Ritalin

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Dreadsox

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Maybe pediatricians will cut down on the amount of ritalin that is distributed to the male children in this society. I would like that.
 
Maybe pediatricians will cut down on the amount of ritalin that is distributed to the male children in this society. I would like that.

If a certain teacher of mine had her way, I would have been on it too. Thank goodness that's when my parents started their healthy skepticism of authority, and I never had to take it.
 
Tom Cruise
Michael Savage

get it right, sometimes?

I've been cynical of pharmaceuticals before I knew these two even existed.

However, for instance, if antidepressants helped Brooke Shields, then I am in no position to contradict her. I'm glad they helped her, as I don't think there are "one size fit all" solutions with this subject.
 
I've been cynical of pharmaceuticals before I knew these two even existed.

However, for instance, if antidepressants helped Brooke Shields, then I am in no position to contradict her. I'm glad they helped her, as I don't think there are "one size fit all" solutions with this subject.


Cruise actually spoke out against kids on Ritalin, too.


I dated a woman for three years that had her son on it.

Because he would misbehave from time to time.

I tried to talk to her about it. She would not listen.


I dated this other woman that had two boys.

When she was recently divorced her boys freaked out, missing their dad.

The second grader told her to 'suck his dick'.

She lost it.

I helped her for a year.

The boys straighten up and are doing great. Straight As. Well adjusted and never any Ritalin. Quite a few time outs. And play station lock downs.
 
Maybe pediatricians will cut down on the amount of ritalin that is distributed to the male children in this society. I would like that.

You may be surprised that the biggest "customers" of Ritalin these days are college students.
 
As in a higher proportion of college students are on ritalin than primary and high school students or they actually make up a bulk of market share?
 
They make up the bulk of the market share when you account for the black market sales which are HUGE. I don't know whether older people quite get how widespread Ritalin use is on college campuses.

In fact I wouldn't be surprised if college students led in both statistics, mostly because like Dread says, it is primarily boys who are medicated at a young age, while at college, girls and boys use it probably close to equally.

And while a lot of it is bought on the street, a lot is also prescribed. Clearly by doctors other than pediatricians.
 
There is also a concern with parents selling and using their childrens meds. I hate saying this, but it is a brewing major problem.
 
There is also a concern with parents selling and using their childrens meds. I hate saying this, but it is a brewing major problem.

That's seriously disturbing.

I also very much wonder about the online sales of Canadian pharmaceuticals to American customers. The regulations are sketchy at best.
 
Once the US developed its puritanical obsession with persecuting users of the traditional vices of booze and fags, it is not surprising to me to hear that pharmeuticals came in to fill the gap.

It is interesting to hear that boys are prescribed these pharmaceuticals more than girls.

Could this be linked to the equality agenda of the left? Is it that boys' 'aggressive' behaviour - such as, you know, fighting, playing cowboys and Indians, and other things that it is quite natural for boys to do are now seen as unnatural and anti-social and should be medicated away?

In another thread, we discussed how different eras have different delusions.

http://forum.interference.com/f199/...eturn-it-to-library-189240-2.html#post5403392

Is the idea that the sexes MUST be made equal, by hook or by crook, a delusion of our time, or does FYM collectively believe that only right wing delusions are the ones to worry about? :hmm:
 
It's more that it's quicker and easier for parents and teachers to 'deal with' 'challenging' children when they're sedated medicated, and if the tools to achieve that are readily at hand, they're gonna get used. Same reason why antipsychotics like Seroquel are now routinely overprescribed in nursing homes--it's not that there's been some drastic shift in expectations of how a politically correct 86-year-old should act, it's just that it makes it a lot easier for overstretched staff to get everything they're expected to do done when their patients aren't cognizant combative.
 
It's more that it's quicker and easier for parents and teachers to 'deal with' 'challenging' children when they're sedated medicated, and if the tools to achieve that are readily at hand, they're gonna get used.

But what kinds of behaviour are defined as 'challenging', that's the question I would ask.

If boys are fighting in class and disrupting the class, well that's bad behaviour, granted, but it's also what boys DO.
 
Dread or martha could give you a better rundown here than I could, but just from experience interacting with my own kids and their same-age friends, on the whole, boys are *more likely* to for example have difficulties staying focused, staying organized, and staying still. Children with those sorts of "difficulties" just do demand more of a time investment in the classroom and in certain kinds of home activities--period, no two ways about it. It's not a question of how politically incorrect the behavior is, it's the 'inconvenience'. So the temptation to 'pathologize' those behaviors, once the opportunity to "treat" them (with drugs originally intended for far more severe problems) is readily available, is potentially great.
 
Maybe pediatricians will cut down on the amount of ritalin that is distributed to the male children in this society. I would like that.


It's thread-derailing, pot-shot taking posts like these that bring legitimacy to our posters from the right....:applaud:
 
Dread or martha could give you a better rundown here than I could, but just from experience interacting with my own kids and their same-age friends, on the whole, boys are *more likely* to for example have difficulties staying focused, staying organized, and staying still. Children with those sorts of "difficulties" just do demand more of a time investment in the classroom and in certain kinds of home activities--period, no two ways about it. It's not a question of how politically incorrect the behavior is, it's the 'inconvenience'. So the temptation to 'pathologize' those behaviors, once the opportunity to "treat" them (with drugs originally intended for far more severe problems) is readily available, is potentially great.


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.
 
It's thread-derailing, pot-shot taking posts like these that bring legitimacy to our posters from the right....:applaud:

I see no pot-shot. I see a teacher offering a legitimate perspective on an issue relevant to the thread.
 
Dread or martha could give you a better rundown here than I could, but just from experience interacting with my own kids and their same-age friends, on the whole, boys are *more likely* to for example have difficulties staying focused, staying organized, and staying still. Children with those sorts of "difficulties" just do demand more of a time investment in the classroom and in certain kinds of home activities--period, no two ways about it. It's not a question of how politically incorrect the behavior is, it's the 'inconvenience'. So the temptation to 'pathologize' those behaviors, once the opportunity to "treat" them (with drugs originally intended for far more severe problems) is readily available, is potentially great.

Boys are more likely because it is easier to medicate than to actually put into place practices and strategies that impact their abilities. And I hate generalizations, but, the reality is that it is more often boys, and I think there are reasons for this.
 
It is interesting to hear that boys are prescribed these pharmaceuticals more than girls.

Could this be linked to the equality agenda of the left?

Maybe instead of looking for leftist agendas, you could show more concern for why a shocking number of men deem it acceptable to leave women to raise their children alone with inadequate support, financial, emotional and disciplinary.

That is a far bigger problem that I saw when I went to school than some liberal agenda to medicate the boys of my generation.
 
I would agree with the above statement. And I do not think it a liberal agenda. I blame the schools inadequecy at dealing with the needs of boys.

I actually hope that Obama speaks on this tonight.
 
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.
That may well be; I wouldn't have the knowledge to account for something like that. But it could well be that antipsychotics aren't prescribed to the elderly to anything like our extent elsewhere, either. Aren't we stereotypically notorious for overconsuming all manner of psychiatric medications anyway?
Boys are more likely because it is easier to medicate than to actually put into place practices and strategies that impact their abilities. And I hate generalizations, but, the reality is that it is more often boys, and I think there are reasons for this.
You mean they're more likely to need said practices and strategies, or that they aren't more likely to need them, but we just think they do? I'm a little confused by your wording here...
 
ADHD, when diagnosed properly by a physician who believes in it, is treated when poor concentration or hyperactive behavior has an impact on a child's grades....not just because a child is disruptive in class or too much to handle for teachers or parents.

You'd be surprised, however, how many parents and teachers think that a child requires treatment simply because the kid is too much to handle. It's parents and teachers who bring this idea up. It's a good doctor who only treats when the behavior negatively impacts a child's performance in school----because the doctor, who is supposed to strive for the best for the child, is stuck between watching a kid fail or giving a questionable medication that can help the child succeed in school.

Yes, there are shady doctors who wrongly treat children who don't really need it. Guess what---whatever job you the reader have, there are crappy people who do that job pretty shittily, as well.

Many pediatricians, myself included, do in fact believe that ADHD is extremely overdiagnosed and overtreated. I believe that there are MASSIVE problems both with parenting in the US today and with the ability/environment of some individual teachers, both of which having a major impact on how ADHD is surveyed and screened. I believe that environment has a huge impact on the development of whatever physiology there may be in ADHD (ex.: a recent study showed that children under 3yrs who watch more than a given amount of television are much more likely to later be diagnosed with ADHD. is it the impact of rapidly-changing information thrust at a developing mind, is it the social situation that leads to a parent thumping their 2yo in front of a tv for several hours a day?). I believe that ADHD is perhaps more of a social problem than it is a medical one. However...Given that I cannot radically change a child's parents or their parenting styles, nor can I give a teacher patience or better teaching skills; and I sit and watch a child fail due to influences that are not his or her fault.... What am I to do?

It is a complex pandora's box of reasoning and emotion, and not nearly as black-and-white as people outside of the position of the physician can make it seem.

But why ask a person who's actually in that situation?

Let's instead make incriminating blanket statements. :yes:

What was the topic of this thread? :scratch:
 
Maybe instead of looking for leftist agendas, you could show more concern for why a shocking number of men deem it acceptable to leave women to raise their children alone with inadequate support, financial, emotional and disciplinary.

That is a far bigger problem that I saw when I went to school than some liberal agenda to medicate the boys of my generation.

Maybe you should address yourself to the topic of why family law courts routinely deny fathers access to their kids and routinely favour mothers over fathers.
 
I blame the schools inadequecy at dealing with the needs of boys.

Why though?

They weren't seen as inadequate in dealing with the needs of boys 40 or even 20 years ago, why are they inadequate now? What changed?
 
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