Posted on 04/29/2003 8:40:41 AM PDT by Houmatt
The following are short pieces recently written by Neal Boortz regarding Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, appearing in Neal's Nuze:
DON’T PAY ATTENTION TO THIS. JUST KEEP DRUGGING YOUR KIDS.
More and more medical and psychological professionals are speaking out against this phony disease of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Dr. Bob Jacobs, a psychologist, is on the advisory board of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology. He recently told a conference in Australia that ADHD is a behavioral problem, not a medical disorder. He correctly points out that there is no proof that ADHD exists.
Jacobs notes that many children who are “diagnosed” with ADHD – children who it is said can’t pay attention – are perfectly capable of sitting still with a video game and paying rapt attention for hours on end. He also points out that when parents pay attention and change the way they are treating and handling their children, the ADHD symptoms go away. “A real diseas doesn’t go away when somebody else does something.”
I just love it that this debate is surfacing again. Sure, Ritalin works. It’s a drug, of course it’s going to have an affect on children. It makes them more docile and compliant. Take that word “compliant” and put it next to “government.” Would anyone argue that government doesn’t just love a compliant citizen? Then why wouldn’t a government school teacher love a docile and compliant child? It sure makes their job easier, doesn’t it?
In 2001 U.S. drug companies made more than $600 million profit in ADHD drugs like Ritalin. If ADHD goes away … so do those profits.
It’s time for you parents and teachers to stop looking for the easy way out here. Your easy way out is a potential disaster for your child.
I’M STILL HERE …
The controversy over my comments on ADD/ADHD continues. Station management continues to feel the effects of an organized campaign to have me either silenced or fired. Hey, I don’t blame these people. If I was drugging my child for a non-existent disease I wouldn’t want anyone reminding me of my irresponsibility either.
Just to fuel the fire, here are some excerpts from letters and e-mail I’ve received in the last few days:
I am a Special Education teacher in Kansas --anti-NEA, extremely conservative: endangered species. Agree with you on ADHD. Problem - liberals insist all students with behavior problems have the right to disrupt the education of others, so meds used to control behaviors. In Kansas, ADHD students receive special education services under the label of Otherwise Health Impaired (OHI). Some of us know that OHI really stands for Otherwise HOME Impaired. Please do not use my name publicly -- retaliation from liberal dominated administration probable
Before you delete this please read on. I am ecstatic on your position on add and ADHD. I have a son that was so diagnosed, they, she who is always right, put him on Ritalin. it is a devastating drug, they are doped up and not themselves. Chris is adopted has a handicap and parents that care. i took on the problem, the problem was not a condition it was a matter of wills. i withdrew him from the medication and worked my ass off making the difference. Neal is right, get off the medication, instill confidence, give a damn about how they behave and stand firm. today my son has a 4.0 average in his junior year of high school and has been accepted to Penn State, will get a partial scholarship and is a GREAT KID. Not bad for someone the system wanted to put into a stupor. Dad's can make a difference, although you may not be the most popular guy around. God Bless
Man, when your right your right! The stories that I could tell you about my ex-wife and hooking my son on this drug since he was two are unbelievable. Parents and teachers are not alone in this. Doctors who are prescribing this and other mind altering drugs are the number one problem. My ex-wife found a doctor in Miami that did "testing" on my son only by giving him some blocks to assemble, and when my son started looking around instead of putting all of the blocks in place that was it, instant A.D.H.D. Oh yeah, this boy was not only A.D.D. He was hyper as well.(here's a clue HE'S TWO YEARS OLD!!) Needless to say this eventually lead to our divorce, but to make matters worse, there are judges out there who believe this crap also, so I did not get custody. He's now 15 and my Ex-wife and I have another court appointment to settle this issue.
AND NOW --- INTRODUCING YOU TO “ODD!”
This will be the next great fad disease for school age children. Oppositional Defiance Disorder. The “ODD child” is a child that gets angry or frustrated and defies authority. In other words … a child. He argues with adults, he loses his temper, he has a negative attitude, he blames others for his mistakes. Teachers.net has a chatboard discussing this grand new disease. One post by a teacher says: “Today was a really bad day. I have been teaching grade seven for four years and today was the first time I was called a "Whore," by a kid who has Oppositional Defiance Disorder.”
Stand by folks, this is soon going to become a full-fledged disease and some drug company is going to develop some mind-altering drug that will make these kids compliant and passive. Oh man, are the parents going to love this one. Here’s a link on this new fad-disease so you can start getting your excuses ready. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Valley/9346/odd.html
http://www.4troubledteens.com/odd.html
ADEQUATE DICIPLINE DEFICIENCY
There’s been quite a firestorm of controversy on the show since I started talking about the various experts who are debunking the ADD/ADHD craze. We had Dr. Bob Jackobs, a psychologist, telling a youth conference in Queensland, Australia that there has never been any proof that ADHD exists. Then there was neurologist Dr. Fred Baughman Jr. who, in a 1998 letter to Attorney General Janet Reno called ADHD “the single biggest health care fraud in U.S. history.” This has all been very unsettling to parents who have decided that drugging is certainly easier than parenting when it comes to controlling the behavior of their children. These parents really know that ADD stands for “Adequate Dicipline Deficiency.”
But, alas! There are many parents out there who have been unable to find a doctor or a shrink who will write that invaluable Ritalin prescription. Wow! You poor saps have actually had to deal with your children being … children!
Well, maybe there’s hope. There’s a new disease on the horizon out there. It’s called ODD! Oppositional Defiance Disorder? With any luck, your child may have this nifty new disease! As a public service, here is some help diagnosing your very own child to see if they might have ODD! The symptoms are:
Arguing with adults. Losing temper. Angry or resentful of others. Actively defies adult’s request or rules. Negative attitude Blames others for their own mistakes misbehavior Seems touchy or easily annoyed by others Deliberately annoys others Acts spiteful or vindictive. The psychiatrists are telling us that if your child displays four or more of the above traits … you may be a winner! You may have a child with ODD! Now you don’t have to feel so left out when the neighborhood moms get together to discuss their children’s afflictions. Looking at that list again, I would suggest that if your child doesn’t display at least four of those traits, he’s probably in a coma on a respirator.
Now … the really good news! The Psychiatric Alliance of the Blue Ridge is studying an “investigational medication” that may help children with ODD! So, in the very near future you may not only be able to discuss your child’s hideous new disease, you may actually be able to DRUG him!
Absolutely brilliant. What a remarkable gift you have for making a rational, compelling argument.
When appropriate, my boys get spanked. When appropriate they have toys and activities withheld. When appropriate they must sit and watch their friends play rather than joining them. They come from a stable two-parent home; their mom stays at home and homeschools them -- they are not forced to sit at a desk and listen to boring lectures; they eat precious little sugar; they get plenty of exercise; they watch a very small amount of carefully selected TV; they don't have a playstation/gameboy/etc; they play very few computer games and only ones which I deem to have an educational value; their father comes home each evening and spends time with them; their diet contains very few (if any) artificial colors, preservatives, etc; they live a reasonably structured life where they are expected to make their beds and clean their rooms and do other age-appropriate chores. Do you get my drift? All of the seemingly obvious, simple fixes regularly touted are a natural part of my son's life and have been since he was born. Still, there's a problem.
Keep in mind that prior to having children, I was hook, line and sinker convinced that ADD was a sham. I could tell you what was wrong with all of the children around me who were diagnosed. I was a youth group leader and knew a handful of diagnosed ADD/ADHD children (boys and girls) and their parents. Frankly, I still do think some of those children were drugged for convenience, but now that I've had to live with my son and see the challenge that faces him and those around him, I can understand those who choose to use medications. We have not chosen that path at this time, but I certainly can't say we never will.
I guess the long and short of it comes down to this: if you've never experienced having a child with ADD/ADHD, it can be hard to believe, but that doesn't mean that the whole thing is simply the result of poor parenting.
There was no argument to make. The post to which I responded was a blatant, obvious troll as it was clearly designed to get a certain kind of reply from me. And I did not fall for it.
You may also notice the poster in question never responded to mine. That is all the proof needed to show it was a troll post.
These kids are easily recognized because they DO react positively (extremely positively) to being treated with Ritalin--they stop bouncing off the walls and they can focus on their schoolwork. The rest of the supposedly-ADHD kids are completely unchanged (or slightly more "hyper") when they take Ritalin.
As the saying goes, "Tell it to the Marines!"
I was ADHD (yes, I actually NEEDED to take Ritalin for three years) in elementary school, and I served eight years in the Marine Corps.
Both those learning disabilities cluster with ADD and ADHD.
And ask his teachers if he can use a computer to write his assignments. That helped my son a lot - in fact after some time writing papers on the computer his handwriting is much improved.
Your post described my husband to a 'T'. He had a horrible time in school with the whole writing part. They actually put him in remedial reading, even though he could (and did) easily read an entire sci-fi paperback in one day, because he couldn't write a good book report. If anyone had asked him to provide a verbal one, he could have easily described the book quite well, but that wasn't the assignment so he frequently received poor grades.
The school tried various things with him, including sending him to a specialist who tried to figure out if there was some sort physiological problem. There wasn't. Eventually the school decided that he just needed to learn to use a typewriter. Not surprisingly, he never learned to be a touch typist, either, since that required him to take the time to learn to type properly so he could do the same boring assignments that never helped him develop good penmenship. (Now, lest anyone reading this thinks that he should have just been spanked, grounded or discliplined in whatever way, more, let me just say my father-in-law tried this. He later recalled that he spanked my husband far more than his other children, yet it never had the desired result. For those who wonder why his mother didn't spend more time with him, she did. Night after night, she'd sit with him helping/encouraging/forcing him to do his homework.)
Skip ahead to today. My husband realizes that the reason he didn't write well was because he was always in such a hurry. Developing good writing required that he sit down and slowly and carefully practice the skills necessary. He didn't find it interesting so he didn't do it; his mind wandered to a hundred other things. Even when made to sit down and try it, his efforts were half-hearted at best and he hurried through it so he could get onto something interesting.
He also had problems writing stories, although he enjoyed it very much, because his writing couldn't keep up with his mind. His stories would often be missing words or whole phrases because he couldn't get the words down on paper fast enough. He still has incredibly poor penmenship ~and~ he can't compose well either, even when using a keyboard.
He and I have talked about this quite a bit, especially lately. If he had been asked to practice his writing on something that was interesting/relevant, it probably would have helped. As an example, he's always been interested in electronics. If someone had asked him to draw and label a skematic of something he wanted to build and as a reward told him that once done correctly and neatly he would be allowed to get the parts and build it, this would have motivated him. It would have been a win-win situation.
Now, back to homeschooling. It would be difficult for a school to create these sorts of assignments for him and every other child. It just doesn't fit into their system. When homeschooling, though, it's pretty easy. Much of the "boring" work kids do in schools is because that's what the school needs to do to keep all the kids on the same page. The school can't teach to each child's strengths, so it has to create a variety of work and hope that some of it sticks with some of the children. It's much different when an adult, especially a parent who has a vested concern in making sure the child learns, can concentrate on a smaller number of children and exploit how those children learn.
My impulsive, figity, child who has difficulty focusing is also a hand-on child. He usually learns his math and science skills while building something. Frankly, it really doesn't matter if he's 'tiggering' all over the family room while he's figuring out what 5+3=?. I don't make him sit at a desk while trying to read. He can stand or bounce while reading and that's OK because he IS reading. Of course, we working on sitting still, too, but we focus on that alone. I don't try to get him to focus on sitting still AND sounding out words. It simply doesn't work. That's the beauty of homeschooling: I can do what works.
So, my long-winded answer to your question is that I do think homeschooling can work for your son as long as you're careful to take advantage of his strengths while you work on his weaknesses. If you try to recreate school at home, it probably won't work for your son for the same reason that it doesn't work for him at a traditional school.
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