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Go outside and playhttp://www.cleveland.com/living/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/living/1158309564312510.xml&coll=2 http://tinyurl.com/pg6bd That's the advice nature educators have for increasingly reined-in kids and their very protective parents Friday, September 15, 2006 Susan Glaser Plain Dealer Reporter When Steve Cadwell was a kid, he had the North Chagrin Reservation in his back yard, and he used to disappear for hours. "My mom said, 'Go outside, and don't come back until the streetlights are on,' " said Cadwell, 47, now executive director of the Nature Center of Shaker Lakes. Rare is the mother who issues that directive these days. Thanks to everything from fears about stranger danger to video...

A 15-year-old girl and her parents recently came in for a chat with Dr. James Perrin, a Boston pediatrician, because they were concerned about the girl's grades. Previously an A student, she was slipping to B's, and the family was convinced attention deficit hyperactivity disorder was at fault — and that a prescription for Ritalin would boost her brainpower. After examining the girl, Perrin determined she didn't have ADHD. The parents, who had come in demanding a prescription, left empty-handed. Perrin, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics, and other physicians...

PHOENIX, Aug. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Family counselor Jane Fendelman, MC, has valuable information for parents with school-age children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD). She has a track record of helping families with children who would be considered worst-case scenarios -- without the use of medications like Ritalin, Adderall and Concerta.. In her book "Raising Humane Beings" she writes in depth about what her clients call the "magic cure." In fact, within 3 to 5 sessions, with Fendelman's help, clients see issues resolved for good. "I call ADD and ADHD the multimillion dollar medical...

Summer Over but Kids Still Need Time Outdoorshttp://www.newswise.com/articles/view/522009/ Source: National Wildlife Federation (NWF) Released: Wed 19-Jul-2006, 12:00 ET Newswise — Summertime often provides a reprieve for children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), but now that school is starting up, the usual parental concerns are at the forefront again. Can my child stay focused enough to keep up with his class work? Will he get the extra attention he needs in the classroom to keep him on task? There are now 2.5 million children using ADHD medications to reduce symptoms, but there may be a “greener” part of the solution....

Take a Hike, Kidhttp://www.utne.com/webwatch/2006_258/news/12198-1.html Bears, sharks, and strangers -- oh my! How kids are taught to fear the outdoors By Rachel Anderson, Utne.com July 20, 2006 Issue Kids say the darnedest things. "I like to play indoors better 'cause that's where all the electrical outlets are," one fifth-grader told Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder. Raise the age bracket and you might hear, as did one high school teacher querying his students on the environment: "If you go out [in nature], there has to be a parent because you can't protect...

ATLANTA-Adam LaRoche knows how it looks. He doesn’t seem to be trying hard. He comes across as inattentive, sluggish, a little too laid-back to be a professional athlete. When LaRoche was coming-up through the minors, countless coaches and instructors told him to show more emotion. “They would tell me, ‘When you’re playing, we know you want to win, but it doesn’t always look like it,”’ said LaRoche, the Atlanta-Braves’ first-baseman. “They would say, ‘You’ve got to fake it. You’ve got to fake some excitement. You’ve got show them you’re giving 100-percent.”’ LaRoche’s relaxed approach—and a disorder that makes it hard...

A Boston Legal episode had a case against a snack food manufacturer using high fructose corn syrup, claiming it caused obesity and diabetes in a client. OK, it's entertainment. But with a significant seed of truth in it. Corn seed. Corn products now saturate the American diet: as a dinner vegetable; as the primary ingredient in breakfast cereals and many snack foods; as the primary sweetener in beverages, candies, snacks and processed foods; as the bulk whitener/sugar/starch in coffee creamers and powdered infant formulas; as the oil in many foods and the oil many foods are cooked in; as a...

Prescribing of hyperactivity drugs is out of control 31 March 2006 NewScientist.com news service Peter Aldhous Rise in ADHA?THE figures are mind-boggling. Nearly 4 million Americans, most of them children and young adults, are being prescribed amphetamine-like stimulants to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Up to a million more may be taking the drugs illegally. Now, amid reports of rare but serious side effects, leading researchers and doctors are calling for a review of the way ADHD is dealt with. Many prescriptions are being written by family doctors with little expertise in diagnosing ADHD, raising doubts about how many...

GAITHERSBURG, Md., March 22 — Stimulants like Ritalin lead a small number of children to suffer hallucinations that usually feature insects, snakes or worms, according to federal drug officials, and a panel of experts said on Wednesday that physicians and parents needed to be warned of the risk. The panel members said they hoped the warning would prevent physicians from prescribing a second drug to treat the hallucinations caused by the stimulants, which one expert estimated affect 2 to 5 of every 100 children taking them. Instead, they said, the right thing to do in such cases was to stop...

Australian researchers have discovered that fish oil rich in omega 3 and 6 fatty acids may improve attention spans and even help children with ADHD. Children with behavioural problems can seem like little terrors. But according to doctors, they are not problem kids: they are sick kids.   Experts have long debated whether or not attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) even exists, let alone an effective treatment or cure. But a new study has claimed results. Researchers at the University of South Australia and CSIRO studied 145 children with ADHD, giving some capsules containing fish oil high in omega 3 and...

WASHINGTON - Uncle Sam wants YOU, that famous Army recruiting poster says. But does he really? Not if you're a Ritalin-taking, overweight, Generation Y couch potato - or some combination of the above. As for that fashionable "body art" that the military still calls a tattoo, having one is grounds for rejection, too. With U.S. casualties rising in wars overseas and more opportunities in the civilian work force from an improved U.S. economy, many young people are shunning a career in the armed forces. But recruiting is still a two-way street - and the military, too, doesn't want most people...

Shias add fuel to hatred with 'gangsta-rap' incitement By Aqeel Hussein in Baghdad and Colin Freeman (Filed: 05/03/2006) Shia musicians in Iraq are raising sectarian tensions by producing "gangsta-rap" songs in which they call for Shias to kill Sunnis. The hate-filled lyrics of singers such as Riyadh al Wadi have proved a big hit in Shia areas after the tit-for-tat killings that have pushed the country to the brink of civil war in the past two weeks. In his songs, he urges fellow Shias to ignore the appeals of their most senior cleric not to retaliate against acts of provocation...

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Los Angeles, Calif. -- Veterinarians across the country are reacting to Monday’s release of a UCLA study claiming that as many as 90 percent of all felines currently being born in the United States will develop Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) during their first month as a kitten. “Our research shows that an overwhelming majority of kittens begin displaying classic symptoms of ADD and ADHD within their first two to three weeks of life, symptoms such as uncontrollable, aggressive hyperactivity, constant squirming and being easily distracted by irrelevant sights, sounds and extraneous stimuli – a...

Facing what-ifs and if-onlys in wake of suicide By Patsy Rae Dawson As a survivor - no, as an overcomer - of my 21-year-old son Westley's suicide, the biggest issue for myself and others is often facing the "what-ifs" and "if-onlys." What if I'd been a better parent? What if I'd tried harder to get him to talk about his problems? If only I'd realized how hard a time he was having. If only he'd called me that day. These natural regrets gain their own momentum, causing a suicide survivor to sink more deeply into depression. After struggling with this...

Democrats add a new C to corruption By Josephine Hearn As Democrats mull when and how to introduce an election-year agenda, some party leaders have already begun to broaden the now-familiar Democratic refrain of a “culture of corruption, cronyism, incompetence and cover-up” to add a new alliterative element: costs. The shift in language reflects some frustration among Democrats that their steady drumbeat on corruption isn’t connecting with voters as much as they’d like. The new phrase allows them to segue from ethical abuses to pocketbook issues such as prescriptions drugs, energy prices and tuition costs, where they contend that Republicans...

ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON -- Twenty-five people died and 54 more suffered serious cardiovascular problems after taking drugs to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder between 1999 and 2003, the government says. Children accounted for 19 of the deaths and 26 of the cases of nonfatal cardiovascular problems, including heart attack, stroke, hypertension, palpitations and arrhythmia, according to a Food and Drug Administration report released Wednesday. The FDA report also includes data on another 26 deaths between 1969 and 2003 in ADHD drug patients. Those include death by suicide, intentional overdose, drowning, heat stroke and from underlying disease. The report's release came...

Jurate Cannara knew her daughter Laura was different when, as a toddler, she would stand out in the rain, her tiny hands outstretched toward the lightning. "Mama, I need energy," the little girl would tell her. As Laura Mikuseviciuje grew from toddler to child to teen to young woman, Cannara noticed that her daughter's eccentricities only increased with age. "I didn't understand my daughter," said Cannara, who lives in Verona, of her daughter's early expressions of intuition and odd, energetic behavior. According to some, Laura's tendencies are not odd at all; they even have a name. She and others like...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 26, 2006 – The Marine Corps Special Operations Command, the newest addition to the special operations community, will be a complementary force that will ease the strain on other services' elite units and will contribute to the nation's readiness in the global war on terror, the new unit's commander said here today. "I firmly believe that this is the right thing to do for the country at this time," said Marine Brig. Gen. Dennis J. Hejlik, commander of Marine Corps Special Operations Command. "This irregular warfare is here to stay. If we don't start to go that way,...

Spend a few minutes on the phone with Danny Frankhuizen and you come away thinking, "What a nice boy." He's thoughtful, articulate, bright. He has a good relationship with his mom, goes to church every Sunday, loves the rock band Phish and spends hours each day practicing his guitar. But once he's inside his large public Salt Lake City high school, everything seems to go wrong. He's 16, but he can't stay organized. He finishes his homework and then can't find it in his backpack. He loses focus in class, and his teachers, with 40 kids to wrangle, aren't much...