[Founding Father]

Maybe someday we'll have a discussion on the root causes:unconstitutional programs resulting in greatly higher taxes, causing both parents to work to make ends meet (don't forget the women's lib mantra that you must abandon the kiddos and work for your life to have any meaning).

[Tired of Taxes]

This paragraph says it all:

Beginning about a decade ago, diagnostic criteria -- in particular, those of the commonly consulted Diagnostic and Statistics Manual IV (DSM-IV) -- changed considerably. Not only have new disorders been added to the list of problems, but existing disorders have been redefined with broader criteria, meaning that more children are now considered disordered and diseased.

And this one, too:

It is, instead, a dynamic in which adults who are around children less and less find their behavior more and more problematic and in need of alteration. This dynamic works the other way, too: Children who are around parents and other family members less and less feel and behave worse and worse.

[marty60]

Most of us already new this. When my daughter was pregnant, I preached, stay home with your twins. do not leave your children to be raised in their formative years by a stranger that may have weird ideas or mental makeup.

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

One of the major ways adults get government money is for their child to be declared to have some kind of mental/emotional/learning disorder. They get a prescribed medication and something I call "children's disability" money. I do not know the total amount that children are eligible to receive, nor do I know the name of this government subsidizing of mental/emotional/drugged disorder - I only know from someone on the front lines that it exists. It is appalling, IMHO. Previous generations were "drugged" by the promise of the welfare state. With welfare reform, some of that "medication" has been transformed from brain numbing to work requiring. (Not all, by any means - but some improvement has occurred). But that government program produced generations of "fatherless" children many of whom grew up to populate our prisons.

Now we are raising a generation of psycho drugged children - and what will be the result when they are fully grown?

I shudder to think.

[Mears]

I ws a latchkey kid in the late thirties and forties,along with a younger brother. There was no term for us then,we just had a father who died young.

We turned out okay!

[Recovering Ex-hippie]

I was a latch-key kid and survived!

It would be nice if every woman that chose to stay home with her young children was able to. But stay-at-home moms is not the issue. The true feminist perspective is choice with both roles ( career, job and family) deserving of respect.

Both my parents had to work. I was left alone from when I got home from to school till about 6pm. No day care, no special programs. I was told what to do and not do during that time. A snack was an apple or orange. When my parents got home we all ate dinner together (take out was rare). I did homework, my parents read or my dad played the piano to relax; mom knitted sometimes. We watched an hour or so of tv together. It was unheard of going out on a school night. There was plenty of talking and interaction time with my parents. The weekends were chores (another marvelous family bonding experience!) and family get togethers were priority.

I will agree that the consumerism driven society today puts "things" ahead of family. And lots of parents don't want to discipline, its just too much of a hassle.

[debg]

They are not "alone"...they have the internet where they reach out to strangers to fulfill their needs and teach them about asundry things. They have their "live journals" where they talk about sex, suicide, politics and trash each other over small things. They have email and phone networks that spread rumors like wild fires. The underground digital age is teaching our children and it's not pretty.

[Lurking2Long]

What's REALLY the cause of all these "crazy kids"...

Single mothers...

Drug using parents (sorry Libertarians, but it's the truth)...

Sky-rocketing number of legal and illegal immigrants...

Mothers who refuse to stay home and BE mothers (sorry, feminists)...

Television...

Did I need to commission a government study to figure all this out?

NO, I used something much better and infinitely cheaper!

It's called COMMON SENSE!

We should all buy some and use it OFTEN!

[SunnySide]

Maybe someday we'll have a discussion on the root causes:unconstitutional programs resulting in greatly higher taxes, causing both parents to work to make ends meet

---

you forgot to add the systematic legalized insurance extortion program. You can't get a drivers license without insurance and basically can't do anything else without law enforced high cost health and home owner insurance.

[CindyDawg]

I suspect we have always been messed up but didn't have "experts" to diagnosis and place blame and media to sensationalize.

[baltodog]

I was at the doctor's office with my daughter the other day.

There was an old Time magazine with an interview of the current Wal-Mart CEO.

He was asked something to the affect of how Wal-Mart can predict the demographics of America.

He stated that fifteen or twenty years ago, the hunting and camping sections were the most popular at their stores. now, they are the least, with the electronic games areas taking up more space.

This, he said, proves that they need to market more and more to kids and parents who have little contact with each other.

Kind of sad...

[Klickitat]

How convenient! The media coming out with articles about children's mental health deteriorating, and needing attention, just in time to lend impetus to the mandatory, government imposed mental health screening of all children.

[gidget7]

"evidence indicates that full-blown depression in children and adolescents is increasing in incidence and often is overlooked as a cause of behavioral and other problems."

*Try not force feeding kids your leftist agendas at school, which ALIENATES them from their family values!!!

Here too, what is thought to be evidence of disease overlaps uncomfortably with what many people with experience of actual children and teenagers might well regard as "normal" (if intensely annoying) juvenile behavior: "arguing with adults," "spiteful or vindictive behavior" and being "touchy or easily annoyed."

*ALL adolescents have some level of attention deficit, it goes with the territory! It's not a behavioral disorder, it's called rebellion!

In short, without the absent-adult problem, America's juvenile mental-health problem on today's scale would not exist.

*While this may be true in some cases it certainly is not in all, it's how that situation is handled, and how much quality time is spent that makes all the difference in the world.

*What none of these psychiatrists and academics will accept is that to keep feeding our kids these immoral leftists agendas, ie: sexual promiscuity, homosexuality as a preferable life style, absence of the correlation between nature and human existence, opposition to values taught at home, to name a few, in fact CREATES depression and separation from family. Not teaching self control, boundaries, lines one does not cross, consequences for ones behavior, reading writing and arithmetic, history as it truly happened! They need to stop INDOCTRINATING our kids!!

*Todays kids are in learning environments where they are taught to disrespect and defy their parents and the values taught at home, (sexual promiscuity as natural and healthy, to name only one!)they are taught a progressive agenda. Gone are the days when they got an education first and foremost and sex education was basic and taught abstinence was best. This is causing division in their families, causing their focus to be diverted to sex and obsession with sex, much too early in life. Adolescents particularly are discovering themselves sexually, they don't need their natural curiosity peeked thus diverting from their attention to their studies more than it already is. Even in grammar school, this agenda is unnatural, and causes confusion, as well as causing their inability to see life as anything but chaotic, and spinning out of control. Just MO.

[HitmanLV]

What unconstitutional programs are you talking about?

If a program is not mandated by the constitution specifically, that doesn't meanit is 'unconstitutional.' It may be 'extra-constitutional.' That is to say takes on an elective, but certainly not outlawed, function.

So what do you mean?

[Pete'sWife]

I would suggest that Ms. Eberstadt read "Don't You Know There's a War On?" by Richard Lingeman.

The book describes "Homefront USA" during WWII. Proportionally, there were many more "latchkey" (the term was first used during the war) kids then than now. The overwhelming majority of them turned out just fine.

Oh. They weren't victims in those day.

Nevermind.

[Baby Bear]

I would wager at least 25% percent of these children are probably feeling the effects of their busy activity schedules. Answer for parents: cut back on some activities and relax with your children.

[luckystarmom]

This article puts autism in this group, and how does

"unconstitutional programs resulting in greatly higher taxes, causing both parents to work to make ends meet (don't forget the women's lib mantra that you must abandon the kiddos and work for your life to have any meaning)"

cause autism??????