Children are often inconvenient. And besides, aren't you curious about the long term effects of complex compounds on developing brains? It could be interesting.
Some do have actual problems that need medical attention but ignorance on the part of medical professionals treating them plus pharmaceutical companies IMO unethical pressures lead to a massive misdiagnoses and gross over prescribing of unnecessary medications.
ADD ADHD is there BUT there is a more common set of disorders {they can test for and confirm} called Central Auditory Processing Disorders. The symptoms mimic closely ADD ADHD and it takes either a trained Speech Pathologist or Audiologist to diagnose it. If you ask a shrink about C.A.P.D. you're gonna get a blank stare. C.A.P.S. is sensory damage or dysfunction believed to be caused from such things as chronic ear infections or chronic allergies that can damage a kid or adults Inner Ear.
There is a lot of information on CAPD out there. The best part is that the information comes far removed from Mental Health and even in most cases Pharmaceutical Company influences. Vestibular Research holds some answers but here is a clear danger the Mental Health pro's better face and understand. If you give a child or an adult who has sensory or motor sensory dysfunction drugs that can over tax their sensory system or cause a Serotonin migration to the brain, you stand a good risk of an adverse medication reaction called Serotonin Syndrome.
Serotonin is a chemical 98% contained in the stomach used for promoting digestion. The other 2% is located either in the brain or blood stream. When an adult or kid is given SSRI's and has this reaction the person can go psychotic even in the early stages {first few days of SSRI usage}.
It is a very real reaction and the person is not responsible nor can they control how they react to it. It is the same as giving them LSD maybe worse. Their hallucinations which can last up to 3-5 days from stopping the medication is their reality.
I don't argue the fact some adults need antidepressants as I have seen the good they can do. But I have also watched in horror for nearly a week someone in acute Serotonin Syndrome induced twice because the doctors insisted she needed more Zoloft.
The simple fact is doctors today do not do basic medical history & work ups to catch basic what used to be common problems and treat them. If a kid has an ear infection history, Chronic tonsilitus, Chronic streph Throat, vision dysfunction, trouble understanding you, and or sinus allergies, and acts like they have ADD ADHD they likely don't need Ritalin or an SSRI then.
They are acting out because their audio/visual sensory flooding & saturaterad environment is triggering them to act out. TV's can do it. Video games can do it also. A noisy class room is one they can not learn in. They can not listen and take notes etc. The behavior is caused by the frustration and agitation of multi-tasking which may be an impossibility or near impossibility for them. When that is understood & dealt with properly the symptoms subside somewhat and behavior improves. If not and they get prescribed sensory enhancers you can have a kid or adult ready to do harm to others.
..."It seems that childhood is now an illness and many relatively normal childhood behaviors are now unacceptable, or even criminal. Our kids are being screwed up at an alarming rate by everything from abusive parents, to public "educators," to self-appointed therapeutic messiahs. But we dare not do anything to make the little darlings feel shame or pain, and we certainly musn't teach them about God. Why, that would be abusive!..."
And, don't forget that boys must be feminine and "sensitive" and girls must be masculine and "bold." You know, they must show the same interests..They must show only unisex traits. If they do not, then, they might need a psychotropic drug. Also, if they are given a sex survey in kindergarten and are not yet interested or are ignorant of what sex is, etc., etc., then they need treatment to teach them what their little bodies need. We are truly a sick nation, and are becoming more and more like the Europeans and the Netherlands where, I hear, anything goes. The adults who are going along with this are probably "drugged" themselves..It is no wonder the little ones need drugs to help them endure what has become a lost childhood and a lost gender legacy.
One day at lunch there were several mothers. At least three of them had children or grandchildren on drugs. It's a disgrace. Doctors don't have a clue what they're doing. They're just throwing sh__ against a fence post and hoping some sticks.
As an adult user of Ritalin (started at age 37) I've done a lot of reading and pondering on the growing use of Ritalin and similar drugs, in both adults and children. I'm increasingly convinced that there is a real need, and that it is the result of our inexorable march towards being an almost completely information-based society, which requires an education and adult lifestyle that is unnatural and for which many people's physiology is unsuited and not readily adapted. Sure, there are all sorts of social changes -- working moms, video games, etc. that have been cited as probably causes, and those things probably have some contributory effect, especially to the versions of ADHD which are characterized mainly by disruptive behavior. But the colossal change is that most people have little physical activity in their lives, and all the pressure of what you "must do" involves studying, sitting at a desk in an office, etc. Exercise has become a luxury, rather than something you couldn't help getting more than enough of, in the course or growing your food, chopping wood to heat the home over the winter, manual trades, the massive project of doing the family laundry, etc.
If this is in fact the main underlying cause, there's little hope for reversing the trend, at least until germ line genetic engineering reaches the point where we can identify the genes that make some people able to adapt well to the sedentary lifestyle of the information society, and sub it into all the offspring of people who don't adapt well. I don't think Ritalin and the related short-acting drugs do any significant harm, even in children, and suspect that within 20 years, these won't even be prescription drugs -- they'll be on the shelf right next to Benadryl, aspirin, and No-Doz (hopefully, the truly dangerous acetaminophen will be off the shelf by then).
I do think the increasing use of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs needs to be monitored and studied closely. The biggest problem with them is that they are only marginally effective in most patients, and totally ineffective in many. As a result, many people with serious psychological problems that have underlying causes that ARE fixable, are just being a given an ineffective band-aid, and then everybody around them relaxes and figures they're not in danger, and the underlying problems don't get seriously addressed. While I'm not convinced that these drugs actually CAUSE suicide in teens and adolescents as some researchers claim, the way they're used certainly compounds the problem, and may lead troubled teens to accelerate their slide into total despair, as they realize that no one around them is really going to help, and that now that they've been given this stupid ineffective pill, they're expected to buck up and get with the "program" that was probably the cause of their depression in the first place. Unlike adults, adolescents and teens have virtually no way to make fundamental changes in their lives -- where they go to school, where they live, who they live with, etc. Somebody has to make the changes for them, or they aren't going to get made.
I met a woman once who had her daughter on Ritalin. When I asked her what she was like without it, she said the daughter would "talk your ear off".
Doped for being a chatterbox. It made we want to cry.