The Drugging of our Children

[Makalakumu]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3609599239524875493

This documentary looks at the medication of our children with psychotropic drugs. It analyzes the culture we live in and it looks at the nuts and bolts regarding the process of diagnosis. Further, it looks at the role that the pharmaceuticals have to play in all of this. Thoughts, opinions?

 

[Kacey]

Well, I didn't watch it - 1 hour 43 minutes is longer than I have right now - but I agree that too many parents and doctors (and yes, schools) want a quick fix, and that's what drugs are - a quick a fix. Unfortunately, it's often not a long-term fix; despite all the recent advances in the control of biochemical mood disorders, the most common method of diagnosis is to try medications in sequence, and then in combination, until something works... at which point the diagnosis is determined based on the drug(s) being used, and what they are (theoretically) used for - if drug X works, then the patient must have the diagnosis that drug X is specific for.

How much of our dependence on drugs is due to advances in our understanding of biochemistry, and how much is due to our desire for a quick fix? How much is due to the desire to name something - even if it can't be fixed? How much is due to an actual increase in the number of people with diagnosable disorders? It's hard to say. To a certain extent, the increase is diagnoses is due in part to better diagnostic methods and better understanding of the signs of various disorders; on the other hand, it's much easier to drug a child than provide the discipline that might be equally as effective - but much slower and harder for all involved.

I know that, as a teacher, I've had far too many kids tell me something on the rough order of "I can't behave today because my prescription ran out" - and that really disturbs me.

I know that I once met the great-uncle of one of my students - a pediatrician - who told me that he determined the dosage of Ritalin children needed by upping the dosage until he saw a negative side effect and then backed off a step, instead of giving the minimum dosage that had the desired effect.

I know that I've had parents ask me if medication would solve their child(ren)'s behavior problems - and quite a few have gotten angry when I said I wasn't a doctor and couldn't diagnose ADD/ADHD, and they needed to go see the child(ren)'s doctor if they had concerns about a possible medical concern... and when the doctor was unable to diagnose anything (because, generally, the child was undisciplined, not in need of medical intervention), the parents would then request that the child(ren) be tested for special education - because a medical concern would mean it wasn't the parents' fault that the child was an undisciplined juvenile delinquent.

There are children and adults for whom pharmaceutical intervention is truly the correct answer... but not nearly as many as are taking medication, prescribed by a doctor or self-prescribed.

 

[Makalakumu]

A couple of points the movie makes...

1. The government, through the Dept. of Education, greases the palms of big pharma by shaping the rules of diagnosis in order to give more and more kids these drugs.

2. Increasingly, kids are being taken from parents by CPS because they refuse to give their children these drugs in order to "treat" them.

3. Psychotropic drugs have been linked to reductions in brain mass and increase levels of psychosis in kids, but this is being covered up by big pharma.

 

[Kacey]

A couple of points the movie makes...

1. The government, through the Dept. of Education, greases the palms of big pharma by shaping the rules of diagnosis in order to give more and more kids these drugs.

Um... schools neither diagnose nor prescribe, and while I don't know how it is where you are - if I even suggest to a parent that medication might be appropriate, I could get fired; we are no longer even allowed to say "if it was my child I would...", because if the school, through its employees, is seen as suggesting a particular treatment, the school district is mandated to pay for it. So while I don't know what the movie said precisely, it's really not the Dept. of Ed that should be being targeted - it's the doctors who prescribe, because as I said, educators neither diagnose nor prescribe, so targeting educators is meaningless in this context.

2. Increasingly, kids are being taken from parents by CPS because they refuse to give their children these drugs in order to "treat" them.

This has been going on for years... it all depends on how the case worker chooses to interpret "neglect". I personally have seen children taken from their parents because the parents refused to medicate (everything from ADD/ADHD to anti-seizure drugs to inoculations - we have a population of parents who refuse medications for religious reasons, as well as a much larger population who just can't afford it); I have also seen children taken because the parents insisted on medication (usually for behavior problems) and doctor shopped until they found a doctor who would prescribe something that could control the kid's behavior, no matter how inappropriate that medication might truly be. And then there are the parents who self-medicate with OTC drugs, alcohol, and/or street drugs, and teach their children the same... then blame the school, or the neighbors, or peers, or anyone but themselves for their children's addictions, school performance, and behavior problems.

3. Psychotropic drugs have been linked to reductions in brain mass and increase levels of psychosis in kids, but this is being covered up by big pharma.

Can't really dispute that; it's one of the reasons I object to medication as anything other than a last line of treatment. Children and teens are growing and changing too rapidly - including their brains - for me to see medication as anything other than a last resort... but the pharmacy companies, through advertising (video media, free samples, magazine ads disguised as articles, etc.) have convinced too many people - for themselves and their children - that medication is the answer, no matter what the question is.

I agree it's a problem - but I don't see it from the same angle that this video apparently does.

 

[bydand]

Well speaking as a Ritalin kid myself... OK a Ritalin kid for a very short time frame. ADD here :wavey: and speaking from personal experience; I cannot stand the thought of giving this stuff out like they do. According to my parents I always had a hard time paying attention in school and couldn't sit still for long at all, so they talked to our family DR. who determined that I was in fact ADD. (Don't know if it was ADHD or just ADD) So he prescribed Ritalin and I remember having to go down the the school nurse to take the blasted little thing everyday. This didn't go on for very long when my Father (bless his heart) declared to Mom, he wanted his "well adjusted goof off back!" and after talking with the DR. again they worked up a behavioral plan that would help me deal with the ADD without drugs. Total time was just a few weeks and I thank the road they took, because while I still deal with the mind going 100 different directions at the same time, I don't rely on anything to get me "normal". While I know it helps kids focus, and it helps classroom and home continuity, I still feel if you can teach the child to cope without drugs, it lets the kid develop skills that will carry through the rest of their life. I also feel that it lets the childs brain develop without artificial limitations. I doubt I would score as high on those stupid IQ tests if I had stayed on the Ritalin. I have no proof one way or the other, but Just gut feeling. :idunno:

 

[Cruentus]

Upnorth and others interested in the topic;

I think that you might find Dr. Breggin's work interesting:

http://www.breggin.com/

 

[Tez3]

I'm getting really tired of parents bringing their children into our martial arts club and telling me their children are hyperactive. I'm not a medic but I am a mother who has run playgroups, been a Tawny Owl in Brownies ( little Girl Guides) and Akela in Cub Scouts ( little Boy Scouts). These children for the most part are normal, boisterious, full of energy and curiosity, children. No, their attention span isn't huge but they are children, they have the attention span they are supposed to!

These, however, are children who no longer go out to play, their parents don't take them to the local park to play football (soccer though it could be any game) and run their energy off as my parents generation used to. Of course these children are causing problems because they are bursting with energy and they are expected to sit watching tv programmes quietly instead of interacting with their parents.

Sorry but this is such a 'thing' of mine I can rant for hours about it! I get parents saying 'oh please use his energy up for me' and they ask that I sort their discipline out as they ignore the parents but listen to me.

In martial arts I can only think of two genuinely hyperactive children we've had.The rest have settled down to learn and enjoy their martial arts. I feel for teachers in schools who have far more dumped on them, I believe these days it's common for children not to know how to go to the toilet on their own nor how to use a knife and fork let alone a pencil! The worse thing I find though is that the children aren't taught to listen. They don't have stories read to them and for me the really bad thing is that when I'm talking to a parent the child interrupts and has to be listened to! I'm sorry, the child should be told to wait until the conversation is finished. This is the start of good disclipline and behaviour for children, if they don't learn this they become 'me, me' kids, always thinking that whatever they want comes first. They interrupt the class ( martial or school) and become disruptive, then of course I suppose it's easier to label and medicate them.

I have had some new children in my Little Dragons class this week and have had to explain to parents that their little darlings are mine when on the mat lol! I don't appreciate mums running on to the mat with drinks whenever the child feels like it nor shouting at them over me! In dads cases it coaching them over me! The children, when given something they find a little hard to do instead of being encouraged to try are told it's all right pet it doesn't matter. Oh I could go on!

 

[MA-Caver]

Thanks Kacey and Tez3 for your comments. I too have seen lots of kids and have been one of those that could've been deemed super-hyper-active. It takes a special step backwards to look and see that 90% of these hyper kids are just being kids. Full of energy and looking for ways to release it. Kids are spontaneous and don't have the mature discipline of adults to know "now is not the appropriate time to let it out!"
In short as we've discussed several upon hundreds of times here in the Study and elsewhere on MT that parents just don't want to deal with their kids because they want that "down-time" on their own after a hard day's work. Sorry folks... you wanted kids? Then deal with the trials and tribulations that goes with them. It's part of growing up (learning to be a parent) and raising children is part of the maturing process. Just because you're old enough to get married start a career and begin a mortgage along with car payments and all of that and then start breeding doesn't make you an automatic adult. You're there but you haven't stopped growing/maturing. (Again) raising children is part of the process.
Tiresome? I would imagine so, having to help raised some kids (for a short time) myself and then mentally adding 12-17 years of it on a daily basis. But that's life... isn't it? But there are rewards and IMO they outweigh the trails and tribulations.

Quick fixes. The lazy parent's way of getting out of expending more energy at the end of their busy/hectic day, to keep up with their NORMAL ACTIVE kids in the first place. The docs get a-lot of special (high-end) incentives from the pharmaceuticals companies to "push" these drugs. Insurance companies pay out per patient per visit. So getting as many patients in and out of your office each day pays off at the end of the month. It's a vicious cycle that somehow we've as a society have gotten ourselves into.

We've become such a drug culture which is ironic because of the so-called-drug war. Too many times I've turned on the tube or turned the pages of a magazine to find a drug ad. And MY GOD! How many of those drug ads tell us "don't take this if you suffer from this, this, this and that." I mean why the hell bother taking them at all? Are we sure these damned things have passed the FDA?
We've become such a drug culture... and what are we teaching our children? Take this... it'll make you feel better... and they grow up (if they survive the compulsions to commit suicide which has been a noted long term effect or after effect of drugs like ritalin) thinking ... well this is what my dad/mum/doc did for me.

I think there's a danger in medicating kids to the point of stuporicity. There the loss of an active imagination that goes with active child's play. Kids running around are imagining as well as expending energy. Exercising those brains imaging this or that. Doesn't ANYONE actually remember what it's like being a kid? Some of us do... unfortunately it's not the RIGHT someones. Doctors should do well to try and remember their own childhoods. Some do... but not enough.

 

[Nomad]

I couldn't agree more with the above posts. We are overmedicating our entire society, but especially kids for things they don't need.

I took my daughter in to the doctor's office a few years ago. She had a bad cold that she wasn't shaking, and was having trouble breathing. Fearing pneumonia, so we went to the walk-in clinic (it was a weekend) where a doctor we had never met before saw her, listened to her chest, and prescribed an inhaled steroid to treat her asthma.

Excuse me? Inhaled steroids of this nature are habit-forming; taking them can cause a dependency on them even if they weren't needed in the first place. We failed to fill the prescription; by the end of the week she was better and has never had difficulty breathing since.

It makes me wonder how many others have had such bad medical advice, and how many problems among children are caused by the people we count on to cure them.

FWIW, my father was a practicing physician for 50+ years, and I work in the pharmaceutical industry, so I have nothing against either of these groups.

 

[Phoenix44]

Just out of curiosity:

Does anyone have citations in a peer-reviewed journal indicating that inhaled steroids are habit forming?

 

[Mr. E]

I'm getting really tired of parents bringing their children into our martial arts club and telling me their children are hyperactive. I'm not a medic but I am a mother who has run playgroups, been a Tawny Owl in Brownies ( little Girl Guides) and Akela in Cub Scouts ( little Boy Scouts). These children for the most part are normal, boisterious, full of energy and curiosity, children. No, their attention span isn't huge but they are children, they have the attention span they are supposed to!

These, however, are children who no longer go out to play, their parents don't take them to the local park to play football (soccer though it could be any game) and run their energy off as my parents generation used to. Of course these children are causing problems because they are bursting with energy and they are expected to sit watching tv programmes quietly instead of interacting with their parents.

You make a good point.

But I would like people to consider if it is the watching of television that is the big problem. I know kids that read books and watch television and are not wound up.

How about video games? Has anyone played one of those battle games for X-box or similar recently? I have, and I was a bit more worked up afterwards. My mind was working through how to hit and damage someone else, but the only physical outlet was in my fingers.

I wonder how much of a relation there is. After a few hours of mental work up for combat but no physical release, when kids get a chance to go nuts I would think they would take it.

Am I the only one that thinks there may be something worth looking into on this matter?

 

[Kacey]

You make a good point.

But I would like people to consider if it is the watching of television that is the big problem. I know kids that read books and watch television and are not wound up.

How about video games? Has anyone played one of those battle games for X-box or similar recently? I have, and I was a bit more worked up afterwards. My mind was working through how to hit and damage someone else, but the only physical outlet was in my fingers.

I wonder how much of a relation there is. After a few hours of mental work up for combat but no physical release, when kids get a chance to go nuts I would think they would take it.

Am I the only one that thinks there may be something worth looking into on this matter?

I believe that the lack of exercise and corresponding lack of imagination - along with the high level of stimulation from many video games - contributes to the number of children who are mistakenly diagnosed with ADD/ADHD, which, in turn, contributes to the number of children who are medicated instead of other, equally effective (but much more time consuming) methods, such as behavior modification or (*gasp*) physical activity outside the house. There are many reasons this happens - including parents who are concerned for their child(ren)'s safety, and therefore keep the child(ren) in the house, often using television and video games to keep them occupied.

As a teacher, I have watched the recommended presentation of curriculum be modified over the last 15 years - due to the shortened attention spans of children who expect information to be presented in the same short chunks as television shows, curricular material is presented in shorter chunks, and activities are rotated more frequently, a method that has long been common in lower elementary school, but which has been moving to higher grades for some time; students in general have shorter attention spans than they used to, because they have become accustomed to media presenting information in small chunks, unlike books or the longer chunks of unrestricted play that were the common experience of children in past years. Children today are often regimented into activities, designed to keep them safe and occupied while both parents work - but there are problems caused by that regimentation and need for safety that are affecting children in ways that are still being determined.

The games themselves are not necessarily the problem - but allowing children to spend excessive amounts of time playing them is certainly a factor in some behavior problems, has had an effect on education, and may, because of the behavioral and educational concerns, be contributing to the upswing in medication rates, along with the societal approval of a "quick fix" - a well-behaved child on medication is much more acceptable in many situations than a poorly-behaved, non-medicated child, and medication, when it works, is much easier and quicker than other forms of behavior modification... but the long-term effects are yet unknown.

 

[Phoenix44]

As a school doctor, I believe there is a qualitative difference between your average active child who just needs an outlet for his energy, and a child with ADHD. I don't think it's just a matter of degree. The truly hyperactive kids really can't control the contant information overload, and they can't control themselves--and they're often as disturbed about it as their parents and teachers are. The research using brain imaging is also showing different brain function and structure in the child with ADHD.

 

[Mr. E]

As a school doctor, I believe there is a qualitative difference between your average active child who just needs an outlet for his energy, and a child with ADHD. I don't think it's just a matter of degree. The truly hyperactive kids really can't control the contant information overload, and they can't control themselves--and they're often as disturbed about it as their parents and teachers are. The research using brain imaging is also showing different brain function and structure in the child with ADHD.

I don't think anyone in this thread has a problem with what you are saying.

Our point is that all too often people won't let kids expand the energy they have and try to keep them quiet. When the kids can't stay still, they chalk it up to ADHD and put them on meds.

Kids with ADHD really do need their medication. But there are far too many cases of kids who need something else that are put on them for the ease factor for the parents and maybe others.