Posted on 06/07/2010 8:12:07 PM PDT by Maelstorm
Here's just one statistic that Danbury school psychologist Charles Manos worries about: 42 percent of all kids in foster care are taking three or more mood-altering drugs.
"All kids in foster care have some story of trauma, like abuse or neglect, so we need to ask the question `How are we dealing with trauma?'" Manos asked.
Overall, children are receiving more prescriptions than ever before to treat medical, emotional and psychological problems, according to a May report from Medco Health Solutions.
More than one in four children with health insurance in the U.S., and nearly 30 percent of all children from 10 to 19, take at least one prescription to treat a chronic condition. The most substantial increases over the past nine years have been in antipsychotic, diabetes and asthma drugs, according to the Medco report.
In some cases, students take medications at home. In many cases, school nurses dispense it.
For instance, Danbury schools health coordinator Sue Levasseur said 80 middle school students receive asthma medication each day at school and another 14 to 15 children receive a psychotropic drug at school.
Part of the school system's job is to educate parents, said Manos, who has worked in local schools for more than 30 years and also has a private practice.
"I think we have become a society that says it's OK to medicate the symptoms of kids. Medication is easier. I think as a society we are quick to change behavior rather than understand it," Manos said.
(Excerpt) Read more at newstimes.com ...
My son is 20 now and I am so proud of him.
He still has tons of energy and is not very tolerant in that when he sees no reason to do something the standard way, it just irritates him to no end, but he does what he has to.
But he is ambitious and hard working and responsible and creative.
It’s a matter of teaching them to channel all that energy into something productive. And that takes time and energy and hard work itself, but pays untold dividends in the end. It’s not what people who are looking for the lazy way out want to deal with. Public schools are wasting so much potential.
My son is going to make a wonderful husband and father and once he’s out of school (after watching how good he treats he girlfriends already) and will provide for his family, as he feels that responsibility strongly.
And he’s a flaming conservative to boot.
Hang in there. You’re doing the right thing and it will pay some day.
At some point this country is going to collapse in on itself and I think that this is the only solution at this point.
I am also referring to the shady docs who are always increasing the "spectrum" to include kids who are not "autistic" in any way.
May God help U.S.!
Medicating the symptoms is not getting to the ROOT CAUSE and helping the child overcome it. We have a screwed up generation coming up and LAZY ADULTS and “cargiers” are to blame. Kids don’t have a choice.
He will turn out fine.
He has SMART parents!
You are right - DO NOT LET ANYONE USE CHEMICALS like that on your son. He’ll be fine.
Your son sounds like a wonderful young man. It’s always heartening to hear that everything worked out well for another very active boy. :-)
Amen. It's so sad that such a large number of children are medicated to control their behavior.
That looks like my son and dog when he was little! Except my son would still have most of his clothes on. The people at the dog park hated us. For some reason they thought the huge mud puddles were to be avoided at all costs. By both children and dogs!?
So what’s the problem with being on asthma meds?
There is nothing wrong with them but there is a lot of evidence that kids are over medicated. That was the point of the story.
They lump all drugs together.
Way to many psycho active drugs in kids.
LOL. Great photo.
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