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I guess it's time to chime in with my personal story again. I have a son, he's 8 will be 9 in about a month, who was diagnosed ADD two years ago. He has been on meds since that time. And it's worked wonders.

FYI, he has never been a discipline problem, he's a typical boy of that age and has never given us anything we couldn't handle, so that's not why we put him on meds.

We put him on meds because in school, he was literally on his own planet with his own private area code and zip code and was simply unable to focus on the teacher or his work, or to stay on task. He would literally ... and I mean LITERALLY, it happened ... be distracted by a fly on the wall.

FYI again, we don't have our son in a government school, we're paying money we don't really have to send him to a private Christian school which is EXTREMELY structured, they do things the old-fashioned way like I remember from the '60s when I was in elementary school.

We weren't "ordered" or "told" to take our son to the psychiatrist and put him on meds, his teacher and the school principal asked for a meeting with us ... which opened and closed with prayer ... and laid out their reasons for thinking that we had a problem and told us that however we wanted to approach this, they'd be right there with us and would support us completely.

Our son has responded well to this. He makes good grades ... he's always tested out as extremely bright, so we knew the intelligence was there ... he's interacting with his peers better, is active in sports and church activities, loves music. In short, he's pretty much a normal child.

My wife and I had always said that we'd die and go to **** before we'd put our child on meds. This was not an easy decision. We investigated it and prayed about it before moving forward. And we don't regret it a second. The proof is in the results.

So while I agree that for some parents and teachers, drugging the kids is an easy way to make 'em behave. But I think it's unfair to apply a broad brush in this situation.

FYI, our child got off Ritalin this year and is now taking Strattera, a non-stimulant ADD drug which we're getting good results from. It's not a schedule drug or a psychostimulant like Ritalin. In our experience with Ritalin, it did kind of "sedate" our child a little more than we'd like, but the Strattera doesn't "slow him down" any, he's still the wiggly, playful child I described, but it appears to be doing a better job than Ritalin of keeping him on the same planet with everyone else.

My son is 7 and has ADHD. We are trying Strattera also. I am hoping to see wonderful results at school which starts tomorrow. He starting taking it the middle of May. We asked the doctor to reduce it from 25mg to 18mg. He wasn't as interested in swimming as he was last year. His behavior was very bad at school (K and 1st grade) and we tried all kinds of punishment but nothing worked. He was in a different school in kindergarten than in first grade. Both schools thought that he could not help himself. My husband is also ADHD but back when he was in school they didn't know how to diagnose this evidently. I think it is hereditary. My son would cry and say that he wanted to be good but that he couldn't. It was hurting his self esteem and that is the main reason I think he needs the medication. It is very important that a child feels good about himself. I was also extremely against medication when he was in kindergarten. I thought that the teacher just wanted to make it easier for herself. I had to think about it differently--if I was my son would I want help by this medication.