I want to add, the article I pasted here, does not come from me, but the author, so no one, please feel it necessary to direct any disagreements (hard feelings) towards me.
I just thought it was a good article,may be controversial,but many good points made.
I do agree with much of what was written, but also feel the author may have been too general, for there are legit cases, and I do believe if one reads this pdoc's article will see she does not discount cases, but wants to make the point that many of this is due to mis DXes, provoked from the school systems and desparate parents that haven't devoted time needed to see and confirm DXes that often can be falsely made.
Through my experience, being a teacher's aide, I witnessed school counselors in cohort with the teachers, labeling kids with ADD/ADHD and with professional evaluations, many were Bipolar and not ADD/ADHD, which led them to be wrongly medicated which triggered worse behaviours.
Many parents,wheter people like to hear this, would push for their GP's to prescribe meds., making their homelife tolerable,due to the fact the working mom's just did not have the energy to cope or work with their kids, the pills made it all easier for them and the faculty who lacked patience and knowldege of how to work with these kids.
Kids with FAS and/or LD's were clumped into this category, and sadly mis DXed and mis medicated which so often created havoc. My heart believes kids with various disorders,learning disabilities, and yes, parental weakness, need to be treated as individual cases, not some "one size fits all".
In depth evaluations by pdocs, and not consisting of 20 minutes, as the author of this article stated, is most important.
My sister in law and other RN's I've been around, that have been in the field over the years have literally heard and seen executive parents beg for ritilin,etc. to chemically control the kids they were too much worn out from work to spend time and give attention to their kids, very sad, when parents resort to this, when a child may not require meds, being chemically controlled to suit parents and the faculty.
Again there are true,legit,cases where intervention is needed,which is a great thing,preventing a child from future struggles,disappointment,poor self-esteem, and society looking down on these kids,crucifying them,etc.
Maybe I am now regretting pasting this article,but some of it is very true.
On the other hand, I hate to see any of today's kids suffer like I did in the early 60's,being labeled as "she doesn't pay attention","can be disruptive" and is not living up to her potential.
I'm glad things have progressed over the past decades, but hurts me to see overkill with meds/labels on kids that just need extra attention and re-routing of educating the minds that require different approaches where they can learn and progress.
It is an extremely difficult job in knowing what to do or how to do things to help our kids, especially those needing a little extra attention.
Just do not base things on a school's counselars opinion, instead take things up with a reputable child psychologist and/or psychiatrist, to achive a real DX, not what some website,book,films,etc. may give a survey/answer type thing causing a person to establish their own DX.
Our children are important, and we need to give them us ALL, not some part time attention.
It warms my heart to see the members here with children, are wise to this stuff.
Give them all the love,structure, and discipline they will need from time to time.
They are individuals, so individual approaches may work best, but be there for them, be parents not friends, set boundaries, and good examples. With that I'm sure we can all do good jobs, to begin with.
Lots of love and luck to all,
DE