Posted on 06/14/2004 9:04:03 PM PDT by Dan Evans
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1149909/posts
Hollywood makes science fiction movies about this kind of insanity but when it happens in real life everyone just yawns.
BTTT
I do think that there are too many children who are given Ritalin too quickly. My son's ADD is accompanied by a mild form of OCD. My doctor told us that Ritalin would make this more pronounced.
One interesting thing I have noticed—and I do not want to turn this into class warfare–is that most of the other parents and children I have met with ADD tend to come from lower income families, or from broken homes or disfunctional families.
I am curious how much of this is a nature/nurture thing.
I know that Stratera has been a Godsend for my son. He is an all together different person when he takes his medicine.
Bump for later - It's almost midnight! < Yawn! >
Shut up and take your Soma
A close psychologist friend cites many contributing factors to the ADHD phenomenom. Lack of exercise & physical activity, over-stimulation from TV & video games, poor diet, lack of discipline, lack of positive attention from parents (who often are too tired to raise kids), etc.
But the #1 reason for the explosion in the use of the diagnosis is SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY! Believe it or not, there are families who manage to get each child diagnosed, thereby qualifying each of them for a monthly government check!
It is truly epidemic! And insane! Of course, we the taxpayers are making all this possible.
In the case of teachers recommending drugs, I think it is a combination of laziness (a drugged student is easier to control) and improper training - even indoctrination- by the teaching beauracracy.
Class action lawsuit
Because public schools in the 1950s were almost uniformly not unionised, and because their number one mission at the time was to attempt to educate, as opposed to brainwash, the students.
That's probably why. Not that all schools/teachers succeeded, but they still managed an 85-88% literacy rate.
50 years of gov't intrusion into public schools has indeed done the damage intended.
But the #1 reason for the explosion in the use of the diagnosis is SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY! Believe it or not, there are families who manage to get each child diagnosed, thereby qualifying each of them for a monthly government check!
I did not know that but it explains a lot. No wonder why so many of them are anxious to get the kid certified -- not only does he get immunity from expulsion, the family gets paid for it. It gets crazier and crazier.
Why don't I remember kids having this problem when I attended school in the 50's?
They had the same problems but instead of using Ritalin they used a big wooden board with holes in it. Worked for me.
Today they shove a questionnaire in your face about your child's behavior, have a conference with you, and strongly urge you to take it to your child's doctor for a consultation. If you don't comply, then they threaten to stick your child in the dummy class. Of course, most school officials don't come right out and tell you they want your child on drugs but it's not too hard to figure out. Antsy little boys have existed for a long time. We took my son out of the public school system when they started to bully and badger our family.
He has a lot of no-nonsense common sense when it comes to raising children! He has lots of case reports of families that got rid of the TV, and their ADD child improved greatly.
Shouldn't a decision like this be made in consult with a child's pediatrician and maybe some other specialists as well?
Actually, the damage began more than 100 years ago...
I like the idea, but who would be the defendant(s) in such a lawsuit? Presently psychiatry is recognized as a legitimate medical practice by the court system and governments are reluctant to give up sovereign immunity to permit large-scale suits against them.... Is there a way I can't see?
One reason is that the 1950s was before psychiatrists replaced pastors as the primary extra-family source of behavioral correction for children. The 1950s was before Freud's dream of a "secular priesthood" was fully realized.
Indeed. The problem isn't the kid; it's the socialist school system. Most parents recognize that other kid's schools have overwhelming problems, but they persist in believing the propaganda that their child's school is an enlightened exception to the rule. Of course, this belief is almost never correct, although it does, for a time, soothe the consciences of guilty parents...
We took my son out of the public school system when they started to bully and badger our family.
Good for you. I hope more Freepers will follow your example: There's nothing wrong with the government school system that a mass exodus won't cure.
This kind of stuff really does happen. Unfortunately, my family knows about this first hand. The teachers "diagnosed" my son in kindergarden and were backed up by the school psychologists. They told me that I had to medicate my son for school or be reported for neglect/abuse. The only good thing (after reading the fine print on the back of the school forms) was that we went thru an appeal process where the district had to pay 3 other independent doctors to examine my son. They ALL said he did NOT to be medicated and so that was that. If I had just "rolled over" and let them medicate my kid, God only knows where we would be today. He is now 17 and a good student with no discipline problems. Parents need to stand up and fight this insanity with everything they've got!
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