After watching “The Medicated Child” I felt dumbfounded and confused on how any of this drug abuse is possible. I noticed the word “nutrients” wasn’t used at all through out the program. In my experience, when I go to the doctor, they ask me what my diet is and what hobbies I enjoy. In the movie, I never heard the doctor’s ask what the diet was of the kids or what activities they took part of. I find this peculiar.
After class I went ahead and looked up some articles on this topic. The most interesting article I found is here at http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/05/23/kids.overmedicated/index.html
In this article CNN goes into detail regarding the life of Gavin Gorski and debate weather its right or wrong to medicate kids. Gavin Gorski suffers from many learning disabilities and impulses he can’t control. His father goes ahead to say, “We couldn’t exist without him being medicated.”
Later in the article, one of the doctors says, “Pharmaceuticals should be the last resort after therapies and behavioral interventions.” I couldn’t agree with this more. As a child growing up my mother always thought I depressed because I would like to take naps after school. I was constantly taking different tests and asked to take different mood changing medications. After saying no for most of my life I decided to try Adderol and see how my life was affected. I started taking Adderol every day and I received the best grades in a semester I ever got. I was happy about the grades but felt like a total zombie with no emotions. for that reason I stopped taking the pills and never took another one again. It really made me feel like a different person.
I definitely agree with the idea that pharmaceuticals should be the last resort after therapies and behavioral interventions. I felt really sad for the kids that were given all those medications with horrible side effects. My younger brother whose 7 was having a behavioral problem and his doctor suggested behavioral therapy so we took him to a therapist. The way he was acting he could’ve been diagnosed with ADHD but we didn’t put him on any medications. Now hes perfectly fine. While watching this movie I realized that the parents of these kids were not aware of all the different treatment possibilities they had. So what if the doctors wanted to put their kids on 5 different medications daily, they should refuse and look for other options. Doctors are not God everything they say is not true.
Hey, the fact that we diagnose all these illnesses to explain children’s behavior is pretty controversial. It all stems from the foundation that society will construct a medical illness to something that diminishes functionality within the society. In the child’s case, I guess he/she is expected to function at what society has established as “normal” – no tantrums, no extreme behavior, pay attention in school, respect your elders etc. but it makes me think out to another topic that comes with this territory. Who is really to say what’s an “illness” and the appropriate treatment for it anyway? It seems to be different throughout the United States and I think that before we can take any of these treatments seriously this must be considered.
For example, if you go to California and say your uptight all the time, always stressed and cant seem to relax you may be diagnosed with anxiety and prescribed medical marijuana, however if you come to New York and say the same stuff they’ll probably say “hey buddy join the club” – and if you go as far to show them your “medical weed” so to speak you’ll most likely be thrown in jail.
How can in one place we say something is an illness and should justifiably be treated with something and in another place have radically different policies? Who really is correct in saying YES this disorder does exist and YES this is the appropriate means of treatment? It seems nobody really knows.
(hope this made sense, was relevant, and you guys got my message I was trying to portray! lol)
+ 1 on using drugs as a last resort. In my opinion, the scariest thing about medicating our children is that these drugs have not been tested in the long term. You would think that a child’s brain (or body in general) is much more vulnerable or at a higher risk for damage. What really bothered me about the video is the age at which these children are being prescribed. I mean, 4 years old? Seriously? Kids’ personalities change radically as they get older!
If children are put on medication at the first sign of a problem, they aren’t even given an opportunity to work through their troubles. Kids can be somewhat enlightened if they are put through therapy to better themselves. By learning more about themselves and how they interact with the world, kids work through their problems rather than being physically changed by drugs.
I’m not totally against the use of drugs for treating mental disorders, but I think it should be avoided if possible. Both the lack of information as well as fundamentally biased (Drug companies with ulterior motives) knowledge about drug use in children is cause enough for concern. These risks are rarely outweighed by the risks of allowing a child to attend therapy or other non-drug related treatments. I think the most beneficial way to help diagnose and treat children, is to educate parents about disorders and the proper ways to deal with them. Fundamentally, parents are the only people who know the exact way their children behave. It’s extremely difficult to verbally explain to psychiatrists and therapists the difficulties that children are having, therefore parents who have a better understanding of illnesses will have a better idea about their diagnosis.
It must be a terrible and uneasy feeling for parents to hear that there is something medically wrong with their child. I can directly relate to this since 2 of my family members have a condition in which there are pills prescribed to them to help the condition. One has ADHD, and he takes a pill to calm him down to be able to focus more in school.
However, I do not necessarily agree that it is a result of poor parenting; I feel that there is truly something that must be wrong with the child. Another cousin was diagnosed with depression and there is something wrong with the balance of chemicals in his brain. If we feel that these pills are being too easily prescribed to children as in the case of the article where a child is taking a high number of pills, or simply to help ease the stress on the parents, then I agree something must be taken into consideration. I feel that they should seek an approval to prescribe these drugs by having two doctors to diagnose the child with the condition. Or before we are even allowed to prescribe these types of drugs to children, there must be an alternative process, perhaps going to therapy?
Whatever it maybe we must take an extra precautionary measure before we just easily give one of these children some of these prescription drugs.
And when we prescribe them their medication it has to be for the better.