‘I WAS TOLD TO DOPE MY KID'

New York Post ^ | 8/07/02 | DOUGLAS MONTERO

[kattracks]

Should school systems be allowed to recommend that children be put on psychoactive drugs?

A 12-year-old upstate boy says the trusted educators in his local school forced him to take a cocktail of drugs that turned him into a psychotic who heard voices in his head.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Go ahead and brag about your kid. It's what good moms do.

[Lucky]

The last paragraph of your link can't be true.This source might not be too good.

[Aquinasfan]

The drugging began after a teacher became concerned that Michael exhibited symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

There is a link between dyslexia, ADHD and the "whole language" method of teaching reading. In fact, dyslexia and ADHD probably are the direct result of teaching a phonetic language pictographically, that is, of teaching a letter/sound based language system (like English) like a picutre/word based language system (like Chinese). In fact:

"Dyslexics had difficulty breaking spoken words into their component sounds (phonemes) and appeared not to know the sounds of letters and syllables...The dyslexic, in contrast, viewing letters, syllables and words and not knowing what they are, casts all about the brain for clues as to how the word parts are to go together and for meaning. What the dyslexia researchers never tell us is that in a century of dyslexia research, dyslexia has never been confirmed as an actual disease with a confirmatory, characteristic physical abnormality (without which there is no disease). "

Dyslexia Propaganda
Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD

Then again, the "whole language" approach to reading was developed by John Dewey to prevent children from learning independently in the first place, so this should come as no surprise.

[blam]

"The last paragraph of your link can't be true.This source might not be too good."

May be. I am in the process of cancelling my subscription to Scientific American because of their leftist BS. Maybe these guys are next.

[alisasny]

Thank GOD these stories are finally being told.

I think I actually LIKE this lawyer for taking this case ..: ))

My situation with my own child was similar. He was in private school with very high standards. He could not meet those high standards to be promoted to 2nd grade. I decided to try public school. They said they would promote him only if he was on medication. I buckled and we tried the medication.

I finally stopped these pathetic drugs and their side effects about 2 years ago. My son is now entering 5th grade (on time) and is fine.

He has the same 10 year old problems that most all the kids have. He is lazy, belligerent at times, argumentative, ect...

He is also smart,(reading at grade 11 level thanks to the 2 years in the private school) creative, playful, and sometimes he doesn't know when to stop...OMG

However he is a much more loving child off those evil drugs.

[alisasny]

Have you had any experience with the inner ear in relation to these supposed disorders. My son also took Meclezine, the over the counter motion sickness tablet for a while.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Home school your kids. No one care more about them than you. No, not the social workers or the courts or the politicians or even their school teachers.

Lord willing, my daughter will NEVER darken the doors of a public school room. (As if at 3 1/2 feet and 40 pounds she could do that. LOL!)

[Aquinasfan]

60-70% of students with ADHD have dyslexia. Note the table that recommends teaching these students with an intensive phonics program.

I find the phrase "intensive phonics" to be amusing. Have you ever seen the "Hooked on Phonics" program? "Intensive" is not the way that I would describe it. My kids used a streamlined version of that for a month and were both reading at age four. Professional educators can turn the simplest task into a career.

[GailA]

btt

[ladylib]

There won't be public schools in 40 years.

[ladylib]

That's the idea. It's all about job security.

[Don Joe]

"I'm trying to converse with you, but can't with the (???) sentence structured in the manner in which it was."

Grammar cops should try to speak in complete sentences, i.e., "...in which it was" what? "...in which it was scratching its navel"? "...in which it was counting to ten"? "...in which it was picking its nose"?

This may help.

[sharktrager]

Interesting.

I had to be hospitalized a few months ago, and have been diagnosed as bi-polar. I also have taken some screening tests for adult ADD, and always go well above the level at which it's diagnosed.

When do you expect to begin trials?

[Myrddin]

Clostridia are anaerobic. From what tissues have you cultured and confirmed the presence of this organism? From how many patients have you isolated the organism? Does a normal, healthy individual develop clinical symptoms of ADHD or bipolar disorder when infected with this organism?

[BossyRoofer]

Poor kid! Our country is out of control with these damn mind control experiments!

[steve-b]

Why do I get the notion

The only clue I have been able to unearth concerning the source of any of your notions is that your mother's obstetrician was known among his peers as "Butter-Fingers".

[nonliberal]

Does ADHD really exist? We never had it in school when I was growing up. If a kid acted up, they got disciplined.

[OldBlondBabe]

When my now 12-yr old son started first grade, the reading specialist at the school recommended that he participate in a special reading program. I had expected this; at the end of kindergarten he was still unable to identify some letters ,let alone read words. His kindergarten teacher was not worried. Neither was I, he had been putting puzzles together since age 2 and was a wiz at Nintendo, Super Mario Bros.; he just wasn't interested in reading.

After several wks. of the program I met with the reading teacher. She spent most of the conference telling me that my son was hyperactive and that I should consider Ritalin; it had worked wonders for her daughter. She described my son as fidgety, unable to sit still when he was with her. I told her I thought it was because my son was extremely shy, especially with adults that he didn't know well and he was nervous and this was a one-on-one learning situation. She disagreed with me insisting again that he was hyperactive. His regular first-grade teacher disagreed with the reading teacher's assessment.

My son only participated in the program for three months before it was no longer necessary for him. I never even discussed the idea of hyperactivity with my pediatrician.

My son does well in school, is well adjusted and is exceptionally easy-going and well liked.

Imagine, this teacher who spent 30 minutes a day, four or five days a week with my son, thought she knew him better than I did. Of course, I'm just his mom, she's an educator...

[FITZ]

I also wonder if the "computer age" and video games aren't somewhat to blame here too.

I wonder if kids are at all different than they were in my grandfather's generation. I think in the past boyish behavior was more understood and dealt with differently ---often with a paddle but not with drugs. The one-room schoolhouse was probably better in some ways because kids were segregated into groups by ability more than by age, now it's assumed that all 6 year olds are at the same level.