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.
Add Drugs and Keep Away from Sharp Objects: Institutionalizing Child Rearing
Parkland is just a few miles away from where I live. I have friends whose children went to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The shootings at this school, and for that matter every other school is tragic. Our instinct, of course, at such senseless violence against the most innocent of us brings up rage and a desire to make sense of it all. Some of us will point fingers at the tools of the massacre, and many of us will demonize those we already disagree with. This tragedy is big enough for us relive our worst nightmares. And the easy fix is to look to blame our favorite villains.
I recently spoke to a friend who is having trouble with her own son. Not Parkland-variety trouble, but trouble nevertheless. She is a single mother and a good person. She works hard to provide a loving environment to her only son, who is the center of her universe. For as long as I have known them, however, she has had challenges with her son. My own two kids, a few years older than hers, seem to never have the kinds of problems she has had. It would be easy to attribute this to one or two facts such as that mine grew-up in a two parent home and hers did not, but we all know that reality is not ever that simple.
Here are some of my observations of my friends “troubled” child.
From a very young age, he was diagnosed with ADHD and was put on a medication. Growing up in India, I never heard of ADHD. I would never consider medicating my children for a chronic, non-threatening condition at a young age without at least trying some alternatives. My kids were not without fault growing up, and it never occurred to me to “medicate” them to have peace of mind. If someone had suggested ADHD medication to me, I would certainly seek a second opinion. The number of children being raised with medication at young ages is alarming. The long-term effects of not teaching our children to cope with their emotions and just have them take pills for it is just bad and wrong. As I have seen my friends son grow older, his challenges have grown in size with him. Instead of working with her son, my friend has taken the easy, institutionalized way of just medicating him.
Also from a very young age, my friend’s son has been seeing a psychiatrist. Once again, I feel, perhaps wrongly, that this child is missing out on the one connection he needs — with the one parent he has. Once again I feel that my friend has found an institutional solution to an everyday problem. While I understand the need for psychiatry, this is not a child that has suffered any real trauma in life. He is an intelligent, middle-class kid having gone to private schools all his life, and having a pretty decent extended family and a stable household.
There are two modes of communication in my friend’s household. One is a totally loving, caring and vulnerable, and the other is speaking over each other, generally in higher decibels. There is not much adult conversation. There are threats and promises, no voluntary exchanges. On the few occasions when I’ve had the pleasure of taking care of this young man, I’ve noticed him “fake yelling” at me to get attention. When he discovered that all he needed to do was ask, the conversation became more normal, more civil.
Both his eating habits and his health are in the “needs improvement” column. He has always been overweight, and there is not a whole lot of nutrition in his daily intake.
This is a very sweet, intelligent, caring and capable young man, given to mood swings and some mildly violent behavior. He has trouble coping with things big and small. Coping, for right now, means taking a pill or paying someone to listen to your issues for him. I think much of his issues could very easily have been addressed by some real parenting, and instead what he has gotten is a lot of institutional help, and has been made to feel pretty “defective” by people with credentials and authority. This kid will never shoot up a school; however, it is going to take a long time for him to grow up and be stable emotionally.
The 19-year-old who shot up the school in Parkland also had coping issues. He did much worse, though. He killed 17 people in order to be heard. Sheriffs had been called to his home 39 times. While I don’t know enough about him to say that “all he needed was better parenting,” better parenting would have certainly prevented the killings. Institutional solutions are only so good. In each one of these cases, it seems to me, that there is a failure much sooner, much larger. While everyone “knew” he was trouble, all that was done was drugs, and the solution the morning after seems to be “keep him away from sharp object.”
I think there is something fundamentally wrong with this picture; with this attitude, this way of thinking. Children are gifts and must be treated as such. Institutional answers will not work. Our worlds should not be an asylum, where inmates are drugged and kept away from sharp objects.
Published in General
If they’re widows, it’s no fault of their own.
Also not their fault if their husband dumped them for his hot secretary. Their fault for not being hotter?
On another note, this is the kind of comment that makes me crazy. Whether or not the wife is to blame, or the husband, can we all at least agree that the kids are not to blame?
Step the hell up. It’s not our business who is to blame, who the hell knows what goes on inside a marriage? I’ve known women who have left their husbands for no good reason; to me it looked like boredom. I’ve known a few husbands that I know are to blame because of infidelity; once again, I have no idea what was going on in their marriage.
So what?
It’s got nothing to do with the kids. Nothing. So if there’s a single mom or dad out there that can use a hand – give it.
Chances are–if you buy stats…..
I’m not blaming anyone. I’m just remarking on the outcome.
Good for your son-in-law! It’s fantastic that he was able to develop the skills to be able to function well. There are, however, certain people with adhd who have other conditions, such as bipolar, as part of their chemistry. It’s largely a hereditary condition, and for some, not just a can’t-sit-still-in-school-needs-more-time-outdoors condition.
69% of divorce is initiated by the women. Most common reason is “not satisfied in the marriage”. Both sexes have a share of the blame.
In a way, we do have a biological test for ADHD: putting the person on medication. Ritalin and the rest are stimulants, and if you give them to a normal person, they go hyper. (This is why it’s such an abused drug on college campuses. It’s probably the easiest to acquire high.) However, ADHD folks have paradoxic reactions to stimulants, and so the stimulant will appear to calm them down. ADHD folks who don’t take medication often self- medicate themselves to productivity with coffee, soda, and/or cigarettes — all over the counter stimulants.
And yes, I would argue that it’s exactly like diabetes, because there too the better way to handle one’s condition is through lifestyle changes with medication as a last resort when lifestyle alone can’t alleviate the problem instead of just relying on medication to continue business as usual.
Also crack the whip – and how often did kids go flying? Dodgeball. Did have a few fights, won a couple mostly lost. And couldn’t even call mommy on my cellphone.
Yet somehow we got through school without drugs. Even the class cut-up. It doesn’t make any sense, does it?
And I’m just remarking that rather than spend your time fussing over who is to blame for a broken family, step up.
My neighbor and her husband split up; do you think it mattered to me whether he was to blame or she was to blame?
You know who wasn’t to blame? The three kids.
If I had grown up in this day and age, I would have been put on an ADHD drug. However, back in the 60s, my behavior was considered “normal for a boy of his age” by the elementary school I went to. Yeah, I was a problem child, but I required no medication. My problem was I was too smart for the grade I was in, but that’s another story.
Fast forward to the late 90s, early 2000s. We put our middle daughter on an ADHD drug (forgot the name) to help with her learning disabilities. The only thing the drug did was make her handwriting better. We took her off, and she’s been good ever since.
I’m starting to believe these ADHD meds are designed to make children—primarily boys—submissive so the feminist agenda in our public schools can be imprinted on their brains:
Men are all rapists; men hate women; men only want sex; masculinity is BAD!
I tell myself the same thing, though without as much evidence, maybe.
My brother-in-law is a neuropsychologist and he loathes doing actual ADHD cases for this and reasons related. It sounds like it’s a really complicated thing get right, in the way he operates. Some psychiatrists just hand out pills based on an interview.
The reason I italicized “actual” is, according to him, the vast majority of what looks like ADHD is actually concentration problems from anxiety and/or depression. I know that was the case for me.
My old man has narcissistic personality disorder. It’s taken me forever get good help. I cannot recommend enough before anyone has a baby, get the book Healing Developmental Trauma. On page 26, there are two researchers listed. Listen to the interviews of them by Dr. Drew Pinsky on YouTube. Then scan the parts of the book about why people aren’t dysfunctional. That is how you prevent this crap.
I think this happens far too often these days. And it’s not just psychiatrists, but regular pediatricians.
Classroom instruction was designed for efficiency and also convenience for the instructor. It is a system that works pretty well for the average student. But it works poorly or not at all for the very smart, the not very smart and the ‘difficult’ children. The first are bored, the second are hopelessly lost and the third category are forever testing the boundaries in ways that are disruptive, sometimes to an extent that teachers can’t both deal with the disruptive student and simultaneously proceed with constructive instruction for the rest of the class. Most of the first category manage to muddle through without major discipline problems. Many of the second category become depressed and either act out or drop out. The third category tend to get the most attention, like the squeaky wheel, and may be put on drugs to bring them into, or closer to, compliance with the requirement to sit still, pay attention, keep silent and so on. Some of them may have real physical need for medication and are thus probably helped by meds.
But all kids test the limits, that’s how they discover what the limits are. A few never seem to learn where the limits are, or they just enjoy the constant conflict and they test the same limits continually. They can’t be really helped by drugs unless there is a physical need for them but they may be at least somewhat more compliant if drugged. That doesn’t really meet their needs nor does it prepare them for adult life. As alternative educational models develop in the near future some parents will be able to find and use situations that better match their kids learning styles and enable them to get an education in a setting that doesn’t either bore, overwhelm or offer much opportunity to be the teachers worst nightmare. It will not be perfect, nothing ever will be, but greater choice can open possibilities for those who don’t have physical need for medication but are being medicated for less than stellar reasons.
If I had a child in either of these three categories I would be looking to find a better solution than standard classroom instruction. Ours was homeschooling which is not available to everyone nor advisable for everyone as it does require a large commitment of time and some money. There are many good options available and some promising ones under development. Don’t settle if you don’t have to and don’t ever give up.
Single parent: How is his father involved in his life? You didn’t mention his age, but as he heads towards his teens he needs a clear strong male authority in his life. If it’s not his father, it should be somebody with whom his interactions aren’t only talk and to whom he is accountable. Is somebody like that part of the extended family? Is that man involved? If not, is it possible to get him involved?
If the psychiatrist is a man, it might be OK – and if he is and if he’s good, it’s probably better than if the psychiatrist is a woman.
In the mean time, I’d suggest that your friend have some of her discussions with her son on a walk. If he’s a slug, start small, and keep it at a pace at which he can talk, but push him first with time and then with pace. And then with his backpack.
Consider a high protein breakfast; a meal replacement if necessary. There are some palatable ones out there, or she could roll her own to some extent.
I was employed by someone with ADHD who took meds and was the nicest, sweetest person, good husband and father – he told me about the ADHD – since he was on corrective meds, I never would have noticed – he ran a successful real estate business.
Excellent advice here
Barkha – thanks for bringing this epidemic to the forefront of discussion. There are so many parameters. I agree with all you said – but there is literally an epidemic among youth that includes deep emotional problems, one parent households, drug epidemic and overdoses, not being able to function on the most basic levels (apparently the boy that did the shootings was seriously deficient, depressed, and many other issues – why all the guns and where did the money come from to purchase?), kids today medicated, and so much therapy – I don’t recall a generation like this in such a mess? They will be taking care of us one day – the safety nets of yesterday are not there – and quite frankly, when all avenues have been tried by the single parent, and the therapist asks all the right questions, and the kids answers what is expected, and handed more drugs, and access to multiple weapons, what can be the outcome? There are many many problems and more than one or two solutions needed. I side with the kids that want limits on guns –
On the show Silicon Valley there is an episode in which they hire a teenage boy to do some internet cloud work, which he can do in a marathon stretch with his Adderall and Mellow Yellow. When his Adderall is missing they want to get some from a neighborhood kid, and there is a comment (exaggerated joke?) that half the kids in Palo Alto are on Adderall.
When our son was in kindergarten, he was, you might say, “outgoing”. His teacher once suggested that we think about medication and we said absolutely not. We told her if she needed help with discipline, let us know specifically what he was doing that was outside the lines and we would deal with it, but we were not going to give him a drug just because he was a normal kid. This was more than just a few years ago; I think the education profession fell under the spell of the pharmaceutical industry many years ago.
Scott Adams has (joked?) said that most of the successful people in Palo Alto are just people who found what drugs work for them.
Two notes: anti-depressants do not prevent grief. Indeed, if a person has a history of clinical depression, anti-depressants allow them to feel the grief/anything.
But you are right: grief and mourning are healthy responses to tragedy. If there is one thing our mortal species knows how to do, it’s grieve. And you are also right that there are no shortcuts. My concern wouldn’t be the pills themselves, but the implication that grief is a disease rather than the form love takes when it meets with loss.
I also think ADHD is over-diagnosed and too-often means “lively kid/boy who can’t sit still for hours at a time,” a problem that wouldn’t really arise were it not for a school’s need for sedentary children. It might be treated simply by delaying kindergarten for a year, something a couple I know did with their “hyperactive” son. But they were a two-parent household in which Mom stayed home. Another friend is a single mother, and the real problem is that she has to go to work, and so her son has to go to school. So he has to be medicated.
Why do “we” seem to reverse and mis-read the 80-20 Rule when it comes to social dysfunction? Wouldn’t we be better coming to a clearer understanding of why the 80% “function” despite all the possible detours and road-blocks in their upbringing?
BINGO
The simple message from that book Dr. Drew Pinsky, those researchers, and my therapist, is you have to have a very stable Life from the third trimester to age 3. Your mother has to do a ton of mother baby interaction like we normally think of. That is why people are resilient and pick themselves up out of bad situations. You are being yourself and you have a stabile nervous system.
This is why the normal sort of conservative solution of read Victor Frankel’s Man’s Search for Meaning and suck it up isn’t going to work for everyone.
Also my therapist stressed that some people are dealing with problems caused by epigenetics. If your ancestors have good reason to be stress cases, it actually changes some inherited genetics that are “switchable” or whatever.
***EDIT***
Also straight psychotherapy and pills isn’t going to work. You have to have healing intimate relationships with other people. (Since my old man has narcissistic personality disorder I think people are toxic. LOL)
***EDIT***
The actual quote from Pinsky is “brains heal brains”. People need “good” people.
I have never had a teacher of either of our boys (senior and freshman in high school) recommend drugs. I’ve never known anyone who had such conversation with a teacher. So I question how often this actually happens.
Our youngest was diagnosed with ADD. (For some reason the medical profession decided to lump ADD in with ADHD, yet they are very different.) If you met him or observed him in school, he’s on outgoing kid who is friends with almost everyone. I’ve been to his school in the past and had other kids say how much they like him. He’s a calm kid, sits quietly in class and has never been a disruption. He’s never ever been disciplined by the school. He’s an A-B student year after year and is given additional responsibilities by his teachers.
He’s on medication.
When he’s in class he looks like he’s paying attention. He makes eye contact with the teacher during lessons but his mind is miles away. When he takes a test the movement of other students, the tapping of a pen and shuffling in seats is all a distraction to him.
We tried the natural route, resisting medication for too long. Because he’s self aware he knows what works and what doesn’t and we talked about it. Finally we decided to try medication and while the dosage is low, it’s made a tremendous difference. His ability to focus on his work for a long time has improved dramatically.
So the “just suck it up” attitude is crap. We tried that route and it didn’t work. General blaming of medication as the cause of dysfunction is also crap. And attributing kids on medication to being loners, “different”, odd or any other negative label is also crap.
Amen. People die while on chemotherapy drugs; that doesn’t mean that their problems were caused by the drugs.
I’m on a low level of anxiety medicine. When I was young I wish like hell I was on a high level and learned yoga or something. I have zero doubt I could have backed it off with the right personal practices and some professional help.