How Young Is too Young for Meds?
When Brandy Warren took her child Kyle into the doctor's office, she was looking for some relief from the temper tantrums and behavioral problems her son was displaying. At 18 months old, Kyle was put on the anti-psychotic drug Risperdal. By the time he turned 3, the New York Times reports that Kyle had also been prescribed the antidepressant Prozac, two sleeping medicines and one drug for attention-deficit disorder.
"All I had was a medicated little boy," Ms. Warren told the New York Times. "I didn't have my son. It's like, you'd look into his eyes and you would just see just blankness."
Kyle's story is part of a larger trend in childhood medicine. The number of 2-5 year olds prescribed anti-psychotic drugs has doubled between the years of 2000 and 2007, according to a recent study by Columbia University.
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May '10
Re: How Young Is too Young for Meds?
What 18 month old doesn't have bahavioral and temper problems? (Well, I didn't and it kind of freaked out my mom.) But most do.
In the Therapeutic Age, all kids will be doped up and sent to special ed on the short bus.
Aug '10
Re: How Young Is too Young for Meds?
For some problems like asthma, there isn't an age that's too young for meds. But for mood-altering medications?... No wonder little Kyle was having trouble sleeping if he was already having ADD medicine put into his tiny body. Even so-called non-stimulating ADD medicines interfere with sleep. The Victorian trend of drugging the little ones with opiates is less weird than this.
May '10
Re: How Young Is too Young for Meds?
At some point, parents need to say, "Know what? This doctor is a quack."
Granted, I don't have kids but I think that time should arrive no later than when they've prescribed Prozac for your 3-year-old.
May '10
Re: How Young Is too Young for Meds?
And these people, the doctor who prescribes Prozac to toddlers and the mother who accepts the prescription, are voters.
Welcome to the Democratic Party! Avoiding reality since 1932.
Aug '10
Re: How Young Is too Young for Meds?
Besides the fact that medicating children's moods can become a poor substitute for discipline, a bias towards medicating children's moods might miss real medical problems. When I was little, I showed signs of "shell shock", was afraid to go into noisy places, and would tantrum if I couldn't leave a noisy place. But my problem was ear infections, not psychiatric derangement. Imagine if only my odd behavior were treated, and not my ears. I might be deaf now. A relative of mine was similarly relegated to the "short bus" even though he later turned out to be a genius. His problem was that no one had noticed he had asthma, and it's hard to concentrate on your lessons when you can't breathe! Little kids are often too inarticulate to describe physical problems, and act them out through bad moods instead. Treating mood as not related to the rest of the child might miss this.
Jul '10
Re: How Young Is too Young for Meds?
That story is sick. Plain and simple. Drugging up babies is tantamount to child abuse, and penalties need to be levied against both the doctors prescribing medication to 18 month-old children and their parents. That said, I do give Kyle's parents credit for taking him off the drugs.
I just cannot fathom the calculus that justifies dealing with "behavioral problems" in a child that young using medication. Children below the age of 5 are behavioral problems incarnate, but that's what they're supposed to be, and its parents' job to straighten them out. I'm not saying that no children need to be on medication for behavioral issues, but 18 months is excessive, and it's frightening to think that doctors, who we have grown up to trust and who, in certain situations, we have no choice but to trust, are starting to think that such practices are OK.
Edited on Sep 15, 2010 at 4:53pmMay '10
Re: How Young Is too Young for Meds?
It seems clear that there are parents looking for quick and easy solutions to confusing situations, and there are doctors willing to provide them. I expect we can all agree that this is no "solution", just a dangerous experiment. I have learned from experience that these sorts of drugs are not well understood, such that any prescription is a "let's see how this works" situation. Difficult enough in adults who are able to access and describe the results, but very risky in young children.
Drugs like this do not solve things, but they can be a step toward a solution. I would suggest anyone accepting a prescription for themselves or their children also discuss the "exit-strategy" with their doctor. "How do we get off this drug." That's the real solution you want.
Note...not a doctor. Just someone with experience as a patient and as a parent with similar medications.
Aug '10
Re: How Young Is too Young for Meds?
Ms. Warren uses "like" as a present participle. I wonder how a physician takes a proper history with that going on. Certainly I am overrating Ms. Warren's obtuseness and underrating her pediatricians' ability to roll with difficult clients, but one does have to wonder, in these times of "health care reform": if you're really really airheaded, what the heck kind of medical care should you expect anyway?
Jun '10
Re: How Young Is too Young for Meds?
Now add into the mix the fact that little boys need a different style of schooling than little girls, and you have a recipe for male academic failure. Little girls can sit patiently through classes while little boys are rambunctious. I, personally, was very rambunctious and would certainly have been a candidate for Ritalin had it been around in my school days, or should that be school daze? Modern teachers faced with a "discipline problem" are as likely to recommend a pharmacological solution as they are to suggest that the little boy might just be bored. This because the latter explanation would imply an inappropriate teaching style.
May '10
Re: How Young Is too Young for Meds?
With so much of our populace willing to give over their liberties to the nanny government, I put forth that some parents tend to do the same with their children with various "authorities" in their lives, whether medical personnel or educators. Why, WHY, would any parent go along with this pediatrician? Didn't the parent's common sense cry out? Is it that parents may have been so poorly raised themselves, that they have no frame of reference for what does or doesn't make sense?
Parenting can be puzzling, exasperating, tiring... but, the long view is always what is best for the child, not necessarily what is best, most comfortable, easiest for the parents. Accepting a medical approach should be thought about long and hard. The long view means, perhaps, delaying a rambunctious little boy's entrance into school a year or two, accepting a lower standard of living so one parent can devote more attention, focusing (more) on helping the child learn age-appropriate self-discipline, etc.
Aug '10
Re: How Young Is too Young for Meds?
I have an infant son and what scares me even more than this situation is the one wher a school nurse 'diagnoses' my son with whatever the latest fad disease is (ADD, Aspergers, ...) and then a social worker threatens child abuse charges if I don't medicate him. I am very reluctant to drug my son, and given a choice would refuse to do so without a very clear need. To make some incompetent teacher's job easier definitely doesn't rise to that level. I wonder how many boys are doped with Ritalin because their parents feared child protective services and not because they thought it was best for their child.
Jun '10
Re: How Young Is too Young for Meds?
Most patients never learn, or are too intimidated by the MD, to say, "Doctor, I don't doubt your qualifications or expertise, but this is so important to me that I feel I must get a second opinion. Could you recommed someone or should I just phone around?" Most doctor's worth their salt will immediately offer a list of physicians that would provide that second opinion. Anyone who needs to should write words to this effect on a file card and pull it out and read from the card anytime the need arises.
Edited on Sep 15, 2010 at 8:17pmJun '10
Re: How Young Is too Young for Meds?
Oh! and patients should never forget that a diagnosis, especially and initial diagnosis, is only a guess, albeit an educated guess, but a guess none the less.
Edited on Sep 15, 2010 at 8:20pmMay '10
Re: How Young Is too Young for Meds?
Cas Balicki
Most patients never learn, or are too intimidated by the MD, to say, "Doctor, I don't doubt your qualifications or expertise, but this is so important to me that I feel I must get a second opinion...
That's very true, Cas. I have two doctors and a nurse practitioner in my family so I'm some what inured to that pressure.
Re: How Young Is too Young for Meds?
It's cost-effective! Just as we've realized that talk therapy is cost-prohibitive (unless it's on television), the sometimes grueling work of achieving just the right amount of discipline sends us running for something that'll mitigate symptoms without treating the underlying problem.
May '10
Re: How Young Is too Young for Meds?
Time to start preparations for home schooling ...
May '10
Re: How Young Is too Young for Meds?
tomjedrz
Time to start preparations for home schooling ... · Sep 15 at 8:56pm
I second that recommendation!
May '10
Re: How Young Is too Young for Meds?
Back in the old days the same result was accomplished with patent nostrums containing opium. Soothed the kiddies almost better than TV.
@Briar Ann: BTW my wife (mainly) and I homeschooled our 5 children K-12 partly for this reason.
May '10
Re: How Young Is too Young for Meds?
There is no clinical trial I know that supports the use of Prozac, nor anti-psychotic drugs at 18 months, this is a clear case of malpratice. The baby's brain is still undeveloped and the use of such drugs is hazardous to the long term welfare of the child. How any medical practioner can ascertain a state of psychosis from an 18month old baby is beyond me, too much of the god syndrome in that doctors surgery.
Perhaps the doctor should have suggested a sleep clinic to the parents to support them in bring up their child, and told them that this behaviour will most likely pass, and wait a little while before further action.
Re: How Young Is too Young for Meds?
James Poulos, Ed.
It's cost-effective! Just as we've realized that talk therapy is cost-prohibitive (unless it's on television), the sometimes grueling work of achieving just the right amount of discipline sends us running for something that'll mitigate symptoms without treating the underlying problem. · Sep 15 at 8:17pm
For what it's worth, many pyschiatric meds are actually prohibitively expensive. Anti-psychotics can go for $500 a month. Average talk therapy, at $100/session, four sessions a month, is cheaper. But that's for the average person with private insurance. If I recall the NYT article, this family was noted as low-income. In that case, the drugs are covered by you-know-who. For more on the subject, read here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/12/health/12medicaid.html
Edited on Sep 16, 2010 at 8:22am