved quickly and broken and arm, gotten a cut on the head hand or foot etc.
Hopping on one foot? Well, I don’t think they should be drinking either!
Being louder or noiser?
I could go on down your list and in EVERY case (except the hopping on one foot) I find disinterested parents who refuse to correct and discipline their child. I’ll give the teachers a pass, but only because they are no longer allowed to discipline kids and probably wouldn’t know how even if they were allowed.
But as you said, drugging them is most certainly NOT the answer!
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