FED'L MENTAL HEALTH TESTING FOR SCHOOL CHILDREN

Cong. Ron Paul - www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2004/tst091304.htm | 8-22-05 | American Spirit

[goodnesswins]

Are they going to test the administrators and teachers too? Maybe they should START THERE!!!

[nmh]

Haven't heard a peep!

Shudders for public school parents and kids!

[SteveMcKing]

You don't think that POLITICS will influence the test, do you?????

[nmh]

Just thinking about it ... didn't Bush pass something that took the teeth out of school systems medicating kids with out the knowledge and permission of the parent? I thought I heard something about that - about a month ago.

Haven't heard anything about coerced mental testing.

[thoughtomator]

I'd say the group most in need of mental health screening is public officials, and most specifically Senators.

[SittinYonder]

Both last year and this year we were given a form where we had to identify the areas where our children would most benefit from counseling. We were to rank them based on order of importance (things like grief counseling to anger management to study habits).

I would suspect that these forms represent a sort of soft launch of this program. But there has been no notification for us of screenings ... yet.

[thoughtomator]

Here's a new tagline to illustrate:

[headsonpikes]

Don't listen to him!

Ron Paul is just another Constitution-quoting, book-reading losertarian!!!

It's all being done for the future of the children, don't you know!

[diverteach]

God I'm glad I don't have kids to have to subject to our public school system.

[Bhrian]

Let's see. Johnny asks too many questions the teacher can't answer, so they call him ADD. They call in a counselor working with the school, who agrees. They require Johnny to see a doctor, who also works with the school. Doctor recommends medication. Parents disagree, try to protest, are charged by DHS with neglect, and Johnny is medicated and taken away to a foster home.

This isn't a crazy future. This has already happened in some districts.

[planekT]

...Haven't heard anything about coerced mental testing....

I heard about it. Thought it was a bad idea. Don't know if it went forward or not.

I think if a kid has real problems it would be evident to a lay person. I don't see any need for screening all kids, since most kids are normal. Something like this kind of assumes that mental illness in children is an epidemic of such proportion as to compare it to mandatory vacinations for disease.

Granted, I don't work in the CYA world of the public school system, nor do I send my kids there for their educations.

It is a fact though that if the school wants to test your kids mental health, and you refuse, they can test them anyway without your approval.

That I think is enough power, maybe even too much.

[thoughtomator]

I was a few short years too old to be a prime candidate for that... I asked a LOT of questions.

[Stellar Dendrite]

Hey Senator! Leave those kids alone

We don't need nooooo mental testinggggg.....

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

I figure being conservative, especially if you are also religous, will be deemed a mental illness. That way they get to medicate the "bigots" and the "homophobes."

[american spirit]

Good info.......I just figure as sneaky as these politicians and pharmaceutical companies are they're working overtime behind the scenes to force this on school age kids without the knowledge of most parents.

[birbear]

I need to dust off my soap box, it's been a while since I made one of my speeches.

Mental illnesses are serious conditions that need to be treated. One of the best treatments for a lot of conditions are the various medications that we've heard so much about.

Brain scans of kids with ADD or ADHD show brains that are severely distorted. Putting those same brains on medications results in scans being more "normal". (Actually the brain scans of people with ADD/ADHD tend to look like brain scans of people on illicit drugs.) If your doctor recommends that your child would do better on a medication, then for Heaven's sake, try it. Don't send your child up the river just because the med has a bad PR.

All that being said -- I don't think forced mental evaluation of all school children is a good thing. But I do think the teacher MAY have an idea (and in some families, unfortunately a BETTER idea) than the parents may have about the child in question.

It's a different world now than when we were kids. Students are subject to a lot different types of stressors than they were 20 years ago. It's only natural to see more cases of depression and anxiety. And, from personal experience, it's better to get treatment at a younger age than it is when it flares up for real in your 20s.

But I can appreciate the concerns.

[american spirit]

Yeah, I'd agree on the "soft launch" idea.......I'm quite sure the local school officials didn't dream up a form like that on their own volition. Could've been a premature "shot across the bow" just to see where the opposition might come from.

[the Deejay]

God I'm glad I don't have kids to have to subject to our public school system.

Same here!

My youngest graduated in 1987....

I have 2 grandsons in a Christian Academy..Thank God!

They have never (nor will they ever) set foot in a public school.

[stinkerpot65]

http://www.eagleforum.org/psr/2005/mar05/psrmar05.html

Article on it. Public schools are evil.