Posted on 08/10/2010 7:08:59 AM PDT by detritus
...But try, if you can, to strip away the haze of nostalgia and sentiment through which we generally perceive Mark Twain's world, and imagine how a boy like Tom Sawyer would be regarded today. As far as I can tell, that fight is not just "inappropriate behavior," to use current playground terminology, but is also one of the many symptoms of "oppositional defiant disorder" (ODD), a condition that Tom manifests throughout the book.
And Tom is not merely ODD: He clearly has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as well, judging by his inability to concentrate in school....
I am not being entirely sarcastic here: I have reread both "Tom Sawyer" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" several times in recent years, precisely because Twain draws such fascinating portraits of children whose behavior is familiar, even if we now describe it differently. As a mother of boys, I find this weirdly reassuring: Although ADHD and ODD are often dismissed as recently "invented" disorders, they describe personality types and traits that have always existed...
But if the behavior or actions of the children and the parents are familiar, the society surrounding them is not. Tom Sawyer turns out fine in the end. In 19th-century Missouri, there were still many opportunities for impulsive kids who were bored and fidgety in school... Even Huck Finn is all right at the end of his story. Although he never learns to tolerate "sivilization," he knows he can head out to "Indian territory," to the empty West, where even the loose rules of Missouri life won't have to be followed.
Nothing like that is available to children who don't fit in today....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The Therapeutic State exists to serve the State and create a race of obedient slaves.
Wow, I’m going to pull out my old hardcover edition of Twain’s works and re-read these two books through this lens.
Modern tweens/teens are faced with information overload along with overstimulation and are bolstered in their defiance to parents, teachers and overall authority by seeing how other kids are doing the same thing with little or no cause for concern.
When I was 5, Nintendo came out with their first console, and I went from being an outdoor kid to an indoor kid in a matter of a few months. I cannot even begin to imagine how my life would’ve gone with Internet ubiquity being what it is today.
I don't call a child who's forcibly loaded with psychotropic drugs "lucky".
"Abused" seems a more appropriate term.
I'm fairly certain what a child like I was many years ago would be "diagnosed" with in government schools today ... and what his chemically altered fate would be.
Disappointed it took four posts.
Except she draws the wrong conclusion - that we have to drug boys, teach them to “behave”, because there are no other options. Any parent who can, should homeschool. I have no doubt most of my brothers would have been drugged in a school, if they’d been so unlucky as to get there. My sisters, who are more peer oriented than me, would have been cliqueish snobby cheerleader types. And I’d have been a loner on the outskirts, probably attracted to the goth subculture from a feeling of just not belonging.
But fortunately for us, we were homeschooled. No drugs, or social pressure to conform to stupid norms. Freedom to be a kid, interested in things that maybe weren’t on the list of approved subjects for that grade level. Free to get outside for half the day and run around playing Indians. Heck, allowed to read the original, unexpurgated version of “Huck Finn!”
Where we live, the kids aren’t even allowed to read those stories in school. They are banned. I know of one family who were given the ADHD diagnosis for their child and offered a prescription. They refused the script and enrolled the child in numerous sports and a gym. His behavior improved DRAMATICALLY when he exercised at least one hour each day. Just a thought.
About 5 years ago the son of one of best friends was given an ADHD “diagnosis” by the “school system” (whatever that means). She asked me what I thought about it. Having known the boy and coached him in sports and Cub Scouts I told her - no-way, no-how, he was a completely normal, typical BOY. She and her husband resisted the “diagnosis.” The boy is now 14, a great kid, and still a completely healthy and normal boy. They just wanted to drug him.
jw
IMO, the drugging of our children is a crime. Those who are doing it are the ones whose behavior should be modified. I would modify that behavior behind locked doors over a long long period of time.
The Post’s postulation that we don’t have a choice, is dead wrong. What else is new.
Why is nobody addressing the teacher failures?
We should be asking, “why is school boring?”
Why is success in later life a result of overcoming the boring classroom?
be compliant...
take your SOMA.
I’m so sick of all this. A friend of mine has an ODD son. I told her he was just a brat that needed some discipline. My son tried hard to be a heathen but I was tougher than him. I remember people telling me I was too hard on the boy.
He learned to do things the right way because he knew mama would tan his hide. He’s now a national guardsman with multiple deployments, a volunteer fireman, softball coach, dad, husband. Everything a mama could desire. I shudder to think what would have happened to him if I’d been “modern” with him.
What I find fascinating is that she truly believes there are no other options. How ironic that a liberal is again shown to have a narrow mind, a closed-off sense of the possible. These people need lots of prayers!
It is very tough to be "just a boy" these days. My wife and I done our best to give our children the room to play, explore and learn in the school of hard knocks. It has been a successful strategy...
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