The medicating of Americas youth

M

Mordwyn.45

New member
From today's CNNI health section:

CHICAGO (AP) -- When he was a toddler, Heath Barker was nicknamed "the red tornado" for his auburn hair and his penchant for tearing things up and jumping off the furniture. When he was just 4, he was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and prescribed Ritalin.

A study of more than 200,000 preschool-age children shows this was no isolated case.

The number of 2- to 4-year-olds on psychiatric drugs including Ritalin and anti-depressants like Prozac soared 50 percent between 1991 and 1995, researchers reported in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

Experts said they are troubled by the findings, because the effects of such drugs in children so young are largely unknown. Some doctors worry that such powerful drugs could be dangerous for children's development.
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And to think we wonder why some children go out of controll and shoot up their schools..:

But wait I forgot, it's realy the evil mind controll rays that firearms use. They force the kids to do their bidding.......

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TANSTAAFL- R.A. Heinlen

"Molon Labe"- Leonidas to Xerxes at Thermopile

[This message has been edited by Mordwyn.45 (edited February 22, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Mordwyn.45 (edited February 23, 2000).]
 
Bullseye. Just coming to light. Remember, a few years ago, we used electro shock therapy and lobotomys. Psychology is the softest "science" ever.

WE ARE GOING TO BE FACED WITH A MULTITUDE OF ADULTS WHO WERE MEDICATED AS CHILDREN IN OUR CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM. It is just beginning, and it will overburden us.

Educators faced with a behavioral problem insist on medicating children. Bi-polar disorder, oppositional disorder, ADH ADHD, all terms of art. ALL MEAN PUMPING'EM UP WITH DRUGS!! Personalities, value systems, do not develop in children when they are medicated.

Many many child psychologist (read FRAUDS) make their living on diagnosing children and medicating them. Again, this profession just a few years ago promoted lobotomies, read the reports, and many ZOMBIES (formerly persons) remain in our institutions (A Kennedy in Wisconsin instution in Jefferson, Wisconsin).

THINK HARD BEFORE YOU LET THEM MEDICATE YOUR CHILDREN, WHY?? THEY WILL BECOME DYSFUNCTIONAL ADULTS.

Again, a "bullseye" post!!!
 
Now you've really touched a nerve! I was diagnosed with ADHD as a teenager. I was a terror, and my parents had toyed with the idea of putting me on a psychotropic drug like ritalin. I thank God every day that they didn't. It was found to be controllable by not eating chocolate or bannanas for the most part. You'd have to ask Glenn Meyer why this is, I'm no psychologist. Here's the scenario:
Little Johnny is born, and 6 weeks later, mom dumps him in a child care center so she can work all day to earn enough money to drive a new suburban every year. Little Johnny doesn't get breast fed, he doesn't get cuddled. Little Johnny's only adult-child interaction is with a non-english speaking woman getting minimum wage to watch 18 kids. Little Johnny doesn't recieve any moral instruction, and he learns the law of the herd, not the law of the citizen. He doesn't see much of mommy when she comes home, because she is tired, and so little Johnny doesn't have any moral foundation when he gets to school. Early on in school; about first or second grade, the teacher complains about Johnny's behavior, and suggests he's a bit on the wild side. Concerned parents rush him to the doctor, and have him doped up to settle him down some. His grades improve somewhat, but 10 years later, after never recieving a proper socialization, little Johnny who is now a confused adolescent teen that has no moral backing decides he hates jocks. He gets dad's pistol that he hides under the matress, and shoots up the locker room killing 4 students and wounding others. Later that night all the neighbors are on TV talking about what a nice kid he seemed like, and how much his parents loved him.
It's BS, and we all know they didn't love him enough to give up the suburban, or the extra bedroom, or the swimming pool. In my past, I've trained dogs and horses. Anybody in either field will tell you that all mammals need proper socialization from birth to a certain point. They need certain qualities they only learn from their mothers. In Dogs, you don't separate them from the bitch until the 49th day. It is that much of a science. They have it down to the day, and you should NEVER pick up a puppy before that 49th day! With horses it usually comes about a year, and after weaning. Why is it we can recognize this important bonding with animals, yet we don't with our own kind? People have the added benifit of being able to have either parent (or even permanent live-in nanny) properly bond and socialize their kids. This isn't just a boy thing either. Look at the explosion in teen pregnacy, STD's, promiscuity, depression, bulemia, and anorexia among our young women. Greed is tearing the family apart.
Knowing what I know, when my wife (who earns twice of what I do) became pregnant, we decided to give up the stuff, and I quit my job to stay home. It was the best job I ever had. Park Ranger. It was fun, but the child is more important. The really amazing thing is how many people will tell me what a content baby we have, and how he's such a happy little person. Wake up out there! My baby is NORMAL. It is your kid that is strange.
There was a study a few years ago touted by the NRA of how parents who took their kids shooting tended to have more "balanced" children, and the kids were less likely to commit crime. Of course the NRA (God bless 'em) tried to make the connection that shooting means less crime, but the real story here was missed. These kids who spend hours at the range (under adult supervision), and spend many more hours in the field hunting with dad are actually "bonding". It is that simple, and the same results could be replicated with fathers who take their kids golfing, fishing, or any other activity that requires a high degree of supervision and adult interaction. The youth are diseased alright, but it is greed, not ADHD or any other psycho-related problem. It is simply greed on the part of the parent in 98% of the cases. Of course there are those kids who are just really basket cases naturally and these are the other 2% that could probably legitimately use a psychotropic drug like lithium, ritalin, or prozac.
 
part of the problem is the family configuration (i.e. 1 vs 2 parents, 1 income or two incomes). but another part is the change in society since the 1950s. it used to be that the parent was the ultimate authority; now it is assumed the parents are inept, and that sociologists, teachers, doctors, etc. are the experts on raising kids. I've realized that a certain percentage of parents do the yuppie thing because there are so many societal influences which whisper "don't bother parenting; we'll do it for you, and do it better." either consciously or subconsciously, some parents give up being parents to do what society rewards them for doing, i.e. a conventional job.

as for ADHD, when you look at the description most people give for it, they basically are describing 90% of the male kids out there. the short attention span, hyperactivity, etc are part of the genetic code. had I been born in the mid-1980s, I definitely would have been dosed with Ritalin. fortunately I was born earlier and wasn't sedated. funny how well I turned out despite lacking "help" from the head-shrinkers.

if you doubt the parenting urges of the school system, just take your kid out of school for a few days for museum trips or other worthwhile educational stuff. with some school systems, that's worse than the parent being a crack addict.
 
FACT. Take any child, however "normal" to these "child psychologists" and describe behavioral problems. You will leave with a prescription for a psychotropic drug. Drug makers lobby the psychologists. Psychologist strive for an answer. MEDICATE MEDICATE MEDICATE. Look at the 18-25 population in our prisons-----70%, 80% 90% (what is the percentage, soon it will be nearly 100%) and above have been medicated when they were children.

We are loosing a generation--we are developing a generation of dsyfunctional adults. Your kids go to school. Ask the teacher how many of the children in your child's class are medicated. BET YOU WILL BE SUPRISED AT THE NUMBER.

Why--as posted in this thread-we do not value parenting--we "daycare" and "school" from 4 years old and earlier. Remember when one parent "stayed home" and parented...now economics force both parents to work. What happened to our core values!! Divorce rate is skyrocketed, our country incarcerates more of our population than any other country. NEARLY all of our prison population were raised in a "one parent" household. Hey--our presidental candidates joke about smoking pot on national television, while we incarcerate hundreds of thousands (yes that many) for use, possession and or sale of THC).

IT ONLY IS GOING TO GET WORSE. BET ON IT.
 
This is a sad subject. I spent a few years up in Alaska where I met this one family that took me in while I was away from home. One of the boys that I took out a lot was on these meds because he had a problem controling his anger. I dont blame him though. His dad died when he was 2, from luekemia that he contracted through AGENT ORANGE.. His mom remarried and the guy was a jerk, more concerned about the the color green than anything. After spending two years with him, taking him fishing, hockey games etc.. alls he needed was another male to talk to, he had no where to go, no one to talk to. These kids need to be loved and able to express there feelings, and not with a shrink. There is too much youth out there going un-noticed felling unwanted. A little kindness can go a long way.

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Rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6.
 
Daughter has ADD, Son has ADHD. Both are bright, charming, kids that have trouble concentrating.Prior to Ritalin, they had poor grades, and Son was disruptive in his 1st grade class. Post Ritalin(Light doses) they are the same bright charming kids, but they can stay on task for much longer.Daughter's a soph in college, son's 13 and is on the School Council,and helped design his school's website.Both are getting good grades.

BTW, I stayed on night shift for a decade so we could spend more time together.

Overmedication's a problem. But in this case, Ritalin was the right answer.

And while both of our kids love to hunt, fish and target shoot, I doubt they'll shoot up their schools.

The kicker is, the experts say our kids' problems are hereditary. They got it from me,
based on what happened when I was in school. But back then, the nuns' approach to dealing with a kid that was not typical was quite physical.End result, a big,sullen kid that became an ex Catholic the day I was on my own, and an adult that still has problems dealing with authority.
 
I have some personal experience with this subject. When I was in 4th grade my parents took me to a child psychologist. This "psychologist" diagnosed me with ADD and recommended medication. My doctor advised against it. Me parents went with the psycologist and tried a drug called Silert (pardon my spelling) this drug is a form of speed and did the same effect to me. I was high as a kite for almost 24 hours. Next the put me on ritalin, my parents thought that it worked and kept me on it.
When I was a junior in high school I went to my Marine Corps recruiter and he told me I would have to be off the ritalin for one year before I joined. I went to see my doctor and he told me he never recommended that I be put on meds. He said that my records were about as close to normal as you can get now days. I immediately went off the ritalin and saw no ill effects.
To join the Marines I had to see a psycologist because of the ritalin. The psycologist said I was fine.
This is what happens when a parent looks for a quick fix. Yeah pump the kids with psychoactive drugs. And also I got picked on alot because of it in school and never fit in either.

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"Guns don't kill people the government does", Rusty Shackleford.

[This message has been edited by jnix (edited February 23, 2000).]
 
I'm not convinced its monetarily better to have both parents working. NBC did a 20/20 thing on that; they looked at this young couple who were barely making ends meet and were really frayed around the edges. he was working 50+ hours a week doing semi-skilled labor, she was working nights doing unskilled labor. one small child in daycare. they brought in a financial planner, who showed that they would *gain* a couple hundred dollars a month if she quit work and stopped paying daycare. almost all of her salary was eaten up by income taxes, daycare, and prepared food.

instead of teaching classic American literature in high school, they ought to require one full year of personal finance and economics.

asking a psychiatrist or psychologist if your child needs help is like asking a barber if you need a haircut.

if and when I have kids, ideally I'd like the mother to stay home for at least the first 7 or 8 years, then I'd want to stay home for the next 7 or 8 years. kids need two different perspectives on stuff. plus, I think the goal-oriented mentality that men typically have is just what kids need in their teen years to avoid that whole self-absorption thing.
 
While I feel that many are cases of over medication, some do need to be on it, even if on a light dosage. Almost two years ago, I became an 'insta-Dad' to my girlfriend's three children. The youngest was, and still is on Ritalin. This was a boy, who before medication, was jumping on and standing on the school desks and doing any number of things. Yet when someone asked him why he did what he did, most of the time he couldn't even remember what he had just done. He still has his moments, but both Mom and I don't take no crap from him, and we hold him accountable for his actions. The first eight years of his life weren't exactly easy. He had a jerk of a Dad who was abusive towards Mom, and after that, for four years, she was with another abusive snot who only cared about his whiskey and TV. A day at a time, I'm slowly turning him around to the right side of life.
Sometimes, he can annoy the livin' bejeezus out of me (what kid hasn't at some point?), but last night was not one of them. Last night, he sat in the dining room, and asked intelligent questions about what I was doing, as I changed the scope base on my Mini-14, and bore sighted a new scope on my 10/22. He may have a had a rough start, but I'm going to make darn sure he turns out to be a responsible, respectable young adult.
I've got eight more years with him before he graduates, and by then I'll have him whipped into a lean, mean, American lovin', 2nd Amendment fightin' machine! :)


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Times have changed, but the nature of man hasn't. That's why I always go to AA, "Alert and Armed". :)
 
<<instead of teaching classic American literature in high school, they ought to require one full year of personal finance and economics.>>

Hey...them's fightin' words...teach all the economics you want, I'm all for it -- but leave American Literature alone!

Misslecop's situation sounds typical. What this kid needed wasn't a pill, it was a DAD.

I work for a correctional/treatment facility for teenagers. One of the ways they were able to convince me to join them was to pitch this "non-medical model" theory at me: Kids are on too much medicine these days, we wean them off as soon as they get here and don't solve our behavior problems by throwing Ritalin at them. For about a year, it was really great. The kids who had finally gotten off the stuff were really happy and their self-esteem was soaring.

Two years later, we're back to chucking pills at them every time they act up. Why? It's cheaper than hiring decent staff, and easier than disciplining them or talking to them.

I agree with Ivanhoe. Asking a Psychiatrist if your kid needs Ritalin? Why not ask a used car salesman if you need a car? Think.


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*quack*

[This message has been edited by duck hunt (edited February 24, 2000).]
 
While I believe many kids are dumped into the ADD/ADHD catagory for many of the reasons stated here, it is not always the case.

My twin boys are a hand full. Mom stayed home with them full time. But school was a nightmare. She was in the school office 2 days out of 5. I was in there once a month. We tried all kinds of dicipline and behavioral modification and counceling. The grades and behavior were abismal.

After two years of trying all the different approaches, we gave in to a "trial" with Ritalin. WOW what a difference. We still talk with the teachers daily; but for updates on behavior not to solve problems. Grades have gone through the roof. And they are happier little guys. Yes, we also do the shooting saports together. But they focus better and even shoot higher scores.

In our case it helps. We monitor the doseage and watch for side effects. While it may indeed be over prescribed, it is not neccessarily "the devils brew" some of you are makeing it out to be.



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Bubba
IDPA# A04739
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It is long been a principal of ours that one is no more armed because he has possession of a firearm than he is a musician because he owns a piano. There is no point in having a gun if you are not capable of using it skillfully. - Jeff Cooper
 
Lot's of interesting perpectives here. This is mine. My wife is a 1st grade teacher at a public, semi-inner city school. She sees all kinds. I can't tell you all the converstaions wev'e had over dinner about the drugged up kids she has had. The seemingly common thread for these kids is poor parenting. I'm not criticizing you guys who have kids on drugs, it's just that some kids are real pistols. They take more perenting than you ever imagined, or can possibly muster the way your life is stuctured now. My hat is off to KJM, job well done dad. Here's a man who is man enough to stay home if needed and rise his kid istead of warehousing them with a bunch of other kids. My wife and I married young, but have waited ten years to have our first child-due in July. My carreer is at such a point where, even though I make two and half times what my wife makes, I will probably stay at home and telecommute-whatever. I am self employed and blessed with a job I love so this will not be a great sacrifice. I have always talked the talk about parents raising their kids-now I have to walk the walk. I hope this will be the answer to my child not being a behavior problem or in need of attention etc. Just my $.02.
 
Right on, Bubba!

I married a woman with two young boys who were diagnosed early on with ADHD. When on their medication, they are polite, articulate, sociable and funny. Off their medicine, one is surly, aggressive, uncommunicative and stubborn, while the other is so hyperkinetic that he will often watch TV while constantly turning sommersaults.

Overmedication is a problem. But, Ritalin and several other ADD/ADHD meds are stimulants - they don't work as expected on kids who don't need them.

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Gun control is being able to hit your target.
 
Yes, the drugs-to-fix-all-problems approach is disconcerting - I heard an ad today for a drug you can take to counteract the loss of sexual libido one encounters when taking an anti-depressant drug. When will it end? Of course, I can't say what's legit and what's not, not being a medical professional.
 
FWIW:
The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) is a non-profit, public benefit organization
dedicated to exposing and eradicating criminal acts and human rights abuses by psychiatry. It was
founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology


PSYCHIATRY AND THE
CREATION OF SENSELESS VIOLENCE

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN PSYCHIATRIC, MIND-ALTERING
DRUGS AND ACTS OF RANDOM SENSELESS VIOLENCE

It is a horribly sobering realization that the school shooting spree on April 20, 1999 at Columbine, Colorado, while devastating in its consequences, is only one incident in a tragic
trail of incomprehensible acts of mayhem and murder. You need only read a newspaper or watch a television news broadcast to know that schools are not the only place these
assaults have taken place. A review of media reports from the last fifteen years reveals that these incidents are also occurring on our highways, in restaurants, post offices, homes
and factories from coast to coast. While the number of these incidents continues to escalate, a more disturbing fact is the increasingly bizarre nature of these pointless murders and
suicides.

Acts of criminal violence have been with us since time immemorial but what we have been witnessing over the last couple of decades staggers the mind and assaults the senses.
These grotesque acts, devoid of any possible sense of moral decency, strike us as completely incomprehensible--mothers blowing the brains out of their small children, fathers
slashing their young children to pieces, employees "calmly" walking through their offices or factories murdering their co-workers, and young children going on maniacal shooting
sprees in school yards.

As each new incident is reported, we sit in stunned horror in front of our television sets and wonder what is happening to our way of life.

How can we be at the dawn of the twenty-first century with technology hurtling us into a space age future and yet continue to find ourselves without a solution to the escalating
number of acts of random, senseless violence? The reason is that we have been fed all manner of wrong reasons for why these tragedies have taken place and so they continue.

It is not guns that are the common denominator to these horrific events--some occur with knives, axes and even automobiles. Nor is it clothing, age, gender or political orientation.
The fact missed by most is that psychiatric, mind-altering drugs have been found to be the common factor in an overwhelming number of these acts of random senseless violence.
These drugs, on an ever increasing rise in society and amongst schoolchildren, particularly over the last two decades, are actually creating acts of violence. In 1997, sales of
psychotropic drugs topped $1.5 billion, double the figure of two years earlier.1 In short, the rise in senseless violence in America is date-coincident with the increased use of
psychiatric mind-altering drugs.

Consider the following:

In the U.S. alone, there are now approximately four million children on the psychiatric drug Ritalin, a drug which the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) places in the same category
(a schedule II narcotic) as opium, morphine and cocaine.2

Ritalin is the amphetamine-like drug widely prescribed to children for the contrived mental disease, "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder" (ADHD).3

Even Ritalin's manufacturer warns that "frank psychotic episodes can occur" with abusive use, while the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders states that the major complication of Ritalin withdrawal is suicide.4

If this were not bad enough, more than 909,000 children and adolescents between the ages of six and eighteen are on psychiatric antidepressant drugs.5

It is important to note that between 1988 and 1992 alone there were reports of more than 90 children and adolescents who had suffered suicidal or violent self-destructive behavior
while on the newer antidepressant Prozac, an SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor).6

However, as the following will clearly show, the connection between psychiatric drugs, violence and suicide is far from being limited to children.
http://www.cchr.org/event/31anni/violence/index.htm

[This message has been edited by dZ (edited February 26, 2000).]
 
Boy, did I luck out.

My 3rd grade school teacher, Mr. Feldman, told my parents I daydreamed too much in class and suggested to them that I should start going to the library and reading. From that point on, I was never without a book. Even today, it's at least a book a week. Thank you Mr. Feldman and where are the Feldmans of the classrooms today? I'm glad we didn't have a shrink to give me "candy."

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Vigilantibus et non dormientibus jura subveniunt
 
duck hunt, didn't mean to pull yer chain, but I'm talking educational triage here. plus I'm sort of extrapolating my high school & undergrad experience; for avocations, most folks after college pursue areas which they *didn't* have in school. I read a lot of historical nonfiction, probably because I didn't take history in college. and trying to make the average 16-year-old appreciate Faulker is "pearls before swine" for the most part. that should be saved for later, when it can be savored. maybe they can be given Hemingway, whose "all-testosterone/no-brain" style fits the teen years.

whitebear, "surly, aggressive, uncommunicative and stubborn" describes me at that age pretty well, and I turned out all right (at least, that's what I tell everybody ;)). boys can be a real trial in the first 10 years. I hope your young'uns can be weened off the stuff soon.

one difference between then and now is that my parents let me have the run of the neighborhood after I was 5 or so. after school and before dinner I'd be out in the street playing ball for 2-3 hours every day, and often for a couple of hours after dinner. not to mention climbing trees, chasing lizards, digging holes, etc. I don't have kids, but I notice that parents nowadays have their kids on a much shorter leash, and there is less unstructured time to burn off the physical energy. two hours of organized sports 2 or 3 days a week ain't enough.
 
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