Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
What Makes a Man What He Is?
My neighbor’s kid is 13. I like him. He’s very smart and does very well in private school, learning Greek and Latin, playing drums, and is very good at math and other subjects. Sounds like a great kid, right? Who wouldn’t want to say that about their own child? His parents are strict and hold him to high standards.
But he’s very small for his age, and yet still gangly. And he’s quirky. He finds it hard to get along with other boys his age, who are substantially larger and more muscular than he.
Another neighbor of ours is a nurse, and a bit of a gossip. She explained to me that the boy is being sent to a neurologist to find out what’s wrong with him. They’re expecting to put him on some sort of mind-altering drugs, because surely he must have Aspergers.
It’s not my business, and I’m not a psychiatrist, so I don’t bother discussing this with my neighbors, but here on Ricochet, I feel liberated to air my grievances.
What is the purpose of all these drugs doctors are prescribing for people? I don’t think our understanding of these drugs is good enough that I would recommend them in any but the most severe cases. But even if we did understand them, is there no room for individuality? Aren’t many people quirky? Is it forbidden to be different?
This isn’t my only experience with medicating children. I am a family lawyer, and since I’m not a high-priced one, I do a lot of work taking appointments for when parents get their children removed. In almost every case where the children are age 10 or more, someone at CPS will find a doctor to drug the kid. Perhaps I exaggerate. I don’t keep statistics, but that’s my impression.
Yes, the kids have been abused or neglected, and are facing some terrible stress in their lives, but is it always required that children be drugged if they are anxious?
I am what I am today, for better or worse, because that’s how I was born. I like me. It’s safe to say I’m quirky. I shudder to think what I would have been like had someone decided I should have been drugged with shadowy, poorly understood concoctions. What type of people are we creating, if we’re all to be the same? We are becoming robots.
And speaking of robots, I’m sure the rest of you have been getting very sophisticated robot phone calls. They’re very well done, and they respond to your questions. If you ask if they are a robot, they give a quick laugh and either deny it or explain that you’re talking to a real person but using a computer for quality purposes (whatever that means). You have to try really hard to trip them up and get an obviously inappropriate response to something you say.
We are all becoming homogenized, and by all, I mean people and robots. Soon, we won’t be able to tell if a robot is talking to us at all. We are rapidly reaching the point that unless you see the words coming out of a person’s mouth right in front of you, you won’t know if it’s real or not. And when it’s real, it will just be another homogenized person, drugged, indoctrinated, trained, and controlled by someone else. Who? That’s a good question. Who would be directing us? Academia? Politicians? I suspect it could outstrip all of us and become a self-perpetuating system.
I’m in a very dark mood.
Published in General
I share your concerns Skyler.
It’s a little weird that at 13 he is just now being diagnosed with something, like Asberger’s. It sounds like he has excelled at many things – small and gangly at 13 sounds normal too – many kids are shy when younger and outgrow it – it sounds like pressure from his parents makes him feel less confident? There was always the brainy and brawny groups and they didn’t mix much in school. Unless there is a clear physical or mental challenge that impedes his normal abilities, drugs are not the answer. Please keep us posted on him.
Delayed growth maybe. The parents should get quite a few opinions before embarking on the dangerous path of medication.
I find it odd that any parent would seek neural-pharmacological treatment for their child unless their performance in school work was severely suffering or they had extreme behavioral problems. Sounds like this kid is just going through puberty later than his peers. Probably an advantage in the long run. That being said, it is hard to say what is really going behind the scenes, you just being the neighbor. The boy might have severe issues that you know nothing about.
My nephew, age nine, is on drugs for ADHD. He had already been held back a grade, and the drugs have greatly increased his school performance. He likes being on the drugs for school because he hated being unable function well in school. My sister and brother-in-law though don’t medicate him during the weekend as they want him to develop his own natural personality too.
Too often we medicate kids for the sake of the adults not the welfare of the child. These decisions are tough.
Yes, that’s how I always saw it.
Yes, his sister is even tinier. She’s 11 and the smaller than the average 6 year old. Both parents are also small, so they come by it honestly. The mother is probably 4’11” or less.
Thoughts I’ve often had myself. And the answer often seems to be – no, there isn’t nearly as much room for different as people claim there should be.
Teach him how to box.
I wonder how old he is relative to his other classmates, too: sometimes waiting a year to go to kindergarten (though of course, you’re long past that) helps a little.
There could be some really serious anxiety issues that are making the kid miserable. Generally speaking, medication should be reserved for situations that are painful and obstructive to the sufferer.
Which could be happening here without your knowing it?
And little boys being medicated because they can’t sit still in school is (in my experience) largely because schools expect kids to sit still far too much and too long. When I was in eighth grade, we had a full hour for lunch and recess. When my kids were in eighth grade, they had twenty minutes for both.
Except for my daughter, who went to a Waldorf school. Nice, long recess, which included playing in the woods, building forts out of straw bales, sledding and snowball fights… and school ended an hour and a half later than the public school.
The number of children taking psych meds in this country is truly frightening. These are not safe drugs, and we know very little about them, especially their long-term effects. I respect the psych meds as a scientific development, I know a lot about them, and I know they have helped schizophrenics and other seriously mentally ill people live a normal and reasonably happy life. But I also know some of the risks involved, and I would not take them myself or give them to children.
We cannot study medicine in kids because it is illegal, immoral, and unethical to conduct research trials on children, as it should be. What we do know is that children metabolize drugs differently and in some cases, oppositely from the way mature human beings metabolize them.
My point is that we are flying blind here. I have worried about this for twenty years now.
I have all of the same concerns expressed in the original post.
Just because this bears repeating. Also, I had to teach the 5th-grade girl next door how to make a snowball(!!) – such things aren’t permitted in school. Sad.
Kaylett was very small when she was born, barely 5lb and 17″ long. My elder daughter had doll larger. As an adult she is still on the small side, wears size 4 jeans. My mother harassed me for years to get the kid hormone shots to make her grow. I ignored my mother on this subject. I finally found her great grandfather’s application to become an American Citizen in the Queens Co, NY court house, and on it he states he is 5′ – 2″. His son and grandson were both about 5′-6″ and her grandmother of a different family was 4′-9″. I gave this information to my mother, and she shut up about giving the kid hormones to make her grow.
Yeah, my first thought was “why would they medicate someone for (what used to be called) Aspergers? Its a developmental disorder, not a mental illness!”. If there are other issues involved, careful experimentation with medications might be appropriate…..but surely a nurse should know the difference between ‘Aspergers’ and conditions where medication might be beneficial?
The temptation to get a diagnosis and subsequent medication removes all responsibility from the parent.
I have had several friends go down this road. One good friend’s son flunked out of his first year of college due to an enthusiastic embrace of pot. His parents immediately took him to several psychiatrists until they got a diagnosis of “asymptomatic depression”, got him medicated and then appealed to the college (including legal measures) every which way to get him reinstated.
I was very involved with the family and finally convinced them they should ask their son if he even wanted to go back. He didn’t – he was very young for his grade, emotionally immature and the college was 2,000 miles away. He’s still at home and five years later finishing up college.
His parents still insist that he suffers from the trauma of having been adopted. I know this kid very, very well and his adoption is the least of his problems. Crazy parents are his problem.
On the issue of stature, I am very short; barely 5′, as are my sisters and parents. Brothers got to about 5’10”. So I did what any smart person would do, I married tall; my husband is 6’3″. My daughter is tall – about 5’9″. The exact same height as her three brothers. My husband’s worse nightmare, the daughter took after him and the boys after me.
Son #3 looks the shortest, but he’s actually the same height as his brothers. He’s also the quirkiest; not academic like son #1 and not outgoing and personable like son #2. But the smartest and most interesting of the 3. Fortunately for us the kids went to small Catholic schools – for the most part his teachers appreciated him. I am related to and know lots and lots of public school teachers and almost to a one they encouraged me to get him “tested”. Over and over I would say: Tested for what? Is there a test for “weird”? What’s the cure?
He made it through two years of college before dropping out (he was bored out of his gourd); he’s nearly 23, works full time, lives on his own and just got engaged to a woman who is six years older than him who has a five year old son (we adore both of them and are happy with the news).
He’s smart, he’s interesting, has a fantastic work ethic; he’s short and he’s a little different. He’ll never be the life of the party and you would never think of him if you have an extra ticket to the football game. But you might find yourself engaged in a conversation with him till the wee hours. And you definitely want him on your team for Pictionary (we’re all convinced he is a little psychic)
It’s a big world; there’s room for all of us.
Mine as well.
While it’s true problems can interact (why antidepressants work on so many with chronic pain even when the pain has a clearly physical cause), of all the prescription psychopharmaceuticals out there, I don’t know of one advertised to “treat Aspergers”. Am I missing something?
True, although children’s “job”, more or less, is to meet adults’ expectations, so that this happens is understandable. (This happened back in the days of “soothing syrups”, too, though one could argue natural opiates, having a longer track record of human use, are at least familiar drugs. As is caffeine.)
I have a relative who, at the age of 13, is suffering from frequent panic attacks and generally has very high anxiety. It’s a tough call as to know whether she needs medication or not, but the panic attacks have been debilitating at times. So far, counseling is helping her to learn coping strategies and how to “unwind herself”, but the parents are still very concerned. Sometimes medication might be the right answer, if all others have been explored.
There is a boy in 9th grade at my girls’ school who, while going through puberty normally in all other aspects, has never had his voice drop. He sings at a high soprano still at the age of almost 15. I don’t know the family well enough to know if there is any history, but this young man is not coping well emotionally with still singing with the girls in choir.
Every pot has a lid.
My brother is two years younger than me and we were pretty different as teenagers. He was a type A personality, had lots of friends, played sports, and girls loved him. I was shy, had few friends, would rather read than play or watch sports, and was a joke to girls. He probably started dating when he was 14, I went on my first date at 18 and was probably 19 when I went on my second. My father had a conversation with me when I was maybe 16 or 17 and offered to take me to a doctor to get hormone shots so I could be more like my brother. I declined and he never brought it up again. Even as a teenager I was pretty skeptical that a single hormone would change my personality and make me popular.
Our church had an outlet for this — a genuine boy soprano was a treasured commodity and generally had first dibs on solos for teen sopranos. Of course, that takes a boy comfortable showing off his unbroken voice.
Yeah, small and gangly. I was going to say, “get him into wrestling.”
All three of my boys excelled at rugby. No talent required – you just need to be meaner than a snake
@annefy, yes and no. I played in college (at my school it was a club sport, vice varsity sport). We thought we were awesome (each and every guy meaner than a snake). Then we played a club called something akin to “the Tarrytown Middle Aged Gentlemens’ Rugby Club.” Look at those guys. They’re old, man. They’ve all got gray hair…
They techniqued, nuanced, and subtlety-ed us right out of our…uh…rugby shirts.
Our church was having a meeting for VBS workers and a very nice lady got up and gave us a talk on how to deal with kids on the “spectrum.” She proceeded to describe almost every kid quirk. I had the idea that if the total range of kid behavior were represented on a pie graph the slice for normal would be very slim. Are there no allowances for a range of behavior? I wish kids who deviated from the “norm” were more appreciated.
Mine, too!!!!!! All sizes are also useful. Big but short? Hooker. Big and tall? Forward. Small and fast? Back. Mean as snake? Yep. good quality, but even that’s not necessary. What is? A lot of heart.
One of my nieces is on the “spectrum.” Sweetest kid ever. I guess her parents know what’s up–she’s a bit literal–but I really don’t see what the fuss is all about. She’s smart and nice. I didn’t have friends when I was 9. I turned out okay… Mostly.
Mostly.
I had another mother tell me once she thought my son could benefit from an appointment with a doctor… help him focus. Then his 4th grade teacher–a lovely woman only 4 feet tall who went to Harvard and taught kids because she wanted to–told me he was just him. She helped me figure out how to help that kid–who was all over the place–organize his world in a way that he could manage. She was so understanding. She got him tested for the gifted program. I could still cry thinking about how wonderful she was.
Maybe your neighbor’s kid needs something. Maybe he doesn’t. But I agree about the wider problem.
Boys especially get put on drugs much too often, and it’s not cool at all.
It’s a problem.
My son was usually the biggest, loudest and (he is his father’s son) most obnoxious kid in the room. He’d always give a discontented teacher enough rope to hang him. One thing I noticed, though: the teachers that loved teaching, that had no problem snapping a knot in the keester of a young man full of himself, who impressed me with the breadth and depth of their love of teaching, never had a problem with the lad. The teachers that were just treading water and trying to get through the school year with no fuss no muss? Yah. Those were the teachers who recommended we put the lad on meds.
Youth and exuberance will always fall prey to old age and treachery.
— Somebody, somewhere
I was bored out of my mind in grade school. When the school started a “gifted program,” they stuck me in it to give the teachers and the rest of the students some peace.
Nowadays, they probably would just have doped me to the gills.
There are far too few teachers who love teaching. It is not a job. It’s a vocation that requires a calling.
My son was not the kid who made a lot of noise, but his desk looked like a garbage dump, and he could fade away into the background in ways that made teachers only see that desk.
One asked me if he was mentally challenged. Seriously. On his second day. Of third grade.
Anyway, I didn’t put him on drugs, and he’s at Duke Law now.
In your face, sucky teachers. In. Your. Face.