Posted on 03/17/2002 8:50:06 AM PST by ATOMIC_PUNK
We've had guns in American homes since the 1600's
We've had troubled teens since the first humans
But it's only in the last couple of decades that we've indulged in the wholesale drugging of small children, which also corresponds to sharp increases in insane violence.
And now the know it alls are curtailing recess activities because they think kids get too rough.
We finally found out that she's hypoglycemic -- if her blood-sugar drops below a certain threshold she goes nuts and has hysterics. What fixes it is to give her a low-carb, high-protein breakfast which includes some meat (meat digests slowly, keeping her blood-sugar fairly level for a longer period), and making sure she gets an afternoon snack at about 3pm. Presto! No more psychotic episodes to deal with
(BTW, backhoe, you must be going out of your mind!)
Perhaps there is some overprescription, and excessive efforts to diagnose being a boy as being ADHD, but this hysterical article does not make the case against ADHD medication well.
Too many people glorify teh old days when kids played outside a lot more, fathers used the belt on their kids, and their kids learned to behave. I think they remember the oast as better than it was.
In the old days, the hyper kid might manage to make it through school exercising enormous self-discipline on account of fear of a whipping from his father, and then he could take his place in life as a manual laborer. The same kid these days might actually end up as a good student and end up ebing quite successful.
Just because we are conservative and have a healthy distrust of social workers and the like, does not mean that ADHD is just something teachers invented because they don't want to deal with disruptive students all the time.
Children who are diagnosed as ADHD have a psychiatric diagnosis that will follow them forever, and they are not allowed in the armed forces.
I also had a friend whose son was diagnosed as ADHD by a TEACHER, for heaven's sake. The school wanted her child on Ritalin. Well, she took her son to a neurologist who informed her that if her son were to be placed on Ritalin, it would have done major neurological damage.
BTW, I don't believe in ADHD.
1. my short (four years) experience in Special Education and,
2. on the "stuff" I was taught while getting my Masters in Educational Psychology,
I believe that the "Disorders" mentioned in this article MAY be real, but they are nowhere near as prevalent as the educational psychologists and educational psychiatrists and the NEA would have us believe. Remember, their living depends on this!
Special Education, at least in the school in which I taught, was a dumping ground for all the kids who did not fit into the predetermined slot which the teacher thought he should occupy.
There are kids who are difficult to teach, but there have ALWAYS been kids who have been difficult to teach. Today the teacher and school administrations are handicapped by the threat of litigation and by the threat of adverse action that may be taken against them by higher-ups in the feeding chain. The adminstration threatens the teacher. The school board threatens the administration. The parents threaten everybody with a court action.
There is also the fact that teachers want to be rid those students who don't fit the mold and want to get them out of the classroom. The various "Diseases" mentioned in the article are seen as easy ways to be rid of them.
If the kid is readmitted to the mainstream classroom, it is usually with the proviso that he be put on some drug to "correct his behavior".
OK, this has been more or less a rant, but the present practices ordained by the educational psychology/psychiartry bunch is NOT helping the education of our young people.
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