Of course if these kids were not being medicated and they ended up going on a murdering spree (a la Columbine), these same people would be saying, "Where were the parents? Why weren't these kids getting the help they needed?"
It sounds as if the father is under the impression that the meds should be taking the place of parenting skills. Pretty indicative of our society's attitude toward meds.
No, EVERY time you look at your kids, you should be saying "How COULD I do this to my kids?"
Part of the "hyperactivity" trend in children is just the educational establishment trying to make children be passive and doped-up. Also, our grandparents worked when they were children (did chores on the farm or whatever) and that used up a lot of energy. People older than 40 were involved in sports, bicycle riding, etc. as children and that used up some energy. In the last 25 years or so children have been very restricted in the physical activity they are allowed to do. School sports are out because of political correctness and liability reasons. Most children cannot run around the neighborhood because it is no longer safe. So children have all this excess energy that is not given a constructive outlet. They are, essentially, physically constrained and given a steady diet of violent "entertainment" so it is no wonder there are so many problems.
Take those kids out of public school.
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What a country.
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DUH!
What happened to the good ol' days of my youth, when we used to mix our own...sigh...
These guys have had some success with various MI's especially bipolar DX's. I would hope the parents would at least give them a try.
http://www.truehope.com/
"Worth a read by parents who have troubled and troubling children".
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Parents themselves are often troubled and troubling....which might account for so many disturbed youngsters.
Let's medicate the adults first! See how they handle adversity.....wait a minute....perhaps adversity should be handled with a clear head...might build character....might even build a sane society.
sp
This is just as wholesome and as natural as god (Darwin) intended it to be.
Every child is now Elvis!
This doesn't specify what kind of psychiatric medication, but I wonder how many of these kids with severe psychiatric problems are the biological offspring of parents who have clear psychiatric problems (and if one does, it's likely that both do, since mentally normal people generally avoid intimate relationships with people who are obviously mentally ill). How much of this increase in children with severe psychopathologies is due to policies in recent decades of emptying out psych hospitals and sending the patients out to live "in the community", where they promptly reproduce. And also due to laws/policies which almost completely ended sterilization of mentally ill people. Not that there weren't a lot of abuses of the latter, but I think we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater, with paranoid schizophrenics and other severely mentally ill people freely wandering the streets and freely reproducing, even though it's clear they are utterly incapable of raising a child.
bump