Ritalin

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Is it fair to say that most American liberals are only "liberals" because they are envious of rich people? No, clearly not, so I don't think your above characterisation of most American libertarians is fair either.

Incidentally, on US libertarian forums I have visited, Reagan is not particularly venerated (Thatcher more so) and the Christian right are largely despised.
That would be my impression too, the libertarian sites I frequent are mostly secularist minarchists who have issues with overregulation and government interference in social matters.
 
Michael Phelps had ADHD, he took medication for two years. His mother was also a teacher so she helped his teachers and worked with them. She's a spokesperson for a pharmaceutical firm and she says she could be on the fence either way as to whether meds are the right thing. I would imagine that every child is different and unique and should be treated as such, obviously he found a niche in swimming and also had an involved and assertive parent.
 
when i was growing up there were a couple of teachers who without them i don't know how i would have gotten through school... who weren't afraid to be a mentor, to tell me when i was being an ass and put me back on the right path.

today teacher's are afraid to do that. god forbid they say the wrong thing to the wrong kid, or they get a little too active in a kid's life... they'll be sued or labeled a perv or both.

young teachers don't want to get involved in coaching athletics unless they have tenure for fear of getting fired. i know a teacher who benched his two star baseball players for a playoff game because he went out and got drunk the night before. this guy was an alumni of the school, grew up in the town, was a D1 baseball player, had 3 league titles, a county title, and a winning percentage over .700. he was run out of town by the parents because they blamed him for losing a chance at a state title.

what does this have to do with ritalin? :shrug: schools aren't disciplining kids out of fear, parents have completely pussified our youth... something has to be done. pop 'em full of meds, that'll shut 'em up.

there are some kids that honest to god need this medication... and there are a ton more who are given it because it's the easy way out.
 
I think that my profession contributes to the problem by not adapting teaching practices that meet the needs of all children in general. I will use my son for example....

He HATES what he is reading in school. Put a graphic comic novel in front of him and he can read. Bring him to the museum of natural history, and he will read about fossils....but the materials that are inside of the books we use to instruct children, time and time again, are not material that he would want to read.

Lets look at culture. Time and time again, we see that subgroups, of some minorities score lower. We know that there are cultural barriers, and learning styles that help overcome these barriers. But, they are not consistently implemented.

And I honestly believe that there are NOT enough fathers being role models. There are not enough male teachers at younger ages.

I also think that parenting, has a major major influence on this. It is easier to put a kid on a video game and have peace and quiet than to parent.

It all contributes to the problem.

I am in tears reading this thread. All three of my kids are similar to your son, also my 15 year old step son.

I agree that kids do have different learning styles and they are forced to conform with one. The current style is great if you have a blue type style, but if you are green or red or yellow... forget it - you need to conform. However, if you don't conform - you end up either quitting school or not moving on to college - putting you at a disadvantage for life.

I have all the things you are mentioning stacked against me. Stepfamily life is complicated, and while my husband and I work hard to be good for each other's kids.. the birth parent is the one that has to guide during teen years. So, in some ways I would say I'm a single parent and he's a single parent.

Their Dad sees them Wednesdays and every other weekend, hopefully in a role model way, but I don't feel he's had a positive impact on them educationally. On his nights with the kids, the homework doesn't get done.

My oldest son just started his senior year, and his grades are awful. Most semesters he gets a couple of F's and D's. The biggest problem is the homework. He has decided to just not do it because when he has tried it consumes his life. Hopefully he'll be accepted to his college choice and hopefully he'll make it through. He just won't apply himself outside of the classroom. He is a hard worker and already has 3 jobs. He wants to be a state trooper and has known this for a couple of years. I know he'll be successful even without the college if that's the way it turns out.. but he will definitely be making less if he doesn't continue his education. :(

My daughter struggles in english and history - due to being assigned things that are uninteresting. She has been on Concerta - she started on ridilin in 4th grade. Her pediatrician from birth prescribed it. It didn't work for a year because I was too afraid to play with the dosage and what she was prescribed was not enough. I took her to a neurologist and she switched it to Concerta and increased her dosage. My daughter's social life has improved dramatically as the Concerta tunes her in better and she has decreased her impulsiveness. Homework is the biggest problem again, because the Concerta wears off and she won't figure out how to get through english & social studies with extra help, etc. However, you couldn't drag her away from the book "Breaking Dawn" until she finished. We just got connected to books on tape (I never thought that would be allowed in school) so that has helped. For the last two summers, she doesn't take the Concerta. She doesn't take it on the weekends frequently either. Her grades are better than her brothers.

Then, there is my 8 year old son. I see how hard the older two stuggle through/ignore homework and I want my 8 year old to learn to just do it. He has "classic" symptoms - follow through on directions, organization skills, staying on task. I so badly want to figure out now how we are going to get through his increased homework load before we get there.

The school system is for kids with a blue style and my kids are say yellow. Bottom line is, they need to do the same things that kids with a blue style need to do and it isn't easy. It's harder when I work all day and then need to do dinner. There are always meetings or something that comes up and they go with their Dad on Wednesdays - so it's so hard to keep things consistent. Making yellow kids blue at the end of the day is no easy feat. Especially when I'm not sure I'd be blue either. If the education system can't teach yellow kids to be blue.. then how are yellow parents supposed to teach their yellow kids to be blue?

Matt, I agree and see all of the issues.. even the video games. I am a video game witch. I work hard to limit it and push for other things. I also don't have a new supply coming in consistently in hopes that it will get boring. I am a stickler with game ratings and my 8 year old is already arguing with me over being able to play T games because "everyone does". :(

I don't think it will change before my 8 year old is done through school... what can I do different?
 
Please explain further what you mean by "parents have completely pussified our youth"...

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) -- Nine-year-old Jericho Scott is a good baseball player -- too good, it turns out.

The right-hander has a fastball that tops out at about 40 mph. He throws so hard that the Youth Baseball League of New Haven told his coach that the boy could not pitch any more. When Jericho took the mound anyway last week, the opposing team forfeited the game, packed its gear and left, his coach said.
.

A US teenager has quit school to master the hugely popular Guitar Hero video game - and try to make a living out of it.

NME reports that 16-year-old Blake Peebles chucked in school to focus on becoming a Guitar Hero expert.

His parents say they let him drop out of the North Carolina religious school to stop his incessant complaining.

He hopes to turn pro - along with thousands of others - but so far has only won gift certificates, game gear and chicken sandwiches.

obviously it's not every parent... but more and more it seems that, rather than let their kids learn by failure, parents look for some sort of excuse for their children. one needs to fall down in order to truly pick themselves up.
 
Anne, you and I can talk on the phone. Michelle and I will be glad to talk with you any time. You know the#.

I can only say, that in my son's case, Michelle and I work to find what interests him, and spring board off of that. Three years ago, they wanted him tested for reading issues. Today, he is reading off the charts.

When we were in Washington, at the Smithsonian, he would read and then tell me one thing he learned from the information after each paragraph in front of artifacts.

Michelle has a background in SPED, READING, and Elementary Ed. She is the expert in the house.

WE also got him into science camp after school.
Matt
 
Thanks Matt! :hug:

I guess I got pretty personal, but I was trying to relate my situation as it mirrors what you are saying about how our society is going. I see all of your points so clearly and see how it affects my kids and want it all to change, because it puts so much more pressure on me when being a single Mom is a pressure already.

headache has some good points too that discipline power has been taken away or not used due to fear. A good rap in the knuckles for bad behavior is perhaps now replaced with giving the kid a pill. Either way though, the education system has the kid being forced to conform to a certain style of learning.. just sit still and make yourself focus.. when a lot of kids just don't have the ability to learn that way.
 
Many of the parents I deal with support me on discipline issues. Others do not. Usually, they cannot accept that kids do indeed make mistakes.
 
I follow your reasoning, but presumably the same drugs are readily available in other Western countries, and yet they aren't prescribed (to the best of my knowledge) to anything like the same extent as in the US.

In Germany we had the same problem. I don't know if it's still like that, since it was made public and people weren't so happy about it but for a while almost every little child, and again mostly boys since they are far more often very lively, that didn't behave as it was expected to was diagnosed with ADHS and set on Ritalin. If one doctor wouldn't do it, parents just had to go to another one, someone along the line would do so.

This is a few years old, and at some point it really became obvious that there was an obsession with Ritalin. Since then I haven't heard of it anymore and now they are far more responsible when it comes to ADHS or just a lively child.
 
But he's teaching high school and almost all of his male friends from teachers college are as well, because no guy in today's society wants to go to kindergarten. A little kid bursts into tears and needs a hug and you get called a pervert. So why risk it?

High school is just as risky as grade school. I think the reason many men don't risk it is b/c of salary concerns.

Interesting point - I have increased recess time - hoping it decreases behavior issues...increasing learning.

Illinois requires 4 years of PE in high schools. :up: Last year my school began a test prep class for juniors. They were taken out of an elective or their PE class if the elective was a 3rd year foreign language class or other "college prep" class. By the end of the school year both students and teachers were begging for PE to be put back in their schedules. :wink:
 
High school is just as risky as grade school. I think the reason many men don't risk it is b/c of salary concerns.

That may be a regional thing - in his school board there is equity of pay between primary and secondary teachers (obviously with experience and advanced degrees all being equal).
 
My daughter struggles in english and history - due to being assigned things that are uninteresting.

I also hated both of those subjects when I was in school, for a similar reason. I thought the books assigned were of little relevance, for example, and at least in my high school, Shakespeare was pushed religiously. I'm not saying that there is no value in reading his works, but 2-3 per year is pushing it especially when a lot of the kids in class had no interest in English lit to begin with.

At the same time, I wonder how far this can go. Because the reality of life is that you are always going to be doing uninteresting things. Does anybody at work ask me if drafting this agreement or that is interesting? Yarite, you just do it. So part of me feel justified in complaining and the other part thinks that we should suck it up to an extent because life isn't a buffet.
 
Really? It's all uninteresting? :(

She's fine with learning in class and class participation. She struggles with the assigned reading. In English, the stories covered may be interesting overall - but she struggles to get through the reading. Audio books have made a huge difference in getting her through it. In Social Studies, the homework assignments usually consist of reading the chapter and answering the questions in the back which is basically a review of reading the chapter. It's boring reading to her and takes her hours to get through.. so she'll tend to not do the homework and her grades then suffer.
 
At the same time, I wonder how far this can go. Because the reality of life is that you are always going to be doing uninteresting things. Does anybody at work ask me if drafting this agreement or that is interesting? Yarite, you just do it. So part of me feel justified in complaining and the other part thinks that we should suck it up to an extent because life isn't a buffet.

I've been teaching her the "suck it up because it's life" idea. I tell her to figure out how to get through this stuff because you will always have to do something that you are not interested in. I push her like it's her attitude, but in the last six months, I have started to wonder if she just can't control the focus and perhaps should take the focus medicine for homework too. She's almost 16.. I'm letting her figure that out for herself.
 
I've been teaching her the "suck it up because it's life" idea. I tell her to figure out how to get through this stuff because you will always have to do something that you are not interested in. I push her like it's her attitude, but in the last six months, I have started to wonder if she just can't control the focus and perhaps should take the focus medicine for homework too. She's almost 16.. I'm letting her figure that out for herself.

She's probably in my grade, then... just remember, medicine won't make her more interested in the material.
 
She's probably in my grade, then... just remember, medicine won't make her more interested in the material.

Absolutely. I don't expect her to be more interested, I just want her to keep up with what is required. I'm not pushing for excelling beyond... I just want her to get a C and avoid D's & F's.

She's going into her sophomore year.
 
Thanks Matt! :hug:
A good rap in the knuckles for bad behavior is perhaps now replaced with giving the kid a pill. Either way though, the education system has the kid being forced to conform to a certain style of learning.. just sit still and make yourself focus.. when a lot of kids just don't have the ability to learn that way.

kids should not be given pills because adults want them to function for society in a certain way

when kids are aggressive that´s another thing

but to conform to a certain style of learning????

has this world gone crazy?? parents allow their kids to take (prescribed legal) drugs, or even push them to take drugs?

i am not sure i understand the argument right but if i do, parents make their kids take drugs because the "system" (which the parents, being part of society, create) forces them to conform to a certain style of learning?

so when uncle doctor tells you your kid is "too active" it just needs to be brainwashed?? give the kid drugs so he calms down? so in the future he won´t be a creative mover and shaker but brave sheep?

correct me if i´m wrong.
 
It was a great day. So when my military buddies bust my chops - I laugh, because they would not understand that the things like these little stories mean more to me than the jokes and public perception of males in my profession



i fully support more male teachers at the elementary school level.

my first job was as a teaching assistant in a preschool. the other two men who worked in the early childhood school (nursery through 2nd grade) were, likewise, gay.

this is something straight American men need to get over, and yet another reason why homophobia hurts everyone. men are going to choose *not* to work with younger children because, god forbid, someone might make the (possibly mistaken) assumption that they're gay?
 
i fully support more male teachers at the elementary school level.

my first job was as a teaching assistant in a preschool. the other two men who worked in the early childhood school (nursery through 2nd grade) were, likewise, gay.

this is something straight American men need to get over, and yet another reason why homophobia hurts everyone. men are going to choose *not* to work with younger children because, god forbid, someone might make the (possibly mistaken) assumption that they're gay?

I thought the reason for many men rather teaching older kids than kindergarten, preschool or elementary school was more along anitram's line of making one wrong movement and someone will call you a pervert and sue you (which is also easily done when the teacher e.g. gives bad grades. You just have to accuse him of touching children improperly, and it's almost impossible for him to get out of the ensuing mill).

I went to school with quite a few kids one might diagnose with ADHD. But all these children I know had another thing in common: A broken family situation.
I guess cases of true ADHD really are very rare. Far more often it's rather being subchallenged or, like others said, sitting in a class room listening to the teacher is just not your way of learning.
 
When my son was in elementary to middle school I had several teachers suggest medication for my son who was borderline ADD/ADHD. I refused to medicate him, and worked harder as a struggling single parent with school officials, counselors and male friends and family members to keep the meds away. My son became involved in sports which helped a lot. When he was in high school he began to see more of his father which made a difference also. I think we were lucky, and I believe in my case we did the right thing.

My son is in 4th year college now. Last week while driving together to visit family in Nor. Calif. he shocked me by telling me he's been taking ADD meds to stay awake and focus more. These medications are easily available on campus. I didn't know what to say to him after everything I went through during his challenging childhood. He claims they help, that he doesn't take them all the time and he guarantees he won't become hooked on them.

I don't know what to think!
 
I thought the reason for many men rather teaching older kids than kindergarten, preschool or elementary school was more along anitram's line of making one wrong movement and someone will call you a pervert and sue you.


some people conflate the two.
 
When my son was in elementary to middle school I had several teachers suggest medication for my son who was borderline ADD/ADHD. I refused to medicate him, and worked harder as a struggling single parent with school officials, counselors and male friends and family members to keep the meds away. My son became involved in sports which helped a lot. When he was in high school he began to see more of his father which made a difference also. I think we were lucky, and I believe in my case we did the right thing.

My son is in 4th year college now. Last week while driving together to visit family in Nor. Calif. he shocked me by telling me he's been taking ADD meds to stay awake and focus more. These medications are easily available on campus. I didn't know what to say to him after everything I went through during his challenging childhood. He claims they help, that he doesn't take them all the time and he guarantees he won't become hooked on them.

I don't know what to think!

:hug: - I'd say you should be thinking you did a great job with your son - he obviously knows how loved he his and what a great relationship you must have in that he must trust you enormously to be able to tell you what he is doing - most kids, no matter their age, would keep that kind of stuff firmly under wraps. :hug: hope it all works out for him :)
 
Thanks. We've had a rocky relationship at times but I do believe we have a very close bond. This I know due to the things he shares with me and as you stated above. Things have really changed when he became a father. I always told him you see your parents in a whole new light when you become a parent yourself and this is another of my pieces of advice that he is amazed at and tells me all the time how right I am! I love hearing that from him, it makes all the bad times we've had just melt away. He is such a smart young man with a wonderful future ahead of him.

Thank you for your kind words, they mean a lot. :hug:
 
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