Posted on 11/23/2006 6:09:55 AM PST by shrinkermd
...Bottles of psychiatric medications fill the shelves. Stephen, 15, takes the antidepressants Zoloft and Desyrel for depression, the anticonvulsant Lamictal to moderate his moods and the stimulant Focalin XR to improve concentration. Jacob, 14, takes Focalin XR for concentration, the anticonvulsant Depakote to moderate his moods, the antipsychotic Risperdal to reduce anger and the antihypertensive Catapres to induce sleep.
Over the last three years, each boy has been prescribed 28 different psychiatric drugs.
“Sometimes, when you look at all the drugs they’ve taken, you wonder, ‘Wow, did I really do this to my kids?’ ” said their mother, Tricia Kehoe of Sharpsville, Pa. “But I’ve seen them without the meds, and there’s a major difference.”
...Last year in the United States, about 1.6 million children and teenagers — 280,000 of them under age 10 — were given at least two psychiatric drugs in combination, according to an analysis performed by Medco Health Solutions at the request of The New York Times. More than 500,000 were prescribed at least three psychiatric drugs. More than 160,000 got at least four medications together, the analysis found.
Many psychiatrists and parents believe that such drug combinations, often referred to as drug cocktails, help. But there is virtually no scientific evidence to justify this multiplication of pills, researchers say. A few studies have shown that a combination of two drugs can be helpful in adult patients, but the evidence in children is scant. And there is no evidence at al
...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I was speaking in generalities and gave Columbine as an example of what I was talking about. That what the parenthesis mean.
When kids are not medicated and commit crimes that make the headlines, people complain that the parents didn't see the "obvious signs" and should have been medicating their children.
Now, you don't like the example I used? You'd prefer to ignore the point I was trying to make and would rather nit pick and say one of the Columbine killers was on meds? Fine, if that's all you got, go for it.
Of course that leads into my second argument that when kids ARE on meds and commit crimes that make the headlines, people blame the meds. My guess is that it's the same people. Probably people like you.
well put bump.
We have laws in place to address criminals, of whatever age, who injure or kill someone.
I blame parents who ignore and neglect their children, not parents who refuse to turn their children into a revenue stream for the pharmaceutical companies.
Ah. I was under the impression you should say true things, but I had forgotten basic English syntax: if you put ( on one side, and ) on the other, making stuff up becomes totally acceptible.
When kids are not medicated and commit crimes that make the headlines, people complain that the parents didn't see the "obvious signs" and should have been medicating their children.
This is strange. I've seen that up to the part about obvious signs. But the last part is new to me. Here, let me fix it:
When kids are not medicated and commit crimes that make the headlines, people complain that the parents didn't see the "obvious signs" (and should have been medicating their children).
Of course that leads into my second argument that when kids ARE on meds and commit crimes that make the headlines, people blame the meds. My guess is that it's the same people. Probably people like you.
Yet more. Paraphrasing your argument: you blame the lack of medication -- because I TOLD YOU that you blame the lack of medication! And if you tell me there was medication, then you're blaming the meds! Damned if you do, damned if you don't!
It would be helpful if you'd be willing to interact with what people are actually saying.
This doesn't specify what kind of psychiatric medication, but I wonder how many of these kids with severe psychiatric problems are the biological offspring of parents who have clear psychiatric problems (and if one does, it's likely that both do, since mentally normal people generally avoid intimate relationships with people who are obviously mentally ill). How much of this increase in children with severe psychopathologies is due to policies in recent decades of emptying out psych hospitals and sending the patients out to live "in the community", where they promptly reproduce. And also due to laws/policies which almost completely ended sterilization of mentally ill people. Not that there weren't a lot of abuses of the latter, but I think we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater, with paranoid schizophrenics and other severely mentally ill people freely wandering the streets and freely reproducing, even though it's clear they are utterly incapable of raising a child.
That particular father is dealing with a kid who has kicked holes in every wall in the house, ripped two doors off their hinges, and ripped a bathroom sink out of the wall. The kid clearly does have some serious mental problems, and should probably be institutionalized. A generation or two ago, the sort of "parenting skills" used to deal with a child like this involved beatings and being tied up or locked up. While an argument can be made that in SOME cases, those approaches are warranted, the fact is that eny parent who tries to employ them now will end up losing custody of the kids (who will be put in foster care and given the prescribed cocktail of medications) and quite possibly end up doing prison time. That state of affairs is not the doing of the parents who are faced with how to deal these extremely troubled children.
When such extremely violent incidents are perpetrated by kids who are on psych meds, it's because:
1) They're crazy in the first place, which is why they're on the meds, and
2) While the meds can be helpful, they are no magic bullet, but unfortunately they are being treated as if they are -- a kid who's seriously crazy and unstable is sent off to a regular school with no supervision, so long as he's on his meds.
The latter is just one of many types of ill-advised "mainstreaming" that has become the norm in education in our day. The education and government establishments have got it into their heads that all kids should go to the same schools, no matter how how severe their mental and/or physical impairments. Even the ones who are attending special schools are, with rare exceptions, doing so under an "individualized education program" that is explicitly aimed at getting them into a normal school as soon as possible. We need to bring back the idea that normal schools and normal home life arrangements are for normal kids.
I firmly believe that while ADD/ADHD is "real", it is not abnormal. It's just within a range of perfectly normal responses to a modern lifestyle that it utterly abnormal for the human animal, and happens to be maladaptive for the modern lifestyle.
The lack of physical activity and accompanying emphasis on endless acquisition of new knowledge and new mental skills, are inevitable outgrowths of the advancement of human knowledge and technology. But the ADD/ADHD mindset is exceptionally well-suited to the life needs of a few generations ago. What's the one thing that most ADD/ADHD children and adults are good at and have no trouble concentrating on? Repetition of simple physical tasks. In other words, exactly what was needed for success in a society focused on simple farming and manual trades, and where the daily routine of food preparation, heating the home, obtaining water, etc. involved endless repetition of simple physical tasks. Back then, everybody wanted and admired an "ADD" child -- they just didn't call it that.
I've found that ALL info sources which claim there is NO such thing as ADD/ADHD are Scientology-linked. Way overdiagnosed? Sure. Way overmedicated? Sure. But nonexistent? That's a Scientology doctrine, not reality.
bump
try this link http://www.orgonomy.org/article_094.html
"how this generation of kids have so many mental issues"
I can. I look at my sisters kids. She has 2 boys that she and her husband have refused to discipline since childhood. Psychiatrists have the whole family on antidepressants now when a few swift kicks in the pants could have solved the problem years ago.
"Of course if these kids were not being medicated and they ended up going on a murdering spree (a la Columbine), these same people would be saying, "Where were the parents? Why weren't these kids getting the help they needed?"
Harris, of Columbine fame, was on Luvox at the time.
OK. Then they'll say that about Dylan Klebold. With Harris, people will say the Luvox caused him to do that.
My point being, which everyone is choosing to ignore, is that when kids are not medicated and commit crimes that make the headlines, people complain that the parents didn't see the "obvious signs" and should have been medicating their children. Conversely, when kids ARE on meds and commit crimes that make the headlines, people blame the meds.
While I don't enough context (or training) to make an assessment which you are probably more able to, I was simply puzzled by the father's response who seemed to think that the kid's meds should eliminate the need for timeouts. I'm sure you'll agree that kids who might have more mild presentations of mental difficulties, strong parenting is still required. I was not implying that timeout is not an acceptable form of discipline.
Thank you for your reply. I see what you mean now. On the other hand we can always blame video games.
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