Can you answer me a question, if possible?
I went to school from 1948 through 1960 (Grammar/HS) and in all those years cannot remember ONE instance of a kid misbehaving that wasn’t stopped by a strong warning from then teacher and on occasion forceful putting down of the student by either putting him in his seat or grabbing ho;d of his arm to make the point. never have I seen in those days a student struck by a teacher or a teacher threatened by a student. Why, all of a sudden are all these kids “sick” and in need of drugs to keep them quiet.
What has changed to make them “sick” where they weren’t before?
There were plenty of hyperacive kids back when
There have always been troublemakers, clowns, and underachievers- in my day a lot of them dropped out or flunked out before finishing high school. Durng commencement I accidentally got the “diploma” of one from my HS class. It was blank.
By the time they were teenagers nicotine and alcohol helped them self medicate - the constellation of self-medicating drup option greatly expanded after the 1960’s
I do believe what we are seeing now in increased brain chemistry disorders has an environmental component. We are all carrying toxins in our bodies that have accumulated all our lifetimes.
Careful, that kind of thinking is going to tank a lot of Pharma stocks.
chemicals ingested by their parents pre and during pregnancy..i.e. drugs used in the 60’s 70’s etc...I am the product of a former coke user and numerous other things in the 60’s-80’s ....and I have severe ADHD that no amount of punishment or restriction would cure when it came to studying and retaining knowledge...ADHD meds were finally tried and as a result I finished with a 3.6 GPA and a bachelors in Communications..when prior to the meds I was stuck as a “freshman” for 3 years..unable to pass anything...call it what you will..but I DO know what helped me...and it had nothing to do with “self restraint”..”punishment”...”diet”...etc....is there an overabundance of medicated children? You betcher ass!...are there those that absolutely need it? You betcher other ass!... just my 2 cents worth
Lawyers and wimpy school administrations.
A teacher can no longer touch a child no matter what the child does. (Other than physical abuse of another child or the teacher)
This leaves the teacher with no means to control the child if the child fails to control him/her self.
So if a teacher has a habitually unruly student naturally the teacher wants relief. Every teacher wants an orderly classroom.
How can a teacher achieve an orderly classroom full of children with pent up energy with out the use of physical discipline.
The pharmaceutical companies supplied the answer. Isn’t capitalism wonderful? Someone saw a need and filled it.
Of coarse teachers have become the best imaginable sales force the drug companies could ever hope for.
Big pharma. Do you watch TV or read magazines? Do you see those ads from big pharma entreating you to ask your doctor to prescribe a certain drug to you that may or may not cure a disease that you may or may not have? By the way, have you ever listened to a motormouth spokesperson for big pharma describe the side effects of such drugs on TV or flipped many magazine pages in a print drug ad which detail all the horrible side effects of these drugs, which in the majority of cases sounds a lot worse than the disease itself. Have you ever noticed your newspaper or news channel pushing stories about new physical or mental problems, or new medical studies (reported by people like Dr. Sanjay Gupta perhaps?) and then, Voila!, a few weeks later, new stories about new and improved drugs that can ameliorate these afflictions. That’s big pharma and that’s how new “diseases” and afflictions become new diseases and afflictions .
Lack of exercise.
I've become totally convinced that that is the number one reason that kids act up. They don't get a chance to burn it out of them.
Parental discipline is a very close second.
I know I'll probably hear about it for not putting discipline first, but after watching my kids and how they behaved when they were on the swim team and when the season was over, I'd say the activity was more critical to their behavior than my discipline.
When they got enough exercise, discipline was not an issue. It took way less to control them because they didn't act up as much. It was a much more pleasant atmosphere around the house.
You’ve posed the $50K question. The answer is out there somewhere. Indeed, there is something going on.