FAMILY PRESSURED TO PUT S0N ON RITALIN

Associated Press .. direct feed | August 8, 2002

[SoftballMominVA]

I am not a member of the NEA, never have been, never will be. All I was doing was pointing out inconsistencies in this posted story.

As far as the teacher claiming that only SHE can diagnose ADHD and not a doctor--I am not doubting that she told you that, however, I am appalled at the arrogance behind that statement.

As far as teachers making a diagnosis and recommendation for medication, the school district that you mention is operating out of the IDEA guidelines and is vulnerable for any number of lawsuits.

Look up IDEA and read what the government says schools may and may not do. I will guarantee you that prescribing medication is NOT listed.

[fabriclady]

Parents, Please speak out.
Lets get this drug out of schools and out of our children.
Keeping your children away from this drug may also keep them out of prison.
HUG your children.
Don't hand them a pill.

[Al B.]

As far as the teacher claiming that only SHE can diagnose ADHD and not a doctor--I am not doubting that she told you that, however, I am appalled at the arrogance behind that statement.

Dr. Paul Wender is Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the Univ. of Utah.

He claims practically anyone can diagnose ADHD and he INVENTED the diagnosis while at NIMH in the '70s.

The schools can pressure parents in any number of ways to drug their kids, whether it be directly or indirectly. They did it to my wife and me, and they do it to parents every day. Get serious.

[ContraryMary]

My daugher spent most of first and second grade with the nurse or principal complaining of aches, pains, headaches. At one time the principal suggested medication for her. We nixed that.

We finally figured out that she was bored and not challenged enough. So we worked with the school on that. Today she is in 7th grade, a straight A+ student. The teachers let her do a lot of extra credit assignments.

We were lucky. She goes to parochial school. I'm sure if she had gone to the local public school, they would have pushed much harder for medicating her.

[3D-JOY]

Certified teachers, safe school grounds and supervised activity would not make lawsuits an easy target.

Think about it...how many teachers are out-of-classification for the subject matter, how many playgrounds are unsafe, and is the supervision adequate for the number of students?

I see school programs all the time which do not meet my expectations for level of safety on all these criteria.

If classroom teachers were even helped to understand some of the things that can be done safely in the classroom...it would be one big step!

The kid who gets to pass out the papers etc, and gets to move around, is always the one who can sit still and be in control! Let the "wiggler" do it!!

I could go on and on!!!!!

[Cultural Jihad]

Just curious why you formatted the title the way you did. The "o" is "s0n" looks like a zero.

[Hoppean]

Ritalin should be banned, its use discontinued. I've noticed that more and more it seems kids are being given this drug...it's become way too common.

Worse, I fear that since Ritalin use is so high in public schools that the normal kids will all be diagnosed as "hyperactive" when they're sitting in a classroom where 75% of the kids are doped up. The doped up kids will become the "norm" everyone is compared against. It starts a chain reaction--call it the "drugging down" of the classroom.

[Hoppean]

Just curious why you formatted the title the way you did. The "o" is "s0n" looks like a zero.

Probably a typo. I just noticed the zero is right above the O key on the keyboard.

[Cultural Jihad]

Yep. I noticed that fact only after having sent the post. It was odd to see the typo because I can't imagine anyone typing in an article manually.