The Green Man notes a the growing trend of prescribing antidepressants and other psychotropic drugs to children in the Western world. While I would certainly agree with him that there are cases of children who badly need such medication, I would also agree that there's something fishy about so many kids being medicated.
What the Green Man, and the rest of you, may not know is that most of the kids on these drugs are boys. This phenomenon happens to dovetail pretty well with the worsening problem in boys' education. Throughout the 1990s we were fed a myth, debunked in the last few years, that schools were "shortchanging" girls, when in fact for the last few decades girls have routinely done as well or better than boys both in GPA and in achievement exams through all levels of K-12 education. Girls tend to lose an interest in math and science, but those who stick with it continue to do just fine.
By comparison, school achievement for boys over the last couple of decades, in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and other Western nations, has been in decline. The Blair Government in the UK has recognized this and taken measures to try to fix it, but so far the U.S. Department of Education and most of the education establishment here has chosen to ignore the problem, even though the data showing the problem is not in dispute. As Glenn Sacks recently put it:
Boys have fallen seriously behind girls at all K-12 levels. Girls get better grades than boys and boys are far more likely than girls to be held back, disciplined, suspended, or expelled. By high school the typical boy is a year and a half behind the typical girl in reading and writing, and is less likely to graduate high school, go to college, or graduate college than a typical girl. Boys are four times as likely to receive a diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder as girls, and the vast majority of learning-disabled students are boys. Nearly nine million prescriptions of Ritalin are written for American children each year, most of them for boys between the ages of six and 12.Educational Consultants Bret Burkholder and Ed Leitner....[discuss] the fake "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder" epidemic, and [note] that we in fact do have an "Attention" problem--teachers and administrators are not paying attention to boys' educational needs, and are instead pushing Ritalin as a way to get boys to "behave" in a system which is not suited to them.
Note that nothing they're saying here suggests that there are no children anywhere who need such medication. But the data we have suggests an epidemic overprescription of medications, mostly directed at what appears to be an attempt to cure boyhood.
I suggest reading the rest of Glenn's column. You may also want to read a piece by Australian education expert Dr. Kevin Donnelly. Another excellent column by Christina Hoff Sommers helps lay waste the sexist stereotypes in this area that so many of us were fed in the 1980s and 1990s.
The education and political establishment in the US still sniffs at all this if it deigns to pay attention to it at all. This is shameful. But parents need to be aware of it.
Especially parents of boys.
* Update 9/23/03 * Donald Sensing has some penetrating insights based on considerable experience. As usual.
Indeed! If there's one issue that will guarantee my getting rabidly involved in politics, it's the pathetic and broken educational system in this country. Particularly since I have a son.
I wonder if the studies being done track differences in private vs public schools?
The solution for our son was to educate him at home, third through twelfth grades. He's graduating from college this December with a degree in philosophy and going right into a combined Masters/Ph.D. program. The freedom to be who and what he is was realized outside the decayed educational system. Words fail me in describing our joy at seeing him enter adulthood as a confident, capable and loving young man.
Yes, I know SOME children need the drugs. But, many sleeping disorders mimic the symptoms of attention disorders. Before you get your child medicated, get them tested for things like sleep apnea (where you wake several times during the night, often just enough to disturb REM cycle without actually breaking fully awake). Children seem to react differently than adults to lack-of-quality-sleep. In my experience, many doctors don't know about child sleep disorders, and are unwilling to learn. Just my limited bitter personal experience. (I'm willing to bet that doctor thinks of me as a bitter experience too :)
Good post, Dean.
Boys are, by nature, more rambunctious. They need more free play time--less time discussing their feelings and to be taught an effective and appropriate method of acting on those feelings. Discussion doesn't work for boys--action does.
If schools outside of home are to work at all, it is my belief that we need to segregate boys and girls--if not completely, then at least in the classroom.
There is nothing wrong with 99% of the boys being medicated--nothing that a half hour of rough and tumble on the playground wouldn't cure--combined with plenty of bull elephants to keep the little rascals on their toes.
Being mischievous isn't evil or hostile--it’s how boys express their creativity and curiosity--when they have too much idle time or are bored to tears. They are telling us something when they cannot keep still. But we aren’t listening.
It's the old cliche: If the brake light comes on in your car, do you fix the brakes or smash the light?
We've been smashing the light.
I'm in full agreement that 1) too many energetic and creative young boys are being medicated and marginalized simply because of their Y-chromosome and how that affects their behavior, and 2) that the current educational system simply can't accommodate the need for children to learn at their own pace and in their own way. Too often we blame creative and highly-intelligent children for "disruptive" behavior when the real culprit is boredom. I believe in public education because I believe that democracy requires an informed and literate populace; however that doesn't mean that public education is always a good thing. I would have loved to be home-schooled, and if I have children, I'll consider it for them as well.
I believe in public education as well, I believe that the public should be educated but have come to the conclusions that public schools do not teach children, hence the need to break the system and start over. Vouchers pegged to what is actually spent per student would be an exellent way to break this cultural war against boys. I have 3 daughters and 1 son. That they are wired differntly is beyond doubt. All the kids play with each other toys, except when my son first played with Tonka toys, he made the engine sounds. My daughters never did. Social construct indeed.
Perhaps its not a small coincidence that of few parents that volunteer in the classroom during regular hours, the majority are women.
Maybe boys would do better if they saw their dads and friends' dads in the classroom.
i was freakishly hyperactive as a kid, and my mom kept it is check by not letting me eat sugar. no candy, no chocolate, cookies only at the holidays and special occasions. it took care of the problem perfectly. i often wonder how many parents try this ever-so-difficult trick before they decide on pills.
Man, this one hits home. I have a nine year old that is bored with school, likes nothing more than "catching some air!" going off bike ramps, and who consistently gets every question (or close to it) right on every test. Every teacher he has ever had has suggested medication as have the principal and the "child study team" that has come to watch him. I'm sure that he'd be on medication, too, if my wife and I hadn't stood so firm against it. This is not just know-nothing stubborness on our part: I am a Ph.D. Cognitive Psychologist and no one has made an argument to me with any merit as to *why* medication would be appropriate. They just know he'd shut up and sit down more if he had something in him. And this is in one of the best public schools that we could find after doing pretty exhaustive research (we moved here specifically for the schoools).
Mrs. du Toit:
If the boys can be rambunctious and still learn everything they need to graduate on time and become productive, nay, pathbreaking members of the private sector economy, then they can take their instruction while suspended from the ceiling in gravity boots for all I care. They'll still suck at anything requiring patient persistence and the respect for other human beings which only attentive respect can convey, but at least they won't be a huge economic drain.
Half of creativity may involve killing one's inner squirrel, but most of dignity, respect and the ability to stand on ceremony requires killing or at least tranquilizing it.
Correction: I meant half of creativity may involve feeding one's inner squirrel."
Sorry for the error.
Somehow I've managed to attain steady employment and become a functional member of society, Jonathan, I hated school. Played hookey whenver I got a chance. Refused to do homework. Nearly flunked out. Still truly loathe the memory of many of my teachers and the more oppressive things I was put through in school, or involving school. Learned barely a god damned thing in my first 12 years of school that I didn't teach myself. Oh yeah, and my mom taught me to read, so I can't even credit my teachers with that.
Somehow, I've held steady employment since the age of 16, managed to become a functioning member of society, a husband and father.
I blurbed on a story back in April about a doctor who said ADHD was a myth and not a disease. I believe the same analysis also applies to ADD. I have known closely several boys who were medicated for supposed ADD problems. As far as I could discern, when not taking the medication, none of them exhibited any abnormal symptoms. I have often wondered if I would be me had they drugged bored hyper-active children when I was a tadpole, or would I be the guy digging cans out of the local honkytonk's dumpster each night. Oddly enough, I am now a bored hyper-active middle-aged man, and yet, thankfully, boredom still drives my creativity and productivity.
I have more than a casual knowledge about ADHD/ADD and have posted at length about it.
Christina Hoff Summers' book The War Against Boys is fascinating reading.
The ADHD/ADD issue is really a very complex one. There is no question that there are quite a few youngsters who can benefit from appropriate therapies. And there is no question that there are school districts who are abusing the syndrome to cover up their own inability to control classrooms. The terrible tragedy is when children get abused both by being inappropriately diagnosed and when denied treatment they could benefit from. I fear that the combination of demogoguery and school administration incompetence is doing great harm in each direction.
I agree that doctors are prescribing Ritalin at a staggering rate. I have a Psychiatric Nurse in the family who deals exclusively with pediatrics and she says that there is something fishy, as well. While most can agree that some children seem to need some sort of medication for hyperactivity, I am wondering if it may just be boyhood too. After all, boys are increasingly told to sit tight and behave when decades ago, before the onset of the technological revolution, they played outside all of the daylight hours. Is it possible that all this technology has caused alot of pent up energy that has nowhere to go?
Also, many may not be aware of the potential side effects of Ritalin, which include a side effect known as psychotic terrors. Some speculate that this could be a literal time bomb effect on some children.
I think that we need to find other avenues for the majority of the children being medicated with prescription drugs such as Ritalin. However, I must reiterate that some do need this therapy but I think most professionals would agree that we could find some alternative treatments for the majority.
Jude Montgomery
I concur with the trend of this thread (though I'm clueless at what Jonathan meant), but add this: my pediatrician's office last year became completely redecorated with drug company marketing, and I mean COMPLETELY. Any wonder he's in a hurry to write the script?
I too have been puzzled by just what Jonathan meant above...
Like Dean, I absolutely detested school when I was a kid. Absolutely detested school! Though my way of dealing with it was to churn out straight A's in every subject, effortlessly, and then devote the rest of my time and energy to reading and thinking on my own. I loved learning, but I hated school— an attitude which did not moderate until I was part way through high school.
As a youngster, I damn well knew how to behave, but in the lower grades I was sometimes something of a behavior problem, to put it mildly. 90% of the time I was a young gentleman, the other 10% I was the burning embodiment of implacable righteous fury. There were emotional issues here, only partially connected with school, and not at all driven by boyish "high spirits"; and I eventually outgrew it. But I'm sure that if I'd come along 30 years later, I would've been a prime candidate for some form of high-powered intervention, pharmacological or otherwise.
Fortunately my parents and teachers were wiser than that— firm but wise— though in any case, drugging kids for behavioral problems was pretty much unheard of back in those "primitive" days.
I turned out quite well in the end— long string of alphabet soup after my name, gainfully and productively employed, actively involved in church, in community activities, and in a community service organization. And heck, I'm even mellower and more civil in person than I am online. ;)
But like Tiger, I shudder to think how I might've turned out, had someone stepped in and "dealt" with my boyhood problems by the hook-or-crook of chemistry or pop psychology. Yeah, they would've smoothed my rough edges off a few years early, no doubt— but only at the cost of supplying me with a synthetic "plastic soul." I can't imagine how I would be the person I am today, had I been in my boyhood the object of such an intervention.
I'm just damn glad nobody ever succeeded in killing my "inner squirrel."
Hey Guys:
Dean: I’m glad it worked out so well for you. I was also borderline ADD in school, before they diagnosed such things. As such, I think I can credibly say that there’s much to be said for teachers presenting material in such a way as to be most absorbable to all children’s various (visual, aural, kinesthetic) learning styles, and there is much to be said for parents teaching children to be patient and attentive because there are situations in which valuable human beings (particularly the elderly) need to interact with us and are incapable of driving conversation scintillating enough to match the entertainment capacity of Sega. Sometimes you have to have to demonstrate the patience to sit and listen to that which doesn't fascinate, because it is important. This is a large part of maturity.
The creativity of children needs to be nurtured . . . I’ve seen plenty of adult fallout from what I assume was the childhood suppression of an active right brain. But I believe that quiet and thoughtful attentiveness-something that Americans suck at, culturally—is a huge subset of all that makes up respect. I deeply resent the parents of the underspanked allowing their children to disrupt church services, weddings, funerals, etc. I was incredibly grateful that my undergraduate graduation was capped not by the abysmal beach ball-infested commencement ceremony (though I attended and suffered through it), but by a dignified commissioning ceremony at which we were addressed by a Gulf War POW.
A French friend of mine once marvelled at the fact that Americans have coin-operated newspaper dispensers where people (generally) pay for and take one newspaper. He said they would never succeed in France, where the first consumer would set the stack on top of the dispenser. I realize I've strayed from classroom discipline to respect for authority, but I think these concepts interconnect.
Paul: I think you and I were nearly identical in childhood. If we all agree that the disease that needs treating is classroom discipline, then why aren’t we encouraging legal reforms which give teachers broad authority to handle student outbursts with either physical punishment (needn’t be spanking . . . 100 push-ups would probably suffice) or immediate consequence-free ejection of chronic problem students?. This should provide for a productive learning environment for the students who want to learn, while reducing the incentive of parents to overmedicate their kids.