I was perscribed Ritalin at about that age, and I feel that it was a mistake. Sure, I have always had a little more trouble focusing my attention on what someone wants from me (i.e. a teacher, etc), but my ADD also came with a great benefit in that I can focus intently for long periods of time on things that are important to me. My recommendation would be to work with your son to work on techniques that allow him to get by without the medication (structured study times, copious notes, an appointment/schedule/homework book, whatever it takes).
Using Ritalin made it so that I functioned un-naturally and as a result it wasn't until I was about 20 that I finally learned to control myself.
There are some extreme cases where Ritalin is necessary, but I think it is one of the most over-perscribed drugs on the market. People have been growing up learning to live with ADD for thousands of years without Ritalin and I see no need to change that.
Teachers of course are big fans of the stuff, since it makes your child more easily controlled, but is that what you really want?
I've found ADD to be a great benefit, and I've seen that most of the highly successful people that I've worked with have ADD and have simply learned how to properly utilize it. Out of the top three troubleshooters at my last tech job (QA Engineer & Level 3 Tech Support, all three of us had moderate to severe ADD.
Not only do I view it as an advantage, but I don't view it as a disorder at all. With the number of people being "diagnosed" with this disorder, it would seem to me that it is just a way of learning and a part of your mental makeup. The problem is that the schools just don't want to take the time/effort to learn how to teach kids with ADD, they just want to drug them into normalacy.
In the end it is a decision for you and your wife to make, but I would suggest a lot of study on the situation before you decide to resort to chemical means to change the thought-patterns and behavior of your child. Hope this helps in some way.
You're right.
Nowadays, any intelligent kid with little patience for droning slacker teachers is put on mood-altering drugs.
It's one of the ways for the system to fight it's main enemy, human nature.
It is oxymoronic to consider a disorder an advantage.