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Are drugs for treating attention deficit disorder being over-prescribed to children today?
Are drugs for treating attention deficit disorder being over-prescribed to children today?
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| Yes | 87% | 113 votes | Total: 130 votes | |
| No | 13% | 17 votes |
Yes
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Add to FavoritesDrugs that treat attention deficit disorder are being over-prescribed to children who suffer nothing more than the emotional and physical need to be held, heard, and appreciated. Many parents are pressuring doctors to prescribe medication their children really do not need. Teachers pressure parents to find a way to make Timmy and Tammy sit quietly and not disturb the class. Not all children with behavior problems are ADD or ADHD. Sometimes, Timmy just needs a proper spanking from mom or dad and Tammy needs to know that, while her grandparents believe she can do no wrong, she must obey the rules at school.
Because of divorce, custody battles, blended families, and the stresses of being a single parent, many children become stressed and begin to act out at school and at home. There are other reasons besides ADD that cause children to find it difficult to concentrate. Doctors should rule out the possibility of sexual abuse, illness, home situation, environmental causes, and recent tragedies that would cause a child to mimic the symptoms of ADD. Prescribing methamphetamines to young children is a serious step in treating ADD. All other forms of treatment should be considered first. No one can say for certain what the long-term effects could be for children treated with ADD drugs over a period of many years.
Anyone who has ever lived with ADD or with a child suffering with ADD or ADHD, can tell you that the drug treatment makes a phenomenal difference in the life of the child or adult. Children who truly suffer from ADD experience such dramatic relief once they begin drug treatment. They find they can easily concentrate long enough to learn and excel at school. The relief from pressure they receive from parents and teachers to conform to rules and complete assignments allows them to build self-esteem which is greatly lowered as they suffer without a proper diagnoses and treatment. For those who actually need the medications, the difference is quite measurable.
All pieces of the puzzle must come together before a doctor prescribes such a powerful drug for a child. Children who do not suffer from ADD or ADHD who are placed on drugs for the condition have been known to exhibit extreme symptoms of ADD or ADHD. The medication can actually cause the symptoms. When this happens, doctors usually see it as an extreme case and increase the dosage of the medication.
Prescribing drugs for ADD is the easiest form of treatment. Taking the time to work with a child who suffers from ADD is difficult for teachers and parents, but should always be tried before drugs are used. I have ADHD. I raised a daughter who has ADHD and a son with ADD. My grandson has ADD and my granddaughter has ADHD. I have taught school with children in my class who suffered from one or the other. I have seen this affliction from all sides. For some children, withholding medication is a cruelty. For others, medication is over-kill. There is still much to learn about these conditions and the medications that are helpful in controlling symptoms. In the meantime, doctors should consider carefully before prescribing powerful drugs to young children who may not need them.
Learn more about this author, Barbara Stanley.
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No
Children are definitely not being over prescribed for children with ADD or Attention Deficit Disorder. To understand why this can be said, one has to understand what ADD actually is, and conversely, is not.
ADD is NOT a behavioral disorder. Some make that mistake in describing ADD. In fact, it has nothing to do with behavior in any way shape or form. I was diagnosed with ADHD, a more severe form of ADD that includes hyperactivity, at the age of three (which I will get back to in a bit) and my mother telling me that that the medication that I was prescribed that the doctor that prescribed it stated under no uncertain terms that this was not to make a bad child good. All it does is expand the child's attention span so they can learn.
ADD is a condition that affects the attention span. Granted, each individual child has their own attention span, affected by age and environment. However, ADD is very different from this. ADD is, in actuality, a chemical imbalance in the brain that makes the attention span far shorter than it should be, regardless of the environment that the child finds himself in, either at home, in school or any other situation for that matter.
The before-mentioned doctor that diagnosed me almost 27 years ago now described the effect this way: it's like a television that the child has no control of, and the channel keeps changing, and changing fast. From experience, I can tell you that description is one hundred percent correct! And I still have trouble with it from time to time.
ADD is also not caused by watching TV or any such thing. Laziness is caused by watching too much TV. Loss of time better spent is caused by watching TV. And though some argue with this point, violent behavior is caused by television shows that feature violent content that teach our children that its ok to be violent like the people they see on the television. That's external stimuli that have an end result. ADD has no external stimuli. It's a completely internal problem.
This again brings me back to the doctor that diagnosed me. She was a specialist that deals with ADD specifically. You see, regular pediatricians are not making these diagnoses. They are specialists trained to recognize it through a battery of tests specifically designed to reveal ADD in children and adults alike. So when a doctor diagnoses ADD in a child, it's a fair bet that you should believe that they have it because the doctor, knows how to diagnose it properly because they are trained to.
ADD is a chemical imbalance that can't be treated by use of better parenting. No matter how good a parent is, no matter how much success they may have had with their other unaffected children, the fact still remains that the problem is chemical. Doctors know this and that's why they, when the diagnosis is made, prescribe drugs such as Ritalin, Stratara and other such substances, not to simply drug the children into not being a problem child, but to even out the chemical imbalance that's affecting their ability to learn. So if a doctor thinks that prescribing such a medication to a child is going to be beneficial after the consultation with a specialist in the field, then he knows what he's talking about!
Learn more about this author, Jeffrey Wright.
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