[Sopater]

There is almost no research on the long-term effects of such powerful medications on the developing brains of children. The more that researchers learn, the less comfortable many are becoming with atypicals.

Initially billed as wonder drugs with few significant side effects, evidence is mounting that they can cause rapid weight gain, diabetes, even death.

JUST SAY NO!

[Red Badger]

Oh, brave new world, that has such people in it!........

[AdamSelene235]

Last year, when Risperdal became the first and only atypical approved for use in children....the association warned against potentially serious side effects, including lactation in boys

Billy's much better behaved now that he's finally started lactating.

[MD_Willington_1976]

SOMA, it’s a brave new world folks...

[Clara Lou]

I’m going to say that the root of some significant part of this is poor parenting skills.

[azcap]

Matthew's doctors are "leaning toward" a diagnosis of oppositional defiance disorder

 

That's a new one for me. I believe in previous generations that was called "bullheaded." and was often cured over a matter of weeks with a prescription of leather or wood.

 

[Tax-chick]

The ever-increasing number of kids who come through the doors of pediatrician Esther Gonzalez's office lead chaotic lives. There's more divorce and more drug use, more domestic violence and physical and sexual abuse. Working parents are overwhelmed.

I'm sure it's difficult for Esther. She can't force the parents of her patients to start living in ways that are healthy for themselves and the children.

However, isn't she potentially making it even worse for the children by prescribing powerful and under-tested drugs?

[OldBullrider]

There is an alternative to putting unruly and out of control children back on track, it is called discipline. This society has gone off the deep end we all think the 60’s adage “better living through pharmacy”, doctors are not the cure-all.

[Tall_Texan]

Only a fraction of these children really need the drugs. Of course, if parents were still allowed to swat the rumps of their little darlings without liberal condemnation, you’d probably see less out of control children.

[dakine]

Shoot, in the old days, we had to steal to get/buy drugs...now free?

[cinives]

In prior years some of this type of behavior was handled by sending the kid out to work at a trade or milk the farm cows instead of sitting in a room with nothing to do except create mischief.

Now, parents not only have no physical outlet for the kids to burn off energy and aggression, but physical discipline is also a no-no.

Drugs are absolutely not the answer, but some type of social accommodation for these kids to have a place to be useful to themselves and their families needs to happen. In this society, I don’t know what that would be.

[backhoe]

Last year, when Risperdal became the first and only atypical approved for use in children....the association warned against potentially serious side effects, including lactation in boys
Billy's much better behaved now that he's finally started lactating.

For whatever it's worth, I covered some of this years ago:

Rx Nation- are our children being medicated to death?

[Grizzled Bear]

Not prescribing drugs to a child who needs them, she said, “it’s like seeing someone dying and not giving them CPR.”

---

What happens when you give CPR to someone who doesn’t need it?

[sweet_diane]

I recently found out a child we know has been on Prozac. In the past we took her to church and youth activities and tried to teach her some manners. She responded well and got to where she'd behave appropriately when she was with us. I remember her coming into our home and plopping down on the couch saying "ahhhh... a family!".

Her mother has repeatedly told me she didn't want her, but agreed to the pregnancy because her Husband found out his kids from previous marriage probably weren't his. Her mother has always been more interested in ANYTHING that wasn't her and wonders why the child is loud, rude, nosey and obese. Her mother is waiting for her to start her period so she can get her on birth control so "she won't be pregnant at 15 like me, her aunts and her older sister".

Maybe the Prozac will help and she won't end up like her older siblings..her sister whose latest husband is abusive to her and their kids (she luuuvvvs him), her brother who killed himself drunk driving (it was the cops fault for trying to stop him) or her other brother who was recently beaten and drug down the road (it was 'the blacks' fault) during a drug deal turned bad.

Society - Hell - Handbasket

IMHO of course

[Snoopers-868th]

Simple: Herding the masses.

[Crazieman]

Great, I hope crap like this doesn’t screw over kids with legitimate issues. I have one that is the full gamut of paranoid delusional schizophrenic (turning 11), needs Seroquel and Strattera.

[varyouga]

I was out of control as a kid. My parents set me straight with a prescription for one of these and I'm thankful for it.

[kjhm]

When given to adults, some of these drugs have a side effect of a 50lb weight gain. It happened to my sister, when off the drugs she lost the weight. Could this be the reason for the obesity problem in children we are hounded about every night by the news media?

[wbill]

"Some parents are so stressed out, they come in seeking a pill," Gonzalez said. It is easy to medicate kids; "it is very hard to change environment." ...and therein lies the crux of the issue. Problem is not the kids, its the parents.

I was distresed by many of these stories. "Oppositional Defiant Disorder"? Where I come from, that's just kids not doing what they're told. And unfortunately, once a kid has been labelled like this, it sticks - problem or not, it's a hard mindset to change and the kid needs to live it down for years. And, I was particularly distressed by the parent that said their kid was 16 separate meds. Amazing that a doc would let that happen!

I am sure that there are cases where medication is called for, certainly there are cases where it helps. However, I think that it's an unfortunate mindset that pervades the baby boomer generation that "You just take a pill and things get better". The advertising that innundates people constantly doesn't help...an average person has plenty of the symptoms given in the commercials, or could easily talk themselves into them. Ergo, you wind up taking a pill to combat the side effects of a pill that you take to combat the side effects of pill that you originally took to fix a problem.

I think that the fact that they drag their kids into a similiar way of thinking is even worse. /rant off

[Xenalyte]

His mom, Cathy Peck, said Matthew's doctors are "leaning toward" a diagnosis of oppositional defiance disorder. And he has attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Me, I'm leaning toward a diagnosis of spoiled brat.

The cure is to be spanked once an hour every hour until the symptoms subside.

[Dems_R_Losers]

It also annoys me how little attention and research is being done into the potential causes of childhood psychiatric disorders, especially the relationship between pre- and post-natal nutrition, sleep, and environment. I believe my son has ADHD and is also undersized and underweight because I was very sick and undernourished early in my pregnancy, and also possibly because he was deprived of adequate oxygen during the last week of the pregnancy because he was on top of the umbilical cord. I would sure like to see a study of children taking psychotropic drugs and how many of their mothers had complications during pregnancy or childbirth.