Posted on 04/18/2006 7:39:33 PM PDT by neverdem
Over the last twenty years, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has emerged as a disorder of importance in childhood. Prescription of psychostimulants for ADHD escalated in many countries through the 1990s. Between 1990 and 1995, prescriptions of methylphenidate for young people increased 2.5-fold in the US [1], and 5-fold in Canada [2]. In New South Wales, Australia, rates of treatment for children in 2000 were nine times those in 1990 [3].
ADHD joins dyslexia and glue ear as disorders that are considered significant primarily because of their effects on educational performance. Medicalising educational performance can help children receive specialised medical and educational services; at the same time it can lead to them receiving medications or surgical therapies which may have short-term and long-term ill effects.
In the case of ADHD, there has been a complex, often heated debate in the public domain about the verity of the illness and the personal cost-benefit ratio of treatment with psychostimulant medication [4–6]. Much of the polemic for and against psychostimulants is concerned with the part played by doctors, the prescribers of medication, in diagnosing or discounting ADHD. ADHD is, however, a disorder of educational performance, and so teachers have a critical role in advocating for the illness, and its medical treatment. This essay explores the roles of teachers as brokers for ADHD and its treatment, and the strategies used by the pharmaceutical industry to frame educators' responses to ADHD.
(Excerpt) Read more at medicine.plosjournals.org ...
A man I used to work with was quite excited when BOTH his sons (5 and 7) were diagnosed with different levels of autism. The state now pays lots of money for their specialised schooling. If it could be avoided, I would never have wanted my child to be saddled with any kind of diagnosis that would follow him for the rest of his life.
The liberals want to turn our young boys into good little feminine robots.Some kids are put on Ritalin when all they need is a swift kick in the ass from their parents.People create little monsters when they fail to discipline their kids when they need it.Drugs should be used for the extreme cases when a kid can't control the urge to harm himself or the kids around him.It's better to spank a spoiled brat then drug him.
I was team mom to most of my son's various teams. Being team mom, I was in charge of their medical release forms (these forms have to be present at all games and practices).You have NO IDEA what some of these young and adolescent boys are taking, under medical supervision. Gave me the shivers sometimes!
I have ADHD also, and I'm a forty-eight year old mom. I've always had it. I got it from my mother, and she was born in 1923.
"WOW, that describes me too! I stopped taking naps at 18 months. I am and have always been a restless sleeper- I've sleptwalked a few times too, always talk in my sleep. yes. "
OMG! I stopped napping at exactly two, as did my now seventeen year old son. We're both inattentive, non hyper. We also both have Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome, and that seems to be my worst enemy. No matter how tired I am, I get a big creative burst of mental energy around 11 p.m., and I can't possibly sleep.
I have a great neice toddler in CA that I've never met. She just turned two last week. My nephew remarked to his mom a few weeks ago, that for some reason they just can't get her to take a nap anymore....
I'm sure there are people who are helped with ADD. I don't think it is a good thing to drug millions of kids. Their brains are still growing, and they're being fed stimulants. I know adults who say they have this. MANY. Just like years ago, when a similar number said they were molested. Satanic rituals and everything. Not buying it. Let boys be boys. Sorry.
If the kid isn't being quite and submission, a person with a high school education teaching a classroom of 6 year olds can force parents to put the kid on speed. After all, the teachers aren't being paid well enough to actually deal with 30 children every day if the kids are going to be able to talk back.
Now, that's bizarre....you just described me to a T. In fact, I'm working now at 1 am and will probably go til dawn. It takes me HOURS to "wake up", and I won't get it together until the second half of my shift.
Of course, this same teacher thought he had brain damage until I insisted they test him for the gifted program...once they found out he had an IQ of 140, they shut up. However, by then he had been on the medication for a few months and was doing well.
It was catch-22, basically. If we hadn't put him on Ritalin a few months before he underwent testing, they probably wouldn't have seen how smart he was, and then they would have referred him for the learning disabled class.
Anyway, I'm glad those days are behind us!
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
When I was a kid, it was male kids bored out of their minds.
I'll update it to today:
Boys in school bored out of their minds, not allowed to run around like crazy at recess, not allowed to tackle each other and roughouse to burn of natural boy energy, bored to tears with PC BS stuff, wandering away daydreaming, until their energy bursts and they throw a pencil.
Today's government schools are so anti boy, that their natural instincts can't be suppressed, and they end up on drugs so they behave more like girls.
Drugging our boys into feminsit ideals.
EDUCATIONAL PERFORMANCE AS DEFINED BY FEMINIST GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS.
Sorry about the anger, but it is total BS.
Outcome based grades.
What is the ratio of boys to girls diagnosed with ADD, or ADHD, or normal boy syndrome, or whatever they call it?
Boys get drugged now from early years, numbed through school so they don't shout out answers and throw pencils.
Grrrrr...time to take my Ritalin, right?
We've found that avoiding refined sugars and anything with yellow dyes in it can control the symptoms.
Unfortunately, too many people think ADHD/ADD means that the child has too much energy. That has never been my son's problem. He has problems staying on task and focusing. In the middle of a conversation, he would simply lose track of the topic.
I applaud your efforts.
Interesting. Thanks for the ping.
I am an adult with ADD. My productivity is double what it is when I go untreated. This is real folks.
So says Rush..as well. I agree.
So he may actually have food allergies and not ADD....?
There is another insidious reason for classifying all these children with various disorders. The families then become eligible for SSI benefits.
My sympathies. There is a theory about ADHD that relates it to early childhood television exposure within the first 2-3 years of life...I tend to agree with that hypothesis.
Translation: Your son was a normal boy today. Because I am a product of the public school system, I have learned that I do not have to tolerate children who: talk out of turn. Talk loud. Have a hard time staying in their seat. Are always hungry. Always LOOK like they're up to something. Bring bugs to school. Ask too many questions. Act like boys.
Therefore, Im rekwesting that your son be put on Ritilin, which will make my day easier. I like my students to sit at their desks and absorb everything I say. Please excuse any grammer, speling or typo erers, as I sed, I'm a produck of publik skools.
I didn't have any TV exposure until I was a senior in high school (although I did visit a friend to see Elvis's fires appearance on Ed Sullivan.) I had dyslexia (and ADD probably) long before either. So did all the other people that I know who had the problem.
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