WTF?

[conuly]

Spending Soars for Children's Behavioural Meds

They're now giving behavioural medication for children under five? Ritalin? For AD(H)D for children under five years of age? What is WRONG with people? At five years old, do you really know if the child isn't just being a little absentminded and hyper? You know, like five year olds are supposed to be? If they're prescribing medication that early, can we really trust people to actually try teaching these kids how to behave and control themselves? More importantly, do we really know what these medications do to young children when they take them for several years?

Of course, I don't really know enough about this to talk. So I'll hush now.

Comments

[moggymania.livejournal.com]

They're giving them to two-year-olds at this point, according to a few studies I've run across. Most of them are being pressured into it by schools that don't want to have to deal with kids that do anything other than sit quietly and exhibit perfect obedience from preschool on up. It's not really different, in that sense, from previous hyper-obedience-focused attempts in our society to force young children to act *very* unnaturally, it's just that now it's drugs instead of beatings.

I'm not into medicating anyway -- what are they expected to do, stay on the drug for the next 70 years? Why not change the person's environment or society's expectation of what they do (as opposed to expecting we all do precisely the same thing), so they don't need drugs to function? Or teach them ways to handle their brain?

[staircase-wit.livejournal.com]

I'm mixed about this. On one hand, I don't want anyone to be given a drug that perminantly changes brain functioning and might leave them as meth-whores. On the other hand, I was a fairly quiet "good boy" in school who was harrased mercilessly by little shits. Medicating the little shits might prevent others from having to go through the hell I went through.

Ultimately, I'd like to see children forced into following adult laws when it comes to harrasment and assult. People think I'm stupid or crazy for wanting this, but I've wanted it from the first moment that I realized that if adults did to other adults what these children were doing to me, they would go to jail.

Trouble is...

[moggymania.livejournal.com]

The problem is, though, they're *not* medicating the aggressive brat kids, they're medicating the ones that just behave oddly. You might remember that it's normally the little shitheads that are obedient enough to endear themselves to adults, then they turn around and beat up on the "weird" kid as soon as they know the adults won'will find an excuse to not notice.

Re: Trouble is...

[staircase-wit.livejournal.com]

Granted.

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

Ritalin will only make the little shits more hyper.

They need sedatives if we're gonna medicate them.

Look at it this way: ritalin and adderal stimulate the same areas of the brain as caffeine.

[conuly]

There's a reason Lizziey was able to sell that shit to addicts.

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

Yup.

And I'll be going to college with a prescription of adderal.

Must reason... making... money... is illegal... >

[marveen.livejournal.com]

I'll also point out that oftentimes the worst bullies are the ones who like bossing others around enough to go for administrative positions in the schools. (I saw this happen in the school I went to during my school years. Two kids who were the nastiest bullies ended up as principal of the middle school and superintendant of the whole district.)

Naturally, they think of their own childhood behavior as ordinary and even justifiable, so they excuse it when it is repeated by the students under their authority.

[conuly]

Naturally, they think of their own childhood behavior as ordinary and even justifiable, so they excuse it when it is repeated by the students under their authority.

They're better than the ones who were abused and still encourage it because "well, I suffered". !!!!!!!!!!

[conuly]

I'm not completely against medication. I can see how they're useful for more than just the parents in some cases, and obviously for physical problems like asthma* they can save lives. But for neurological differences in children I think that the more caution, the better. Prescribing drugs for toddlers is NOT being cautious. Neither is prescribing drugs as anything other than a LAST resort with a LOT of help so that they can eventually get off the drugs.

*_{Though doing things to reduce the likelihood of an asthma attack is better than all the drugs in the world. This means finding out whatever you're allergic too, even foods, and avoiding it. Usually. As an adult, you can choose which is the better path for you, as a kid you're probably better off with less medication in your system anyway, so....}

I'd be a big fat hypocrite if I were against all meds!

[moggymania.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't mean *all* meds in my reply. I'd be a big hypocrite if I did... I require about 12 pills/day just for my organs to function, not including my asthma meds or whatever pain relief I need in addition to that. *snicker* What I'm against is the practice of using drugs to "cure" behavior that isn't actually damaging but is just not "normal."

Re: I'd be a big fat hypocrite if I were against all meds!

[conuly]

What I'm against is the practice of using drugs to "cure" behavior that isn't actually damaging but is just not "normal."

That is something I think I couldn't disagree with if I were paid and brainwashed. Got that from my parents, and I couldn't be happier for it, really (even if it means I *did* lose a few inches because of that early puberty thing). Especially when it comes to children. We have no idea what the long term effects of those drugs are! And even if we did, just pumping the kids full of medication is crippling them far more than any "disorder" ever could.