This is the first day she is supposed to take the medication. I'm very sad, the wife thinks this could be the answer to our prayers. I'm very sceptical. I must leave for an hour or so, can't respond immediately. Thanks to all.

GOOD GOD DON'T GIVE IT TO HER!!

There is nothing wrong with her. She is a kid!!

If her school can't deal with the fact that she is a kid then send her to a different school or homeschool her. Hell, I never did my homework. The teachers want obedient little robots, not kids. DRUGGING YOUR CHILD IS NOT THE ANSWER!!!!!

You pulled her out of private school to make it easy for her. That is a mistake. I was fortunate enough to be pulled out of public school and enrolled in a private school, which was the best thing that ever happened to me. As for the medication, I think it's a great idea if you want a mindless zombie who gets fair grades. If your wife can't handle your daughters performance in school, then mabey she should just take some xanax or valium. She'll forget about thoses problems real fast. While they're at it, have you ever tried heroin? You won't worry about either wife or daughter anymore. Great life eh?

Do not give her Ritalin!

Please, please, read the "side effects", do a Google search.

My son was diagnosed as Attention Deficit Order with Hyperactivity, it was a "phase" and he grew out of it, and is doing very well in school.

It is unusual these days for females to be diagnosed with ADD, most of the time it is used as a behavior tool for young boys being young boys.

I have 4 girls. One, who is a twin, tested just as high as the others but was very dreamy and unfocused unless she was interested in something. A psychologist wanted to lable her ADD. I said no. She has just graduated from college and is applying to law schools. Did extremely well on the LSAT. Don't let them lable your child.

Go to Google and search: ritalin cocaine

You will get the picture.

Do NOT give the kid drugs. Do anything to stall your wife; convince her you need a second opinion; share the latest info with her on the long-term damage ritalin can do. DO YOUR HOMEWORK. There's a lot of material available on this subject, as well as advocacy groups you should get in touch with. A simple google search will get you started.

Okay, speaking as someone who took

A) DON'T just give your daughter Ritalin (or this s ubstitute drug, which to be honest, I know nothing about.) and expect it to be a magic bullet. You need to work with your daughter as well. Look for therapy options. My parents combined with treatment with hypnotherapy (which was actually highly effectively) along with good old fashioned academic discipline, and buckling down to go the extra mile to help me out. My Father spent a lot of his extra time helping me out so that I could adjust to and succeed when I entered private school at age 12...

B) Make sure that you are out of other options before resorting to drug therapies. While I was in a very bad way, and VERY much helped by Ritalin, I would say that only a tiny handful of the kids who are on it ACTUALLY NEED it.

C) Don't let Doctors bully you around. Get second, third, and even fourth opinions if needed. The Doctors tried to convince my Mother that I was deaf and retarded, when I was four. She knew this was bunk, and kept pressing the issue with other doctors, until she found one who was able to diagnose the ADHD, and come up with a sane treatment. (FWIW: I have a Masters Degree and make good money as a bank technical officer now.)

Don't let teachers bully you either... I know..I know..easier said than done :)

D) LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN to your child as you put her on this new drug. If she continously tells you that the drug is giving her weird side effects, talk to the doctor immediately. Don't just write it off as her "complainingly needlessly."

E) If your child actually has ADHD, then the goal should be to help her learn how to adjust herself. She should not be on this drug for the rest of her life. I only took Ritalin for nine years before I decided I was ready to stop, at age 16. I haven't looked back since.

F) Don't let certain "heartless people" who don't know any better get you down too. ADHD exists, it's just been latched onto by evil liberals as a way to excuse children who are just ill-mannered brats. It only serves to marginalize the small percentage of us who actually have this biochemical condition.

Please...feel free to email me at any time if you have any questions. I'll do what I can to help.

Ritalin is often overprescribed but sometimes it's necessary. Don't make your decision based on advice you get on a political bulletin board! Go get a second medical opinion.

Thank you. Finally, another voice of reason. :)

The Dr. Is BSing you; one either has ADD or NOT, you don't have a "touch". And if in fact it is a "touch" and you believe in ADD, medicine sounds rather extreme; I'd be more inclined to go with the behavior/discipline modification.

Please just read up on this and explore the side effect of the medicine she has been prescribed.

This line was tried on me with one of my kids about 10 years ago when the ADD fad was first gaining ground. I refused the meds,,,and just did things on my own.

Your daughter is 13, puberty. Hormones raging, body changing. Please do not use drugs. My daughter just put our grandson on Ritalin. It makes his smile go away...he has no bounce to his step...he has no twinkle in his eye. But the teacher says he is doing much better in class. He is 8. I am just sick about it. My daughter who has a degree in psychology, see's the world in black and white. And unfortunately he is in the gray area.

I have a thirteen year old boy, and what you describe sounds like she's acting like a thirteen year old.

They are distracted, forgetful and just all around "goofy" acting.

We homeschool, and it does takes a little extra prodding to keep them on track at this stage. My sister was just complaining to me about the same issue with her 13 year old son. She was saying that he was so much more distracted than normal, and her kid is one of the ones that has always been a self motivated learner.

I figure it's just a stage and it will pass.

Your daughter may well have ADD. Girls tend not to have the hyperactive form of it; they may in fact be dreamy and spaced-out, a lot more quiet than the kids who do have the notoriously hyperactive form of it. Here are a couple of books you might want to read before allowing her to be medicated, or which might have other ways to deal with this problem: Dr. Daniel Amen: "Change Your Brain, Change Your Life." He has written other books as well on the subject of ADD. He uses PET scanning to document under- or over-activity in different parts of the brain in different focus and concentration problems. Dr. Peter Breggin is totally anti-Ritalin. He has a website. Also, here is one of many self-help books out there: "Am I Lazy, Crazy, or Stupid?" There are different supplements which will help people with concentration problems, such as ginkgo biloba, L-tyrosine, etc. I believe that Dr. Amen and Dr. Breggin both might have information on these. When kids have ADD, the harder they try to concentrate, the worse it gets for them. And no, not every kid grows out of ADD. I'm an adult who thinks I may have a "touch" of ADD myself; I have tried some of the nutritional supplements for helping to concentrate. I was never diagnosed way back when I was in grammar school; mostly I got good grades, but had a hard time getting good grades in all subjects at the same time. I also tend to get totally overwhelmed by housework (common for women with ADD).

My brother is a pediatrican, outraged by the overprescription of Ritalin et. al. He says it's being wrongly prescribed about 3/4 of the time. Go get a second opinion.

If you're anywhere near Nashville TN, freepmail me.

The Dr. Is BSing you; one either has ADD or NOT, you don't have a "touch". And if in fact it is a "touch" and you believe in ADD, medicine sounds rather extreme; I'd be more inclined to go with the behavior/discipline modification.

I heartily concour. When you have ADHD to the point here you actually NEED Ritalin, here is no "touch of" or "smidgen" or "possibly" about it. It will show up like a huge, shining beacon. In my case, I was in special schools until I finally got onto Ritalin, and that, with other therapies, and just general hard work, got me into "normal" schools.

Personally, if your child managed to get through normal school until age 13, and was even accepted to a private school beforehand, I would be VERY skeptical about the need to put her on any sort of drug therapy. Fight it, I say. Fight it until you are 110% convinced it's nessasary.

Check out this link...

you will be surprized!

Dare to Keep Kids Off Of Ritalin!

"...Peter R. Breggin, M.D. founded The International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology (ICSPP) as a nonprofit research and educational network concerned with the impact of mental health theory and practices upon individual well-being, personal freedom, and family and community values. For nearly three decades ICSPP has been informing the professions, media and the public about the potential dangers of drugs, electroshock, psychosurgery, involuntary treatment, and the biological theories of psychiatry. "

Your 13 year old daughter sounds alot like my 13 year old son and my 11 year old daughter.

The only thing that worked for me was to discipline them (I was always pretty lax in that department). It has taken some time, but the improvement is dramatic - it's funny how "a touch of ADD" can be healed when you take away all of their favorite forms of preoccupation - phones, video games, etc.......