Freud & Children vs. H.S. & Children

Are they claiming ADD and then the doctors drug them?

Im hating all this lately about everyone using ADD or ADHD as an excuse to let the doctors drug their kids, and then giving the parents something to blame besides their own parenting style for the children's behavior. And I speak from very first-hand experience. My husband was diagnosed ADHD before it was popular to have it. Im really suspecting that our 1 year old boy is hyperactive too. But we won't be medicating.....and our kids behave relatively well for their ages....because we make them.

 

We need to be careful here.

It is an unfortunately fact that there is an overuse of drugs and misdiagoses in the area of kids' health. That is a serious issue that needs to be dealth with.

However:

The conditions ADD and ADHD are serious medical conditions that need to be properly treated, with medication when necessary (as a last resort, not a first resort). I have a dear nephew with ADD, and when he's not proerly medicated, he's a holy terror. He has no control over it, though.

We must not cast false judgements on parents of ADD/ADHD children and think that all they need to do is give their kids a good whoopin', just because a hundred years ago, they didn't know any different.

On the flip side, we must not rush to automatically presuming that every hyperactive kid, or kid with a short attention span, has ADD or ADHD. If I were given such a diagnosis by a physician, I'd prayerfully seek a second objective opinion (not coerced by either the previous doctor, or my own personal feelings)to verify the first.

It saddens me when I see adult Christians who choose to be ignorant of the fact that conditions such as ADD, ADHD, DID, OCD, clinical depression, and bipolar disorder, are realserious, and potentially severe medical conditions, which require professional medical treatment. While it is good and right to go to the Lord in prayer for guidance in any health issue, these conditions cannot be "prayed" away.

 

Is that sarcasm, or disapproval. The reason I'm asking is because my sarcasm alert device has been out of alignment lately.

 

more later but.......

Johnv,

I know, my college education was on special education, so Im not speaking without some knowledge. As well as my own experiences.

 

bapmom,
Please give me your opinion as to why in the 50s and 60s parents dealt with kids like this in the best way they could without mood altering drugs. Do you think it is better the way we do it today? I realize some of these drugs were not around, as some conditions had not been defined. It just seems to me there were less problems.

 

Bapmom, I have two in-laws with degrees in special education, and who work with special ed kids. They would agree with my previous post.

 

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8403762/

 

Barry and I have been doing a lot of reading in this area lately, for several reasons. Here is something we have been finding:

1. The parents of the fifties and sixties did not feed their kids as much sugar and junk food as today.

2. There are more innoculations demanded for children now and there are side effects to many of them.

3. The chemicals in the foods now are vastly increased from what they were before.

In other words, with a good many of our kids, the 'establishment' has done this to them and we are all suffering.

There are some other points to add -- when moms work outside the home(sorry about offending some here), the kids suffer. When moms work outside the home, there are more pre-prepared foods served at home, and that means more chemicals, and artificial flavorings and colorings.

I might add, in additon, that as a retired teacher, I find it absurd to the highest degree to expect five and six and seven year old boys to be in class for six hours when their large muscles are screaming to be used.

We booby trap our kids, feed them chemicals, inject more chemicals into them, and then put them on more drugs to 'calm them down.' What a way to go!

 

Hey Helen, can I add one more thing to that list?

Parents in the 50's and 60's didn't DO as many illegal drugs as parents today do. They practiced a wiser lifestyle than a good many parents today.

Parents can't fill their bodies with who knows what for 10-20 years and not expect that to affect thier children.

 

Amen. and the problem won't stop, as studies in, I think, Sweden have just shown -- effects come down from grandparents. And fathers who do drugs can do as much harm to the children they father as the mothers who do drugs.

 

As someone who has a severe form of ADD, I don’t know if I would ever take the medications. It has been such a long road for me to learn how to deal with this and things get a little better each year. I would be devastated if I were to take brain altering drugs which by the way can be permanent and those drugs where to change me into something I didn’t like.

Doctors go to school to learn how to prescribe medications, but as I often say they must leave their commonsense at the door. Don’t even get me started on that! I’ve seen and heard of several kids on medications that aren’t even close to being in my league. My own son, who is all boy but is nowhere near as bad as I am/was, was diagnosed and prescribe medicine years ago which caused a terrible fight in my marriage, threat if separation and all, but my final answer was OVER MY DEAD BODY! He is 11 now, took a firm handling at times, a few talks with his teachers and some understanding but makes straight A’s in school, is in the NJHS, and behaves very well and has a good disposition. I will admit I was very hard on him at times and have some guilt for that that I might have handled things better on occasions.

As for me, I pray about it a lot and realize that the quality of my life is affected in many ways. I have overcome so much but am still very frustrated that things aren’t better. It’s interesting that this tread came up because I was thinking of starting one as I have an appointment on the 22nd with a new doctor but fear he will just want to dump some drugs in me without me knowing what the outcome would be. I’ve been prescribed medicine 3 times in the past but only filled one and then never took it.

I am thinking to ask to see a more specialized physician and then possibly pursuing a natural holistic approach. I can’t see me taking medications without a real good understanding of what benefit they would have and what consequences I might face. I don't feel I've got a straight answer in the past to my satisfaction. Without being a doctor and too much learning disability in this kind of area to search it out sufficiently I can’t see myself putting my trust and confidence in a man who will after a short session undoubtedly decide MY brain needs to be altered. Lately the fear of not knowing the results is weighing heavily against gambling to improve the quality of the rest of my life.

 

I just got a second to be here again....

Johnv,
in my hasty post earlier I did not say it well.....I meant that I understand what you are saying and to some degree agree with you.


I need to go further also, and say that I don't think its a "disorder", so much as simply a different way of thinking. Helen is most certainly correct, we feed our kids far more junk food than parents used to, and kids today have more access to foods that their own parents did not directly prepare for them. Part of it is disciplanary problems. Yes, the ADD/ADHD child is different (more extreme) than the average. BUt if parents have the proper disciplinary skills and knowledge, they can teach that child how to maintain self-discipline....and to some degree, how to conform. These "symptoms" don't show up until school-age, for the most part. They surface when the child is being forced to conform to a set of rules outside of what they are used to. We all know those people who are extremely intelligent, they just couldn't seem to "fit in" to a traditional school setting? Their focus is everywhere usually, and yet at times they can be super-focused on one thing to the utter exclusion of all else. Try having this child stand at his desk to do his work.....many times he will be relieved and gladly get his work done simply because standing up helps him occupy part of his brain so that his concentration can remain on the homework. This is all within a school setting, I know.

My husband grew up ADHD, and his parents never medicated him. He did, however, take medication for a short time during college. He had run himself down so far that he lost control. The drugs, as an adult, helped him regain that control, and now he's not on them anymore.

 

Actually,
ADD was discovered in the 30's as a different name, so its been around long before yellow number 5 came into being. Also, hyper-physical activity isn't the main issue of ADD suffers, that is if people generally assoiate the word hyperactivity to running about and yelling, which I think they do, its being overly focused that people can't understand. I believe anyone who is/was a Renissance Man had ADD, and whatever discipline DaVinci, Isacc Newton, and all those other greates had seems to be the best method for them to have gotten so far in society. BTW, if any child does have ADD, caffine will actually reverse any hyper-physical tendancies they have. I've been taking coffie every sunday between school and service, and I have been able to sit through every sermon (excet for the one I fell asleep on when I had too much caffiene).
I just heard of a classification of 'Indigo Kids' and that they are scientifically supposed to have ADD. It looks like more of some sort of Autism, that is if demonic activity isn't involved in the first place. The doctors gave me 'Aspergers Syndome' personally, but that's probably touching 2% of my spirit.

 

Oops...here's one of the times I overdid it...I was staring dead on at the pastor, but I can't even remember what book he was teaching from (Papa says its was II COritihians...I was still thinking about comic books...

 

UnchartedSpirit,

I did a bit of research on the term Indigo Children not too long ago. Much of the definition sounds like many of today's youth -- the belief that a different set of rules apply to them, a sense of entitlement, etc. BUT when I got farther into it, I also found a psychic component. These children are supposed to have various forms of psychic abilities. Seems like the person who coined the term has some dubious credentials too.