Are drugs for treating attention deficit disorder being over-prescribed to children today?

by RNay

Created on: April 02, 2010

Being a mother of a son that was diagnosed with ADD gives a completely different perspective than that which you would see on a television commercial. My son went through a series of tests for nearly two years to rule out anything such as hearing loss, difficulties with his eyes or any other disability that may have otherwise been a problem for his difficulties in school. This story tells of a struggle between a school system, the medical system and the system of good old fashion parenting and understanding.

After everything was ruled out and my son was diagnosed as being completely healthy, the schools and psychologists ran a series of tests that checked to see if he had a learning disability and/or emotional trauma that would cause him to have a lack of attention or other emotional disturbances. It was discovered that he had a slight learning disability and based on the tests they did, he was also diagnosed with ADD. We were sent to the doctor to see what type of pharmaceuticals may be appropriate for my son so that he would be able to cope and learn better while in school.

First, he was put on Ritalin, then Concerta and then another drug. After about a year of medications and trying different ones (to find the "right" one), I got a report card from my son's school that showed he had only earned 38% in all his classes. How could this be? The medication was supposed to be helping him and his grades had actually did a huge dive. The previous year, my son had been in the 98 percentile for the math scores in all of California.

Instantly, I decided that my son was not a guinnee pig and I no longer wanted him to take medication. My son and I sat and discussed whether this would be an appropriate decision and he agreed that he did not want to live on medication. We did much research together and learned that his ADD could be monitored and the symptoms could be decreased through many different avenues.

A proper diet and constant monitoring of things such as sleep. sugar intake and emotional status greatly improved how he behaved. He was also monitored for his extra curricular activities. For example, if he were to play video games for more than 20 minutes on any given day, he was more hyper. Conversly, if he were to take the dog for a long walk or ride his skate board for an hour and get exercise, he was more relaxed and able to concentrate better. He also needed to be monitored more closely when doing things like homework. Instead of doing an hour of homework

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