Posted on 08/02/2007 7:05:34 AM PDT by Lennyq
I taught courses on this subject in the 70s. One of the diagnositc criteria was that the child is not a minority. The reason? because minority status is already a negative label and they don't need another negatvie label.
What is that about besides power?
At the time I taught (in Baltimore) about 15% of white boys in elementary school were classified as ADD or ADHD (they keep renaming it). I visited a (government) ADHD clinic. In a city that was majority black, there were no black children treated there.
The (black)principal of a local school (90% black) was a student of mine. She told me she knew nothing about it to start with and that none of the children in her school were on medication for ADHD behavior.
In the 90s I saw what I considered the result of this scheme. The young white men in my courses were often looking for information on their condition of ADHD. I hate to say anything mean, but what I saw was pathetic young men with no self-confidence, always aplogizing for themselves.
There are nice compassionate professionals involved in the ADD industry. It is hard to believe they are part of a power scheme, but if they were not in on the scheming, they are at least part of its execution.
Oh Yeah, I think about that, too. I was a “daydreamer” my mom smacked my ass and I became a good listener and student. Simple.
I had an unfortunate experience with my oldest daughter. Her 1st grade teacher (a B*%^ch) insisted that she was ADHD, sent her for an evaluation etc.... She was diagnosed and medicated. That lasted about 2 weeks. She had a constant headache and nausea on ritalin. I took her off and spent a little extra time with her and the word was never uttered again throughout her entire school career. She’s now in the Navy and enjoying a wonderful life.
The point being that they really do pressure you at the school level to do this, make it impossible not to. Amazingly the same teacher commented all of the time about how much better Nikki was doing since she was on her meds. (I just let her believe that she was)
Of course we can't do it that way anymore; it wouldn't be progressive.
researchers at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas found chromosome damage within three months of starting Ritalin in the twelve children they studied. (2/16/2005 online issue of Cancer Letters).
Friends of ours have a son that the PUBLIC SCHOOL diagnosed as ADHD when he was in the first grade in the early 90’s. They were going to kick him out of school unless he was on medication. The parents complied and start giving their son Ritalin.
Their son went from a bright, active, talkative, inquisitive 6 year old to a now withdrawn, no confidence, recluse of a young adult. To me it is very sad they allowed to happen to their son. I also think it is criminal on the part of the school since they diagnosed the “problem” and essentially prescribed medication by using bully tactics. In retrospect, the parents know they were uniformed and should have sent him to a private school or home-schooled.
My son would be in that group today and so would my nephew. They were very talkative and had pent up energy that made it hard to sit in classrooms all day.
Thank goodness we didn’t know about this ritalin thing then.
I can’t say for sure what I would have done. I hope I would have been cynical about using it, but we were very inclined to believe medical advice.
I don’t so much now.
I think a lot of hyper behavior is related to diet and nutrition. Not just high amounts of sugar but the additives in soda pop and junk food get kids ramped up. Not enough exercise is a factor. The electronic environment leads to overstimulation as well. If I were a parent with a hyperactive kid, I would not be looking to add drugs but looking to subtract some things from the diet and environment.
If a school employee ever comes to me and says my kid has ADHD and needs Ritalin, I’m going straight to the local prosecutor to demand prosecution for the Class 1 misdemeanor. If he isn’t willing, I’m going straight to the press about school officials practicing medicine without a license (Law: “Any person shall be regarded as practicing medicine ... who shall diagnose or attempt to diagnose ... any human ailment, physical or mental...”) on my kid and the prosecutor’s unwillingness to stop it.
What so many of these children have is “dys-teachia”. They are taught little or no phonics, mired in whole language learning that results in poor reading skills and mimics dyslexia.
I for sure would have had the label if this was going on when I was a youngster. I really don’t know if my parents would have be cynical or just gone along with the school’s so-called “medical advice”.
I was completely inattentive in school, so I probably would have been on Ritalin today. Luckily the teachers and administrators figured out I was just bored out of my mind and gave me more interesting and difficult things to do. After that I was a pretty good student.
The incidence of BTD (Boring Teacher Disorder) is clearly greater than ADD or ADHD.
I’ll bet you will find out that the feds fork over more money for medicated kids. They pervert and undermine everything with their do gooderism. Add to that the lack of standards for teachers who could learn to manage their classes, if the expectations were set. I am with the posters above who said the kids need recess with exercise and teaches who impose discipline.
He was the medical consultant to the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR).
What is the CCHR? It's the freeking Church of Scientology!
Hail Xenu.
FALSE
I picked up the fone and called the local recruiting office. There was some discussion as they looked it up.
The recruit has to be off of Ritalin/Aderall for at least one year and they will take him.
In any event, he MUST disclose the fact that he's been treated for ADD/ADHD in the past, but they will take them and note it on his record forever.
To avoid the "medical abuse" charge, a parent should find a doctor or two that diagnose the kid as "normal".
If you have 5 doctors prescribing Ritalin and you as a parent just say no on principle, then you should be liable for "medical abuse." If you can't find one or two other doctors SOMEWHERE to support you, then you've got no leg to stand on, folks, no matter how wrong it is to prescribe this stuff to kids, or how right you are or how well we all got along without it in the past.
Same here.
I’d forgotten the money angle. You are right that they get more Federal $$ for children with treatment plans on file.
Subsidizing malfunction and malfeasance is what the Feds do best.
I don't deny some children are harder to manage than others. I don't deny that Ritalin and related drugs make them easier to manage. I deny that they have a disease.
A reason to call the ocndition a disease is to make the negative effects of medication will be deemed acceptable. But the effects of long-term psychiatric medication during childhood are horrendous.
I have no objection to adults taking any drug they like to manage their own behavior.
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