The Crisis Of Overmedicated Children
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Too often nowadays, parents just don’t want to do the job of raising their children, and instead put them on dangerous, mood-altering drugs as a substitute for parenting. It’s very sad.
At 18 months, Kyle Warren started taking a daily antipsychotic drug on the orders of a pediatrician trying to quell the boy’s severe temper tantrums.
Thus began a troubled toddler’s journey from one doctor to another, from one diagnosis to another, involving even more drugs. Autism, bipolar disorder, hyperactivity, insomnia, oppositional defiant disorder. The boy’s daily pill regimen multiplied: the antipsychotic Risperdal, the antidepressant Prozac, two sleeping medicines and one for attention-deficit disorder. All by the time he was 3.
He was sedated, drooling and overweight from the side effects of the antipsychotic medicine. Although his mother, Brandy Warren, had been at her ‘wit’s end’ when she resorted to the drug treatment, she began to worry about Kyle’s altered personality. ‘All I had was a medicated little boy,’ Ms. Warren said. ‘I didn’t have my son. It’s like, you’d look into his eyes and you would just see just blankness.’
23 Responses to “The Crisis Of Overmedicated Children”
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© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
I was told that my son had ADD when he was 5 years old. The pressure to have ‘well-behaved’ children weighs heavily on parents. I medicated him for a week, but quit when I saw the effects on his eating, sleeping and personality. I opted for the harder method of behavior modification. The results weren’t as immediate but ultimately it worked. He is 23 and a successful chef.
I think that’s a big part of it – people wanting quick results, rather than good results.
For psychiatrists it’s easier to hand out drugs than to understand the human mind.
Thank you SCHIP, for making these drugs more available!
“NO HEALTH INSURANCE FOR POOR CHILDREN, THEY’LL JUST BLOW IT ALL ON PSYCHIATRY!” –SaveFarris
I’ve got a 2 year old that throws huge tantrums. Never once did it even occur to us that she should be on antipsychotics, because well, THAT’S A STUPID FUCKING IDEA.
And leave it to kneejerk conservatives like SaveFarris to come up with hateful tripe like that. I’d no more want SF around my kids than I would my sex-offender brother-in-law, and he’s in prison.
I’ve got a 2 year old that throws huge tantrums. Never once did it even occur to us that she should be on antipsychotics, because well, THAT’S A STUPID FUCKING IDEA.
And leave it to kneejerk conservatives like SaveFarris to come up with hateful tripe like that. I’d no more want SF around my kids than I would my sex-offender brother-in-law, and he’s in prison.
As a counter example, my older brother was diagnosed with hyperactivity (that was the term in the early 70s), and then another doctor said that, no, he was just recognizing parental strife and that was stressing the poor kid out. He’d been on Ritalin, it was helping, but it was discontinued.
He died before 40 as a result of risky, unthinking behaviors that are not atypical of people who haven’t learned to cope with ADHD.
I can’t prove that he had ADHD – but I’ve been diagnosed, and I recognize a lot of his issues in myself (they present differently, but I get them).
I won’t deny that there are horror stories out there. But there are a lot of kids out there who need help. And a lot of those kids have well meaning parents who are shamed into not getting help for them, because “obviously” their problems aren’t very serious. My problems weren’t very serious, after all – I was smart, and generally well behaved… but tired, incredibly tired, a lot of the time. Think highway hypnosis style tired. Think “have a bad fever, just want to sleep all day” tired.
The meds help. And if I was suffering that much from pain, no one would question my right to have painkillers, or call me weak willed, or my parents bad parents, for seeking out good pain meds.
But there are people who would say similar things regarding meds for childhood problems.
Which, again, does *not* mean that there aren’t horror stories. And, just so it’s clear, it does *not* mean you made the wrong decision, Shopaholic_918. It just means that there are high stakes on both sides, and it’s important to make the right decision for the right reasons.
LongHairedWeirdo – totally respect your story and sorry about the loss of your brother. Of course in many cases there are children who have real serious issues that require medication.
I think tho that often times doctors, school administrators and parents are quick to drop a pill in the mouth of child in order to engender some sort of behavioral norm. Sometimes (like my son) the square peg just doesn’t fit in the round hole and no manner of medication is going to change that.
The argument isn’t for or against medication – its for or against both over-medicating and unnecessary medicating.
Clearly in the case of you and your brother, the notion of needing med intervention bears out….on both sides.
Thanks!
I’m starting to believe that SF is a CGI – computer generated idiot.
I have ADHD. My son has it. My mom denied me Ritalin, which I didn’t learn until much later, and I had some terrible problems as a result, including a split personality.
The son tried medication, which helped ease symptoms before adolescence, but he later dropped it. We have gotten a lot more relief with talk therapy that’s directed at his immediate problems as opposed to his feelings. He has an integrated personality. (It’s not always nice, but it’s predictable.)
Risperdal is very dangerous. The head of Emory’s psychiatric department was pushing it for ADHD early in the last decade. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/health/policy/04drug.htmlIt is contra-indicated for that, which is why this victim was given other diagnoses. People like Charles Nemeroff should be in jail, not in academe.
It is very sad, but ADHD is still under-diagnosed, not over-diagnosed. Especially in girls, who often don’t display overt symptoms. (They tend to internalize it.) Scandals like this push parents away from treatment and create new generations of suffering.
“I have ADHD. My son has it.”
I taught public high school for 5 years, and extreme situations aside, my personal experience jibes more with this story of failure to get a kid who needs testing, coding, and medication what they need.
First off, I’m not sure whether there’s an underdiagnosis of ADHD and LD’s, but there’s *definitely* a relationship between diagnosis and parental education and probably wealth. Kids whose parents know to ask, are confident enough to ask, and know how to ask are more likely to get their kids tested and eventually coded if they need it. Throw non-english-speaking parents in, throw immigration status in, and a lot of kids in cities who need help *and who are legally entitled to it* never get it.
Second, it’s important to keep in mind the fact that, overdiagnosis aside, where these medications are needed, they are *needed* and they *work*. You’ve really gotta see this to believe it, but it’s *tragic* — I had numerous kids on Adderall whose parents would take it or sell it, and those kids *knew* they needed it, they wanted it, they knew they couldn’t learn effectively without it, and they also knew they were in this horrible shitty situation. The notion that LD kids aren’t aware of their situation, or that they don’t care whether they’re able to learn or not is, frankly, stupid and cruel. ADHD is *torture* on most kids with it, as the previous poster indicates.
So, having seen it, I think that not *enough* of the right kids getting meds is the issue that concerns me more. Stories like this post are tragic, of course, but the poor kid whose parents don’t know how to get their kid tested (or refuse to), can’t afford meds, or wind up swiping them, that’s the more common problem.
I think its overdiagnosed. It seems every kid now supposedly has ADD/ADHD when they simply just don’t. Not saying some kids don’t really need it, but the inclination should be against medication unless a kid really needs it.
I have to agree 100% with Oliver here. I know a guy that truly has ADD, and he is brilliant when he is working on a highly technical task.
In a normal conversation he will be mid sentance and switch to a completely different subject; sometimes several times within 10 minutes.
On the flipside I have seen him have three different phone conversations simultaniously. One he was walking through a router config, the second he was troubleshooting a firewall, and the third he was walking through a microwave connection issue. He never missed a beat or confused one conversation with another.
Most kids today just don’t know how to pay attention for a lenghty period of time, there is a difference.
Was diagnosed in 7th grade and meds for me has been a blessing and a curse. While I generally believe medication allows me to function on a normal level and makes my daily life much better there is no denying that ADHD drugs are nothing short of scary with its effect on the body. I think the correlation of families with Aspergers, ADHD, and Bi-polar disorder is rather frightening and there are kids that would greatly benefit from treatment. My main issue as an educator is the amount of time invested in diagnosis. I know I spent a good 6 months getting tested but some kids are given meds in a week.
“On the flipside I have seen him have three different phone conversations simultaniously. One he was walking through a router config, the second he was troubleshooting a firewall, and the third he was walking through a microwave connection issue. He never missed a beat or confused one conversation with another.”
My friends mercilessly pick on me for the “multi-tasking” which is putting it nicely. It normally takes someone else to point out that I am going through this process. I get lost in the tasks.
White Whale
It seems to me that it can be both a blessing and a curse.
Sometimes it can be annoying, other times amazing.
PharmoPsychiatry is pseudoscience. The entire range of SSRI’s are deadly and based on lies and falsified data. Google SSRI horror stories. What any TV commercial for these drugs, “Your depression MAY be from a serotonin imbalance”. Then listen to legal disclaimer and list of side effects. At best you trade one problem for seven. Dr’s prescribe based solely on information from the Pharma Rep.. I was on a whirlwind of drugs, 6 of which there have been class action suits. It’s ok to feel sad. (I was unemployed) It’s ok to get angry. (I got ripped off) But play with my brain chemistry based on pseudoscience? Never again.
My sons were both adopted out of foster care, and came with a raft of diagnoses. Our younger son, in particular, had some horrendous experiences in early childhood – pediatric psychiatrists don’t diagnoses five year old kids with PTSD on a whim.
When our older son was diagnosed with ADHD, we were initially resistant to using medication. He struggled with schoolwork, and had to repeat second grade. When we started him on medication (not Ritalin, btw), he began to blossom into the confident, thoughtful and scholastically high achieving kid we had always known he could be. After four years, his psychiatrist began titrating his dosage down, and now he doesn’t take it any more.
Now he’s on Prozac, which is another issue on its own, and his younger brother is taking Abilify and Strattera. For that matter, I’m on Paxil; my husband is the only member on the family NOT on psychiatric medication.
And we’re a happy family.
Youse are in danger of taking the Jim Carrey/Jenny McCarthy train.
I heard a discussion on “to medicate or not” several years ago. I don’t remember much of the arguments for or against, but what did stick was the comments of one doctor.
Paraphrasing: “You look at the list of behaviors given that suggest a kid should be medicated. Restlessness, not paying attention, hyper activity mixed with listlessness, etc. And it isn’t really behaviors that require medication. It’s a list of normal child behaviors that piss off adults.”
Yes, some kids do need and greatly benefit from proper medications. But “parents” certainly seem quick far too quick to reach for them today.
Good one, Sean. Let’s say it again:
It’s a list of normal child behaviors that piss off adults.
Leave them kids alone.
I can’t believe how apt medical professionals are to multiple medicate children, down to infants, who have brains that are not even in the same vicinity as fully developed. The brain is a complex environment which the smartest people in the field can’t corral. What we don’t know about the brain outweighs everything we do.
As a multi age basketball coach, I see these parents everyday. My experience has shown me a lot of younger parents who themselves were raised with a sense of entitlement through the 90′s-early 00′s. Those were robust economic years. These young parents are conditioned to get everything they want. Now, they don’t want to deal with the difficulties. It’s a pass the buck generation. “My kid has mood swings.” Medicate him. “My kid cries.” Medicate him. “My kid is rebellious.” Medicate him.
At no time is there solution to Parent Him.
(this opinion does not preclude the fact that some kids need help, obv.)