Nodding off at his desk as I am teaching a lesson on Measures of Central Tendency, my most "active" student is now lethargic, almost on the verge of appearing sedated. I am concerned. Behind a vacant stare, I notice a child who is in pain, the kind of pain that discourages the presence of emotion. His eyes cry out for understanding. If he could speak through his stupor I believe that he would say, "Help me!". I asked him if he was ok. He responded, "They upped my medication." Sad.
He is not himself. He has been told that he was hyperactive and that he should act according to societal ideals; unfortunately these ideals are opposite of his innate extroverted self. He is encouraged to be someone else. Acting according to what society would place at the top of the list of socially acceptable behaviors. Something has calmed him; it has made him a different person, too calm for his personality. What caused the change in his behavior? Without this "something" that has made him behave differently, he is intelligent; he is smart, he is an active little boy that enjoys making every situation an exciting one.
Ritalin is the culprit; the stimulant that has produced a monster of a disease that plagues many young students in American academic institutions. This disease is spread quickly as the student is labeled "hyperactive" when in fact he may just be a normal child, active and energetic. The student is called "special" when in actuality he is just different than what society calls normal. Unfortunately, the student is diseased because someone cannot "control" him or because his mind or body is operating out of the normal realm of societal acceptance and expectations. Misdiagnosis and overmedication are the diseases that sicken a child's normal behaviors and create artificial behaviors in an otherwise normal child. That is what many children experience as a result of over diagnosing many learning and emotional disorders. Is ADHD over diagnosed in children? I believe that it is.
Prescribing medicine to a child who retains information by banging his pencil on his desk (hearing a consistent beat, music) or getting up out of his seat and walking around (kinesthetic) is required to sit in the "special" class, take "special" medicine, and become labeled a "special needs child". It is awfully difficult for me to concentrate on things that do not capture my attention (anything not interesting or presented in a dull manner has the ability to zap my focus). I am oftentimes disorganized or easily distracted. I always seem to misplace my keys and I never remember my cell phone number. I just remembered, I talk incessantly! Sometimes I have to be told to "shut up!" Do I have ADHD? Although I've never been diagnosed, my "symptoms" are strangely similar to a child who has been diagnosed ADHD. What makes me different?
I recently watched the PBS documentary on "The Medicated Child" and was overwhelmed by the amount of children, ranging from 4-16 years old, that were on medication because of behavioral concerns shared by parents and teachers. One child even died in her sleep from an apparent overdose on medication that she was prescribed for her bipolar diagnosis. She was 5 years old. What causes a 5 year old child to have mood disorders or manic episodes? Did her doctor ever suggest that what she was exposed to in the home, maybe violent behaviors, inappropriate television shows, or a lack of social interactions, could have played a role in how the child behaved? A simple "She just won't do what I want her to" served as a catalyst for the child psychiatrist to stroke his pen and "create" a diagnosis and prescribe a medication that would possibly fix the problem. But was this child's behavior "fixed"? If fixing the situation silences the student than technically she was fixed. But, do we want to "fix" our children? Do we want to silence our children; keep our children from developing the personality that they were created with; or mold our children into what society wants them to be? In an attempt to fix our children, the result is a misdiagnosis leading to overmedication. Maybe this child was reacting to a stimulus in the home. Will we ever know?
Create children that are "seen but not heard" in today's society is a curse. Quieting our children and demanding that they "speak only when spoken to" or that they sit quietly for hours on end goes against logical reasoning. A child must be active and should be expressive in order to develop and discover who he is as a person or to learn about the world around him. Medically engineering the personalities of our children and creating carbon copies of them should require medication for the person that is guilty of doing this. It is insane. Our children should not serve as medical experiments. If our children are not paying attention to what we are saying or doing, maybe our mode of presentation is not on the level of his developmental readiness or maybe it's just plain boring. All children are not the same. Children develop at different rates. Understanding this basic principle will lower the number of children that are diagnosed as ADHD. In addition, utilizing different forms of presenting material to children, through music, through speaking, through movement, or through visuals, will also decrease the number of children that are diagnosed ADHD.
If "All men are created equal", then why am I so different!?