Schools, the new drug pusher.

Having ADD/ADHD myself, I can say that a diet really can help. I would not let your kid take more meds for the simple fact of how it effects your heart. It is basically an upper, and puts a lot of stress on your heart/nervous system.

For me, adderal and ritalin were a wonder drug, but i didn't need high amounts (for my size), and i was MUCH older when i started.

Intrepid, that's a worryingly young age to put a kid on drugs at. However, I can see both sides, methinks.

On one hand, drugs are not good. Having an energetic child is not a problem. Like Skadi said, things like ritalin are basically stimulants. So, when you give a person stimmies for X period of time, they either continue making them, stop makign their own. If they continue to make stimulants, then the kid ends up even worse. If they stop, it can have drastic effects later on in life.

On the other hand, I was a volunteer at a summer camp. I saw kids who were energetic- they were the life of teh party, and everyone had a blast when they were around. However, there were also kids who were energetic and acted out, who made EVERYONE miserable. Dealing with two or three was enough to make sure I never end up there again- even with the 1000$ + a month pay. So, imagine a teacher if you will. She wants to quash any behaviro even remotely like the kids I dealt with. I can see their side of the story, and it's not right, but I can see where they're comign from.

My advice is to either halve her dosage and make sure she gets as much exercise as possible ( actually, getting her involved in sports isn't a bad idea) or simply homeschool her. Best of luck though, sibkin.

DE

Thanks DE. Homeschooling is not an option as we both have to work, besides, we have 2 other kids, the oldest ADHD as well. BUT teaching her how to deal with it and how to focus, that we are doing. It worked for my son, it's just a long proccess. I know how difficult it is. I was worse than my daughter, according to my mother.

reply to post by intrepid


I understand your frustration. My daughter was in the same situation. It really worried me and by the school's recommendation i started taking her to a psychologist and neurologist who both suggested putting her on meds. then I thought to myself why all of a sudden the school is starting to make a big deal out of this. and you know what it is NOT my daughter's problem that they decided to hire a new grad for a 4th grade teacher. the teacher was young and very inexperienced. She could not control 30 students and her way of dealing with the problem was sending the "trouble makers" to the principles office for the rest of the day.
Because of this my daughter's grades started to fall down. Then I had had enough and told the principle that I will not have this nonsense anymore. Maybe it is the teacher's fault if she/he cannot get and hold the student's attention for 45 mins. Maybe it is the teacher's fault that he/she cannot explain the material in a way that the age group they are teaching understand and follows the lesson through. These are children and unless you can get their attention and hold it they WILL start talking and doing other things in class. IT IS NOT YOUR CHILDS FAULT. Please do not medicate your children unless it for a serious illness or a disease.
All these drugs are brain/mind altering medications. Your child's brain is still developing. You know what's funny is that in our times (i'm only 33 by the way) or even older generations ADHD or ADD only meant that your child was unruly and behaved badly. It still what it is. I don' understand why doctors feel the need to put a diagnosis to most simple things. Let your child have a short attention span... ALL children do. If their teacher cannot deal with that, then maybe she/he should thing twice about teaching younger kids.
sorry for the long post.

Amphetamines are a terrible drug. I used to take them as a prescription and it made my life a living hell on the comedown. I then started abusing it which led to a short stint of depression.

How long was she on each dosage before having it increased? I know for awhile the drugs actually increase hyperactivity but after awhile that lessens and the drug does what its supposed to.

I saw this documentary in my abnormal psych class about medicating children, which I remember was pretty interesting. It goes into the lives of 3 families I think and shows how each person did on ADHD drugs.
www.pbs.org...

[edit on 3-9-2008 by ghaleon12]

im still not convinced that ADHD is any realer than restless leg syndrome. (and I have to admit, if either of those are legit, then I have both bad, ha)

I was diagnosed plenty of times (with ADHD, or back when it was also called/confused with ODD). Turns out, I just needed to find some hobbies that interested me, instead of sitting down in a desk for 8 hours, or being inside all the time.

I thank my parents all the time for not putting me on the zombie pills. I can tell you from personal experience, Ritalin and adderall are HUGE gateway drugs. Seriously. You would be frightened to know how many kids will save up their pills and take them all at once.

My friends used to take handfuls of adderall for the buzz, which eventually led on to other things once the pills didn't do it, or got boring.

I believe this is due to the fact that giving kids these pills promotes the idea that drugs will fix problems, especially mental / social problems (like ADHD).

Even under the huge assumption that ADHD is legit (which I still deny), what does that mean exactly, and who does it harm? It seems to only harm those annoyed with the person that has ADHD. That's a pretty unique condition, you must admit. They are hyper, and won't pay attention to things that don't interest them. Neither of these things sound strange, or problematic.

Even in extreme cases, it seems that analyzing the diet, mental stimulation and physical exercise should all be of utmost concern. Pumping kids full of pills is sort of giving up. It's the pharmacological equivalent of sitting your kid down in front of the TV as a babysitter.

[edit on 3-9-2008 by scientist]

Originally posted by Skadi_the_Evil_Elf
The schools have become drug pushers. School nurses giving you everything from Ibuproferin to steroids. But the school should have no say in what your child takes, its your child. Schools getting entirely too involved in things they shouldnt be.

I would say all the push comes from teachers and higher ups, not nurses. Nurses generally are more aware of medication and their affects than doctors imo, you could say they are much more anti-medicine than Drs from my experience. They're much more into holistic health where Drs are generally more focused on the biomedical model, where the focus is heavy on treatment of disease (by whatever means nessicary). And nurses can only give out medicine that has been prescribed by a Dr. They can't even give out Tylenol without a parent note.

Sometimes local groups can help in aiding children with disabilities. A group in MN for example (www.pacer.org...) gives advice for parents and will also deal with the school in resolving an issue. They will actually sue schools for free if they feel kids aren't being treated well. When schools are threatened with a lawsuit, their ears perk up quite a bit. Otherwise, they can be very difficult. Not saying to do that, but groups like that can be very good at handling an overbearing school.

[edit on 4-9-2008 by ghaleon12]