Ritalin and Our Children

Welcome to From Insults To Respect. 

As I write this, it is the time of year that for most Americans the fresh new school year is well on its way. It is also the time when we begin to see some teachers becoming frustrated with some of their new students because they won’t sit quietly during lessons, or their attention too frequently wanders. And so, parents start getting phone calls from these frustrated teachers, urging them to consider having their son or daughter evaluated for ADHD. “There are medications available for children that help these kinds of problems,” the teachers explain.

Meanwhile the pharmaceutical industry, with its enormous financial resources, has been skillfully promoting how helpful drugs like Ritalin are. Dramatically less funded are folks who try to present the negative consequences of this drug taking approach.

To do my best to offer balance to the pharmaceutical industry’s point of view, in earlier posts I review the research pertaining to how effective and ineffective these drugs are (see HERE, HERE and HERE), and conclude that for many kids there is a modest short-term improvement in the teacher’s goals, but they then develop tolerance to the drug, and thus the positive effects wear away. In the end, students are subjected to the negative side-effects, while not improving their achievement levels, social skills, or high school graduation rates. At best, thousands of dollars have been wasted. At worst, the side effects of the drugs might have led to some serious physically harmful consequences.

In another post (see HERE), I review safe alternatives to drug treatment. I also point out that many of the students viewed as having ADHD really have an attention priority difference (see HERE). That is, many of these children have no problem paying attention to many types of tasks, such as art projects, singing songs, and playing sports, but find academic school lessons boring. Others are the youngest student in the class and are actually acting in a manner typical for their age.

Now, sometimes I meet parents who tell me that they have decided to go along with their physician’s recommendation that their child be placed on Ritalin or some other similar stimulant drug. I certainly respect their right to make decisions concerning how to raise their child, and I certainly don’t throw any insult at them. Nevertheless, it does sadden me when I hear about this decision, for I become concerned about the child’s stomach, kidney, nerves, hormones, developing brain, and bone structure. Drugs that physicians have said are safe and effective have, in the past, proven to be far more toxic than anyone ever dreamed. The latest such case involves the use of pain killers that fall in the class of Oxycontin, which many physicians cooperated in creating a situation now declared a national emergency. I for one have been deeply grieving over the suffering of the tens of thousands of family members caught up in this horrible deadly mess.

I grieve as well over the social misery that goes along with being singled out as a child that must take a pill to fix the problem said to be in his or her brain. More than a few kids have told me that this process, for them, became a dreaded experience.

I believe that teaching our children to turn to drugs when they are dissatisfied with their behavior or mood runs counter to the values of a healthy lifestyle.

I prefer to put forth a view that encourages us to teach our kids about the value of keeping our bodies in lifelong possession of its full youthful state by avoiding the use of stimulants and narcotics. I wish to teach our kids it is possible that the morning sun and air are far better and healthier intoxicants. Doing something that puts a smile on the lips of a loved one, accomplishing a valued challenging task, providing assistance to another human being–these are the directions I wish we would point to when we guide a child toward a fulfilling life.

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