By Selwyn Duke
While we commonly see bumpers bearing the message "Hugs are better
than drugs," you’d never know we believe it from our legalized-drug
culture. Recently I cited statistics indicating that 20 million
Americans, 40 percent of college students, and 1 out of 9
schoolchildren are on psychoactive medication.
And, incredibly, people now even give anti-depressants to pets, especially parrots. Polly wanna Prozac, I suppose.
Read the rest here.
This article makes me really sad. I do not agree with prescribing medicine to toddlers, but your statements about learning disabilties infuriated me. I was raised in a traditional family where discipline was meated out regularly. YET, I have ADD. I have had it from a very early age, and I still struggle with it. It is not learned behavior. This is the type of stuff that causes many of my students to suffer in the educational system of today. My nephew, who was diagnosed with dyslexia, had a teacher who said she did not believe in dyslexia and gave him grief for the entire year making it very difficult for him to even leave the classroom for help in the instructional situation that he was assigned by the district to go.
It’s very easy to make assumptions about things that you really don’t understand. If you’ve never experienced a learning diability, then I can see where you might believe that it’s all in that person’s head or the lack of parental discipline. BUT that is not the case. While there might be a few people who can fake a problem (and I’ve seen this), it is not easily continued for a period of time. I deal with these students everyday. I see them struggle to do well in school, and I see the struggle that the parents have to support them. It is not faked. It is a real problem.
As I tell my parents who struggle with giving their children medicine, if your child had a cold would you give him or her medicine? The answer is always of course. Well, there are neurological problems that require medicine. These students that have ADHD and ADD hear every sound in the room. I’m talking about something as small as a pencil sliding across a paper. It is not easy to drown out those sounds. It is a true disorder. Please don’t believe a columnist, who has no training, experience, or research in the field.
I agree that discipline is lacking for our society as a whole, but let’s not take a group of people, who already feel weird and different, and make them feel like they’re just not doing things right.
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Is there anything good in our society? Reading this stuff is like getting hit on the head with a roofing hammer, over-and-over again until the only thing you can do is go limp! Ritalin, child rearing, race, the evil of liberalism, the evil of Islamism, the Mexican invasion, the destruction of our culture…Come on, there must be something out there you like? How about a nice article on tennis or a pleasant time with a woman or how every day somebody, somewhere does something special that validates the place of human beings on the planet. Try something positive. Just once. Before you turn into a younger version of Michael Savage, eating alone with a dog for your closest companion.
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Well put Mr. Duke. I help coach a T-Ball team that has two children between the ages of four and seven both considered by the parents to have ADD. After three months of close observation and interaction with these children, my diagnosis is they need a swat on the backside and told no in a firm manner. I’m fairly certain neither has ever happened which explains the misbehavior. I witness this type of behavior in many such children these days and always notice the same common denominator; lack of proper discipline and attention from the parents. If ADD and ADHD were real ailments, then why have they become so widespread in recent history and affect a disproportionate percent of the population? It’s as if we’re dealing with an STD instead of a learning disability.
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I agree with you Joe B. Discipline, attention to your child and get them into sports…it moves the blood in their body and to the brain thus promoting mind clarity and most of all focus…PUT THE VIDEO GAME DOWN AND GO PLAY OUTSIDE!!!!!
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My name is Lance Burnet and i would like to show you my personal experience with Ritalin.
I am 56 years old. I have taken Ritalin for 30 years. I have been diagnosed with a mild form of narcolepsy. I use 4 (10 MG ) pills per day. The drug ahs worked wonders and eliminated the drowsiness and sleep attacks. My concern now is the length of time I have been on it. When taking a “drug holiday” it seems like my symptoms are worse.
I have experienced some of these side effects-
rebound effect when dosage wears off.
I hope this information will be useful to others,
Lance Burnet
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