Overdrugging kids is not the answer

Young Voices

In an October issue of "U.S. News & World Report," Nancy Shute produced an article explaining the conspiracies and overselling of a drug called Ritalin — commonly prescribed to children and teen-agers to treat attention deficit disorder (also known as ADD).

In this article, lawyers are suing the American Psychiatric Association and Novartis because of allegations or claims that they plotted and agreed to promote the use of Ritalin in regards of children and teen-agers. It is believed that at least 90 percent of the children and teen-agers taking Ritalin have been inaccurately medicated.

"The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" (which holds the classifications, definitions, and symptoms of disorders similar to ADD) is becoming too extensive and broad.

Like the article said, "Behavior such as fidgeting and inattentiveness may be annoying but is not pathological." I agree with this statement. I have many friends and classmates that battle the day-to-day routine of pills.

Many of them, perhaps, don't have ADD and instead were prescribed drugs that covered up their real dilemma: immaturity. And now that they have grown up some, leaving behind those adolescent stages, are trapped with a prescription they can't get rid of.

Doctors, parents and teachers are becoming lazy as time progresses. Instead of disciplining their children, parents are going to a doctor, filling a prescription and temporarily "fixing the problem." Every day, children and teen-agers are pouring thousand upon thousands of different chemicals into their bodies because of a misdiagnosis.

Technology has had its positive and negative influences on our lives and cultures; Ritalin had been both a marvel and a mistake, leaving the intention that it isn't OK to be a child or a teen-ager anymore. The standards and expectations of young people are becoming larger as the new millennium makes a start. A young child pulling on his mother's coat at the bank isn't just annoying anymore, it is now a disorder.

Instead of being recognized as a diagnosis, ADD has turned into a term doctors and parents label children with.

Wake up, America! Spend some time with your kids, they happen to be brilliant little people with brilliant little minds — they only want a little attention from their parents. You want a drug to ruin that?

Shelbilynne Gaiser is a sophomore at Colony High School.