Why is your average person okay with giving children anti-depressants, adderall, etc? Am I crazy for thinking this is extremely messed up?

244  2017-05-12 by [deleted]

[deleted]

180 comments

Man you're working overtime with this bullshit

Oh let me guess, I'm wrong about this one too? Prescription pills are great for children.

Just ridiculous how you're posting and deleting, posting and deleting to a bunch of different subreddits over and over.

Why do you care? What's the big deal? What is he posting that's so bad?

He posts a bunch of crap about how McDonald's isn't good enough for him because he thinks it's comparable to slavery then when people call him out for being a stupid whiney bitch he deletes it and spams another dumb post that is literally just complaining. Rinse and repeat multiple times over just this past hour.

Mcdonalds is fucking wage slavery.

Wage slavery is a difficult idea to defend if you don't know how, so maybe he got confused.

It's a legitimate idea but it requires some radical rethinking of some assumptions our society is based on which makes it difficult for some people to comprehend and so of course they react angrily, as the ignorant always will when faced with questions which undermine their mass produced and factory farmed illusions.

Or maybe he said something else and realized he was wrong

I still don't see why you care so much

What's it to you if he decides to delete a post, seriously????

Eh, guess it's hard to explain the dude's attitude if you didn't see it. Not worth arguing with you about that's for sure. Cheers

K🍻

I'm pretty sure you're arguing with his alt account.

What do you own stock in mcdonalds? Why are you stalking this guy?

Lol 3 comments over 2 different threads constitutes stalking? You're crazy.

Researching his posts in other threads seems like stalking to me.

following me around

Lol sounds like someone needs a safe space.

1)stay out of my personal space

2)personal space

3)personal space

4 )watch that personal space

I agree with, parents are naive to put their kids on mind altering drugs. They need to sign their kids up for sports, instead of using drugs that changes of the child's brain.

Well you found your safe space alright :)

Meanwhile your first post to this sub is attacking another user?

Maybe you should stick with /r/drugs, /r/nfl and hiphopheads for conversation more on your level.

My first post to this sub? I've been on here almost 6 years lol.

Good job though. I'm sure you get a great sense of fulfillment and accomplishment from your endless shitposting about Trump.

Because the average person is probably on them, so they want to think it's okay.

Nobody wants to believe their doctor would give them a poison brainwashing pill. So they don't. And then they give the same pill to their toddler.

Usually they start them on the amphetamine type drugs around 8.

Because some kids are kind of crazy these days. They don't get enough exercise, they are brainwashed, they are fed crap food, given loads of injections, had their brain ultrasounded numerous times in utero, are constantly are under adult supervision, and spend all day sitting on their butts in a boring classroom. No wonder people think they need drugs. They don't, they need better lives, poor things.

Yea we people in general seem to always look for all external solution to the problems caused by our unnatural stressful high anxiety lives. The answer is to slow down, eat good food, more family time and less distractions. These kids are subconsciously crying out for help.

Easier said than done. For those of us working multiple jobs just trying to get by, we dont have a choice but to accept the unnatural stressful high anxiety life.

I agree that Americans definitely look for external solutions (hence the pill nation, among other things) way too much, but for many people that's their only escape from this hell-hole of debt slavery we're trapped in.

That's true man we are all in the same boat for the most part, on the hamster wheel. Living below my means and just being content has helped me personally.

Im just waiting for the next financial collapse, and hoping things actually get sorted this time instead of covered up like in 08. This debt based society cannot last forever. We need a revolution!!! . . .i have a hard time being content with things and just living, because then i feel like im giving up and those shady assholes in charge won. Human beings were meant for so much more than to toil away in labor for someone else's gain. So much wasted life in the past 100 years, just so that hamster ball keeps on rolling

we need a good zombie outbreak

Haha idk y, but i read this as a "good zombie" outbreak

I'd be a good-guy zombie.

Unfortunately I think the next collapse is the world collapse ushering in the new digital currency system aka mark of the beast. But we shall see.

That we shall. Out of curiosity tho, digital currency is the mark of the beast? From what i understand, bitcoin is a huge step in the right direction to getting out from under the thumb of the banking industry

Block chain crypto currencies were developed by universities in conjunction with governmental agencies. It achieves the goal of bringing all humanity under total economic and social control by allowing or disallowing buying and selling depending on the individuals decision to take part in the new system they're creating. They will have total access and control over everything, the banning of cash is already happening in some countries for instance. Ultimately we will be given a choice to accept their conditions to gain access to the new economy and take the mark, or we will deny the mark and not be able to buy or sell as gold and silver will be worthless.

That's bullshit, sorry.

Will edit this with arguments later on. I'm sightseeing on a windmill in the Netherlands atm.

I'm sorry which part do you not agree with?

Sorry for the late response.

Well, crypto currencies weren't developed by universities and goverment. Only after it took hold as more and more people started using it and was proven to work as designed in the wild. Crypto as an idea originated from a movement called cypherpunk, who believes in using technology, especially strong cryptography, as a tool for social and political change. They've been around since the late 80's. Now, the blockchain is a really neat idea and solves a problem called the 'Byzantine General's Problem'. In essence it comes down to this: there's no need anymore for a 'third party' in order to transfer ownership from one stranger to another. Ownership can be money like bitcoin, but it can be anything, really. It's completely the opposite of what you wrote. The blockchain cannot be controlled, it doesn't give total access to everything, it cannot allow or disallow individuals buying or selling. I'm a lurker. i don't write much. But your words just were kinda screaming at me. I recommend you to read the white paper, it's just a couple of pages and not too difficult to comprehend: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf This stuff can, and i believe it eventually will, change our world fundamentally, and for the better.

The technology takes away the third party but it make the transaction public, and combined with rf identification and technologies that knows where everyone is at all times, it can easily be used to predict and monitor what people buy. And I'm not saying this one thing is the mark of the beast what I'm saying is that this very well could be the next currency for their NWO worldwide system. Whatever this mark is I believe it has to do with changing your DNA but it will determine whether or not you have access to their new system.

Reality is not a menu one can choose from to justify a belief. wish you a nice day, sir.

Kids will also input themselves to death with entertainment of the electronic category.

Actually, the majority of parents make sure their children are active and get outdoors and play sports and eat healthy foods.

Where?

1950.

Actually a majority of parents have their kids enrolled in daycare and school, where they eat school lunches and have a couple recesses. Other than that they are inside. I don't know about you but I need to be moving around most of the day and get a couple good hours of more intense movement going in order to feel like I was "active" that day.

I bet you do not have children yet. Many parents make sure their kids are active and playing outside and eating healthy.

You're wrong, I'm a parent. I've also worked in a school, been to many schools, been a child, and I have eyes to see.

Many parents do take great care of their kids, and many parents don't. I think it's a symptom of a society that pulls families away from each other and to their various jobs and institutions in order to make ends meet.

I know this is /r/conspiracy but do people really believe that ultrasounds damage unborn children's brains? This is next level tinfoil hat material...

I don't think many people do, I'm not sure, haven't heard a lot about it. Ultrasounds don't really help anything in my opinion. Really the only thing they are good for is finding a few very rare defects (not 100% accurate) and identifying the sex of the baby (also not 100% accurate). There is no testing done for ultrasounds, so I skipped them. Everyone thought I was crazy. Baby turned out fine. If they don't help the outcome of a pregnancy, why use them? That is what really made me say no thank you. Doctors pestered me every visit about it though.

We don't know. Nobody has actually studied the question, to my knowledge. Ultrasound has always been considered safe by the medical establishment but that is not a vote of confidence in my book.

High frequency sounds could theoretically disrupt something in development. I know for myself, when I have kids, I'll definitely ask for one ultrasound early in pregnancy. It is very helpful to get one so you can locate the placenta and make sure it's not a molar pregnancy and so on. Beyond that, less is more as far as I'm concerned.

What makes you think that the average person is ok with this? Did you do a survey?

I think they are basing that on the fact there are so many kids we hear about that are taking them.

Yeah but that does not mean that the average person thinks it's okay. So this question is pretty rhetorical. Honestly, at least from the demographic of people I'm surrounded with and in the area I live in, most people are NOT okay with medicating their young child. It's kinda annoying seeing all these posts recently on this sub that complain about all these parents that think it's okay to do give their children medications right away. Just because you know one or two or even ten parents that think it's okay, does NOT mean the average person thinks it's okay.

The only people I've ever known to give young children medications do so because their kids have conditions that cause seizures or their child is severely autistic or has a similar condition. And even then, the parents are not just giving them loads of pills and that's it, their also trying out diet and exercise changes, therapy, and other techniques to help their child function and be capable to do everyday thinks like everybody else, and if they could do it without medications, they would.

I feel like saying "the average person thinks it's okay" is extremely one sided and not true due to lack of evidence. Once I see an actual statistic that's computed properly, I would believe that statement.There are over 325 million people in the US, to say the average person is an extreme over estimate that causes drama caused by falsehood. Seeing how many kids are being medicated at young ages does not mean that their parents are okay with giving the medications, they're just trying to do the best they can as parents for their child.

It's a pharmaceutical scam that likely has a larger motive behind the scenes. Just a few days ago I read of someone's 4 year old being prescribed Zoloft. That's fucked.

Let's not forget many doctors receive under the table payments from these evil companies.

+1. There is evidence already that adderall, for example, rewires dopamine receptors in adults brain when taken long enough. Effectively it can change your personality. Add to this that the brain doesn't mature until 21 (arguably 25 in the ore-frontal Cortex which controls our highest conscious functions like judgment.) and you clearly have a problem.

My psych professors always warned of what underage drinking can do to the developing brain, I can't imagine what some of the drug cocktails given adolescents must be doing.

My god that's scary...

Yeah, there's a slow developmental process that the human brain follows. Most neurons are created before birth, then follow a specific process of migration to their eventual destinations (again, before birth). From infancy to puberty there is a gradual but very specific process of development, including the formation of connections followed by pruning of connections, as well as a coordinated process of myelination (creation of fatty sheaths around neuronal axons in order to speed up the transmission of signals). In particular, the prefrontal cortex has a particularly complex developmental process, which can last until young adulthood. Development of the limbic system, which controls emotion, takes off at puberty and has a complex relationship with the functions of the prefrontal cortex.

All of this is to say that any drug that affects the nervous system and is taken over a long period of time will certainly alter the development of the brain and lead to permanent effects.

This is what David Icke has been talking about for years... It's not just the pharmaceuticals either. It's the stuff in the pesticides and GMO crops, too.

If people knew what man made prescription drugs do to dopamine, they would believe they are more dangerous than natural psychedelics.

Mostly they don't know any better, and the doctors are getting paid a shit ton of money and incentivized by big pharma to pass these pills out like candy.

All I'm going to say is that sometimes the right drug makes a hell of a difference in a persons life. Not all prescriptions are evil.

Most prescriptions are redundant. What is sad is most people don't understand how it works. They use a me too philosphy when launching a drug. Usually it is the same as other drugs already on the market such as one that is about to go generic. So they launch a drug with the same qualities but slightly different. Maybe different dosing varieties. Same drug just a bit different. Meanwhile drug prices sky rocket and no real improvement from anything else.

We really need r/conspiracyfightclub and r/conspiracyactualconversations.

I'm regards to OP: yes, it's ridiculous. My step sister at the time was put on Ritalin at age four by her grandmother because she didn't pay attention in church.

I don't know the statistics door how many people are pissed about it, but I can't imagine it's the minority.

I'm going to get my kids only the necessary vaccines, fresh food (even if I have to sell my belongings), and they'll be getting exercise if I have to chase them with foam swords to do it.

What bothers me the most is that in many cases it's not the kids fault, it's their shitty parents.

My nephew is in high-school and is on some of this shit for ADHD. The thing is, my sister is with an abusive guy (not my nephews father) they all drink all the time, they have parties, they fight, etc. His father basically checked out a decade ago and is 90% absentee.

So you have a kid from a very traumatic home, who is dealing with a ton of personal issues, and is a fucking teen with all that drama and hormones. And you wonder why he is having trouble with math class?

Then instead of taking a look at the whole situation objectively and making the necessary changes and getting the necessary therapy, they say it's a "mental problem" and drug up the kid.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with my nephew. The minute you get him out of that house and away from his "step-dad" he is a completely different person. He is attentive, happy, talkative, or just a normal kid.


My wife is a teacher and works at a high risk school, and has for over 10 years now. It's uncanny how the kids from two parent homes where the parents have their shit together, somehow 99% of those kids do well in school and are not medicated. But the kids from 1 parent homes or homes with a ton of chaos, you guessed it! The majority of them are on medications and have IEP's.

Either there is an outlier here that I am missing, or the problems these kids are having are NOT FUCKING MEDICAL so we should STOP FUCKING MEDICATING THEM.

Sorry for yelling.

No you are right 100 percent. There is a huge study that supports your claim. Standby I will try to find it.

You can treat these kids to amazing success by simply exposing them to nature in a deep way. The programs that have troubled kids live with each other in the wilderness for a couple months does wonders to solve their underlying spiritual crisis.

to be fair, a kid with that bad and environment was probably going to drug himself. I wonder if the adderal keeps them off other stuff.

adderal as a child leads to meth as an adult.

or even more adderal?

Well yeah but eventually that gets too expensive.

why wouldn't someone still have a perscrption. ADHD is not really curable...that's why they are on adderal and not something to cure them.

I imagine if you get hit with any drug charges, your doctor may take the prescription away. Also, if you loose the physical prescription your doctor gives you that month, you can't just get a new one until the next month, so you gotta find an alternative to hold you over.

Have you never been without health insurance?

yes, i was given discounts by the dr and it was cheaper than any deductible i have ever had. the only guy i know that is still taking adderal at 35 year old has never had insurance. it's not expensive, especially when you can sell them for 20 a piece to college students.

That's not my experience. When you are homeless, it's pretty hard to get someone to prescribe you anything let alone let you into their business.

homeless....like less than 1% of the population. sorry you slipped though the cracks.

Way to be dismissive as soon as my experience doesn't line up with yours.

homeless with internet access, only in America.

not currently dipshit

so you can overcome, congrats.

and you can't understand other people's experiences if they don't line up with yours, congrats.

if I only hear one type of person's experience, yah.

they portray conservatives as stupid and that they shouldn't be listened to.

???

Id personally rather see a teen smoke pot then be doped up on ADD/ADHD/Depression/Anxiety medicine.

I agree. they shouldn't prescribe narcotics to children. I don't care how hyperactive or uninterested in class they are. A good beating fixes most of this. shit, entire races of people were enslaved and forced to work while paying attention only with the encouragement of physical punishment.

Ok, well that's one case. As someone who works in special ed, I can tell you that some kids need medication in order to hold a normal conversation. The chemicals in their head are at an imbalance.

I understand where you're coming from, but saying no kid should be medicated ever is more dangerous than what you are upset about.

Behavior should never be medicated unless it can cause harm to the individual or others.

This idea that we medicate kids who are 100% healthy, have perfect vitals, no physical symptoms or problems is insane. Why? Because every single child doesn't fit into this mold we created where they have to wake up 5 days a week, go to a building, sit still in a chair, listen attentively, memorize and repeat what they just saw, not talk back, not have an opinion, and do it for 12 years?

All while we take away recess, take away extra curricular activities, pump shitty food into them, and fill their world with insane amounts of auditory and visual stimuli.

If they cannot do that, in that situation, even if they are 100% healthy and pass every MEDICAL test with flying colors. We still feel the need to put chemicals in them, why?

Not paying attention, and not having a conversation is not a medical issue, so please stop medicating them.

I'm sorry to be so blunt with you, but you're just wrong and have not worked with the type of kids I work with.

You're preaching to the choir when it comes to giving kids more time to be outside and discover things. As someone who works in public school, I think we are going down a dangerous path where every kid has to be held to the same standard. Charter schools can be a great example of how I think education should be run, but that's a subject for another time.

That being said, it isn't as simple as "Not paying attention, and not having a conversation." If a kid can't sit and hold a meaningful conversation because of his attention span, what do you think happens to his social skills? What about skills we all learned in school that help us in the future? He's certainly not going to form meaningful relationships with peers if they can't hold his attention. That can lead to another whole set of issues like anxiety and depression.

So what do you do for a kid like that? Because I know them. A lot of them. I've seen them on medication, and I've seen them without and I can tell you it does have a positive effect.

Are too many kids medicated? Absolutely. Are public schools drilling kids with way to much info? You bet. Is medicating a child for ADHD an inherently bad thing? No.

Because parents are too overwhelmed from having to work three jobs so they can keep up with the Jones', whom compete with the Astor's thus leaving them no time to parent. Doctors are willing to prescribe them. Everybody's medicated and happy in the end.

Or so they believe.

People place a lot of blind faith on doctors. I think this is going to be the biggest red pill for a lot of people to swallow. Patients are commodities for doctors just like cattle on the auction block. Doctors make their money from insurance, hospitals and big pharma. Not patients. It's a facade. When the truth about the medical industry is exposed only then will things change. when patients stop using insurance and doctors are forced to get paid directly through their insurance only then will things change. Until then money talks and if you are not paying the doctor yourself then he is working for the interests of insurance and big pharma.

Why noy take money out of medicine altogether? Why not be like all other developed countries and have universal free health care? Countries that have it enjoy a better healthcare system than US.

ADD & ADHD is not even recognized as mental disorder in Europe. Blame it on ignorant parents who prefer to medicate their kids than raising them. Most of the parents are medicated themselves, why should kids be any different?!

Big Pharma gets to doctors while they still are in Universities by using gifts. Big pharmaceutical companies also donate extensively to universities, which enables them to dictate the appointments of industry-friendly professors.

It's not only big pharma it is insurance. The more patients a doctor has the more money he can command in his contract with the insurance. Hospitals also go out of their way to incentivize contracts. Why not take money out ? because no one wants to work for free. The carrot and the stick are a human nature reality. It is not how I wish we were idealistically. It is reality that humans need incentives. Socialism is a lovely theory, I also wish santa clause existed. It is a theory that unfortunately does not work because humans need incentives. The problem is not the money, the problem are the middleman that hold an unbalance of money and tip the scales too far in their direction. Don't eliminate the money, eliminate the middle men out of the picture.

Universal free healthcare does not equal Socialism. Countries (to name the few) like Germany, UK, France, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Austria and Canada can hardly be called Socialist countries. American people are so brainwashed that they will argue against the thing that will benfits them the most. Who said doctors work for free in UK for example? Doctors that drives a BMW in England to work is not working for free.

Universal Healthcare does not make you a Socialist country, but it is certainly a Socialist policy

It's called human right!

No it's not. It's a service, provided by trained professionals. It's no more a human right than internet access, gasoline, McDonalds Cheeseburgers, or any other modern-day convenience.

Helping people and burgers are not the same. Are you hungry by any chance? You can live without any of those things, but if your ass is severely bleeding or diagnosed with cancer you would wish that it's a right and not service for which you have to pay. Why should people choose between not undertaking life-saving procedure or financial ruin.

Nah not hungry, I just work at McDonalds and was starting my shift so it was the first thing to pop into my head lol.

And as the saying goes, if wishes were fishes we'd all cast nets. You can wish it's a "right" all you damn well please, it still doesn't entitle you to the service of another human being.

Because sometime you choose not to ... like say when you're 85yo and don't want to waste your entire amassed family fortune on futile care and instead want to give your grandchildren opportunities you never had.

But when you live under the thumb of socialism with things like Single Payer Health Insurance systems you loose that choice and the state squanders your would-be family wealth.
So much for ending generational poverty!

But endless war IS a human right.

/s

The labor of others is not a an entitled right

It's not free, people pay for that service with taxes. It's dumb to think that in countries with universal free health care people work for free.

trolollolol?

Germany has a mixed system. The US could modeling that system.

I believe it is Switzerland that has a very effective voucher based system.

So?

It's not free. Stop calling it free. It would involve large tax increases on all of us.

I cannot believe you'd trust the government to decide what healthcare you needed or didn't need or if you were worth keeping alive or not.

This is /r/conspiracy, right??

It would involve large tax increases on all of us.

Try taking it out of the 600 something billion we put each year into war.

This is why taxation is theft. Our taxes aren't used to benefit the american people for the most part. It's used to start wars, to profit a small number of people, to better fuck us over. It's definitely not used for our roads, water supplies, electricity, or anything else like that. If it were, we'd have some pretty magnificent graphite roads while being the cleanest, wealthiest country on the planet where nobody goes without. Basically a utopia.

But we have a government system that is built to attract and be run by sociopaths and psychopaths. Our corporations are the same. Those values are forced on the people. "Me me me, all about me". Universal health care is the same. "Why should I pay for a lazy piece of shit's health care" is all I ever hear. God damn is pisses me off. We would all pay so much less for health care if everyone were paying for it.

The problem I have is when my money goes to some lazy piece of shit who just wants to sap their resources without adding any value back into it.

It will still cost you less. You're giving that lazy piece of shit maybe 10 bucks maximum, and that's if they got a terminal disease that lasted years. When you have 200 million people paying towards each others health care, the amount that goes towards lazy people is negligible.

Your ideas sound good in theory, but we're talking about the real world.

They work in just about every single other first world country.

Including but not limited to:

  • Algeria

  • Botswana

  • Burkina Faso

  • Egypt

  • Ghana

  • Mauritius

  • Morocco

  • Rwanda

  • Seychelles

  • South Africa

  • Tunisia

  • Bhutan

  • Hong Kong

  • India

  • Isreal

  • Macau

  • People's Republic of China

  • Singapore

  • Sri Lanka

  • Taiwan

  • Thailand

  • Austria

  • Croatia

  • Czech Republic

  • Denmark

  • Finland

  • France

  • Germany

  • Greece

  • Guernsey/Jersey

  • Iceland

  • Ireland

  • Isle of Man

  • Italy

  • Luxembourg

  • Netherlands

  • Norway

  • Portugal

  • Romania

  • Russia & Soviet Union

  • Serbia

  • Sweden

  • Switzerland

  • United Kingdom

  • The Bahamas

  • Canada

  • Costa Rica

  • Cuba

  • Mexico

  • Trinidad and Tobago

  • New Zealand

  • Australia

  • Colombia

  • Peru

  • Argentina

  • Brazil

At this point it's just sad that we don't have one.

Americans already pay way more for healthcare than any of developed countries, and for that you get to be last a amongst developed countries and 37th worldwide.

Money is there to pay for it, try slashing defense budget! You seem to be OK with burning money on bombs. Who said government decides if you live or die in countries like France for example? It's amazing how brainwashed you people are, no wonder wealthy people treat you like cattle. You pay for insurance, yet you have to get pre-approval from company you pay, does that make sense to you? What happens if you get a breast cancer and insurance company doesn't want to cover the treatment on basis that it's experimental? Happens all the time, insurance companies have panel of doctors whose sole purpose is find an excuse not cover people. It seems that you are fine entrusting a corporation with life or death decision.

You're making a lot of assumptions about me and what I think the government should spend money on.

For fiscal 2017, they are already spending $1 trillion on healthcare. That's just the Feds, not private spending. How is that not enough?

I notice you don't mention the U.K. or Canada as successes...because of course they aren't, and wealthy people pay for private care in the U.K. and come to the US from Canada.

But long story short, I don't particularly trust insurance companies, but I trust the government not at all.

The insurance and health care industries are a total mess, and I highly doubt there's any lobbyists that will write legislation to fix the regulations because how does that make anyone money?

I don't know about wealthy people and what they do.

I understand your point of not trusting government, how can anyone trust these people when they are so corrupt. Someone needs to regulate Big Pharma, how much they can charge, oblige them to prove with independently-funded research that their products are safe before releasing the products. Ban advertising TV and bribing of doctors and universities. Put strict regulations on insurance industry and hospitals. Give people a choice between private or government healthcare at least, let them compete.

Healthcare system in US is a cartel business. A medicine that costs 10$ in one country, costs 100$ in US. A month supply of Lipitor 400$, for what? A drug that damages your liver?

Give people a choice between private or government healthcare at least, let them compete.

That is already what is happening in America right now. How much do you actually know about the US, outside of the conspiracies you read online? And you're completely making shit up again, just like you did with the "Europe doesn't consider ADHD a real condition" nonsense. Lipitor costs $140 per month in the US without insurance. People in the US who have insurance pay an average of between $10 and $20 for a month's supply of Lipitor. Also, for whatever reason you pointed out that Lipitor can cause liver damage, that is a side effect that occurs in less than 1% of people who take the drug for a life threatening condition. I think the reward outweighs the risk for people who actually need to take that drug.

You are the type of people that would rather believe a lie than face the truth. Forbes wrote an article about how US healthcare fares against other countries, but what do they know, they are all lying and you are the one telling the truth. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/danmunro/2014/06/16/u-s-healthcare-ranked-dead-last-compared-to-10-other-countries/amp/

Regarding Lipitor, I know how much it costs because I pay it for someone who doesn't have insurance. http://i.imgur.com/22M7xck.jpg

I mentioned liver damage because we are paying top dollar for a drug that has serious side effects. According to pharmaceutical companies, all drugs with serious effects only effect 1% or in 'rare cases', based on research funded by them. More you comment, the more you sound like industry shill!

Regarding ADHD I will provide you with more links to studies, but I have a feeling it's going to be a waste of time. Facts are irrelevant to you!

80mg is an extremely high dose of Lipitor, I'm sorry that you have to pay for that for someone. It's very uncommon for anyone to have to take that much. My dad is on Lipitor and was uninsured until last year, it cost him about $140 a month for 30mg. If you don't like the side effect potential of Lipitor then go with another statin? It's not like Lipitor is the only one. If your argument is that EVERY drug in that class has potential liver damage as a side effect, then I suggest you get a degree in chemistry and try to make something better.

The ADHD thing isn't a debate though, there are individual people in Europe who refuse to accept it is a real condition. There are also people who think that hurricanes are caused by gay marriage. However, your claim was that the whole continent of Europe does not treat ADHD as a condition. You cannot show me a source that backs that claim up as most (all?) countries in Europe approve of prescribing amphetamines or methylphenidate (or both) as treatments for ADHD. You can certainly say that American doctors overprescribe stimulants to children for ADHD when they may not actually have the condition, I would agree with that.

Um no. Those are all extremely socialist countries.
Add Japan to the list as well.

ADD & ADHD is not even recognized as mental disorder in Europe

This sentence makes no sense. Europe consists of 50 countries. Are you saying they are all in unison agreement?

that is what is implied.

Plus, it totally is. In England you can get extra financial benefits if your child is on behavioral meds for things like ADHD and ADD.

I never said that, but really do you expect me to mention the stance of every European country? All 50 of them as you mentioned?

Read what I quoted. You said "not even recognized as a mental disorder in Europe". What were you even trying to convey? Did you mean "A lot of european countries" or perhaps "most european countries"? Your statement made no sense.

So much bullshit in this comment. The American healthcare system is shitty no doubt, but for most people it works. If you're poor or even have a below average income then it is a nightmare. Disclaimer that I agree it desperately need improvement. However you're delusional if you think every other developed country in the world has better healthcare than the US.

ADD & ADHD is not even recognized as mental disorder in Europe

This is just a lie that you made up. Google searching "adhd europe" turns up all kinds of European sources on the treatment of ADHD. Approaches to treatment are different, sure, but why are people just believing your comment that Europe doesn't recognize them as disorders? There are 28 governments in the EU, it is beyond me why people are eating this crap up.

I meant pay it with taxes instead of having private capital controlling it. Yes they have better healthcare than US. Google the ranking of US when it comes to healthcare.

Then explain why wealthy people travel internationally to the US to receive healthcare?

I think what you meant to say is more affordable healthcare, not better healthcare.

Everyone knows that US healthcare is expensive and hard to access if you don't have a job that provides good insurance. It's one of the many problems of not having universal healthcare, which I wholeheartedly support and think we need. The bottom line though is that if you can pay up, the US has some of the best doctors and hospitals in the world and wealthy people come here from all over to receive care. This is a product of the private health industry. Many doctors leave their home country and come to America for school and to work because they know that's how they can make the most money.

I'm still concerned about your delusion that Europe doesn't diagnose people with ADD or ADHD. Why haven't you addressed any questions about that?

You keep on flip flopping on issue, typical right wing mentality. Oh and on ADHD issue : https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2013-10-01/adhd-pill-faces-high-hurdle-in-europe-as-stigma-persists

I guess they are wrong and you are right! :)

Right wing what?

I'm not flip flopping on anything. In my first comment I brought this up and you put off addressing it til now, and you still haven't backed up your claim:

ADD & ADHD is not even recognized as mental disorder in Europe.

That is copied and pasted verbatim from your comment. The link you just gave proves that wrong...

"The European debut of a pill to treat children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder faces a major hurdle: convincing people the condition exists."

It's first paragraph on ADHD link I gave, I assume you know how to read, right? Are you on Adderall yourself? Maybe that's why you seem so butt-hurt ADHD issue.

You said that quality of US healthcare system is fine and dandy. http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2014/jun/mirror-mirror If your attention attention span is short to read it all, scroll to the end of the article, there is a graph with some bright colors that you are going to like.

Are you that dense? That sentence means that they have to convince some people that it is a real condition. Not unlike how in America we have to convince some people that vaccines won't give your kid autism.

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs39

Information about ADHD straight from the UK government's sources. Stop saying that Europe doesn't consider ADHD a real condition.

The American healthcare system is shitty no doubt, but for most people it works. If you're poor or even have a below average income then it is a nightmare.

Definitely - it's very confusing. People aren't charged the same price for the same service across the board, and you have no idea what something will cost until you get a bill.

Worse, it's very hard to even sort out what's going on if you do have insurance.

Prices need to be posted and the same for everyone. You may not be aware that the uninsured are actually charged more than insurance companies pay and than Medicare or Medicaid would pay. It's absurd.

Your doctor doesn't know (or care) what Rx drugs are in your insurance formulary. You could go to a pharmacy with it only to find you owe $300 (or more) for a month because it's not covered. Then what? You have to get the doctor to prescribe something else which may be better, worse or exactly the same.

The administration of all of this is a nightmare as well and adds a lot to the total cost of care and insurance.

You may not be aware that the uninsured are actually charged more than insurance companies pay and than Medicare or Medicaid would pay. It's absurd.

Sort of. Insurance companies haggle down costs with hospitals, and uninsured individuals have every right to do the same. They don't have nearly as much negotiating power as an insurance company, of course.

And they have no idea how good of a deal the government or the insurance company got.

Surely, you aren't defending this practice?

Not at all, just stating how the insurance company ends up paying less than an uninsured individual would be billed.

That doesn't take the money out of healthcare ... jesus please bang a couple of rocks together for a while and work your way up to economics.

There are a lot of people who should not have children

History shows pretty well how this happened. A few generations ago you could order heroin, cocaine, and practically any drug/pharm right out of a Sears catalog. That eventually evolved into the 'pills from the doctor are medicine so its ok' mentality that has manifested into a new generation of recreational prescription drug abuse.

To be fair a lot of people don't think kids need that shit but theres just as many with the 'its from the doctor so its ok' perspective. That pretty much sums it up.

Universal free healthcare does not equal Socialism. Countries (to name the few) like Germany, UK, France, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Austria and Canada can hardly be called Socialist countries. American people are so brainwashed that they will argue against the thing that will benfits them the most. Who said doctors work for free in UK for example? Doctors that drives a BMW in England to work is not working for free.

Why is your average person OK with any of this?

Refined sugar.

Soda.

Diet soda.

Fake sugar.

????

Have a look at who makes the fake sugars. Have a close look.

who makes fake sugar?

Splenda

but splenda is openly a manufacturer of fake sugar, no? what's the dark side of splenda here?

not sure. they allow diabetics to taste something 'sweet' without messing up their blood sugar. Doesn't seem too bad.

At the extreme end it is apparently mutagenic! I'd say that's pretty dark. :-)

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/12/18/sucralose-side-effects.aspx

Whatever man... the world is messed up, has been for a long time. Back in the day when a child was depressed their parents use that as a excuse to beat them for being "lazy" and "disrespectful", and they still do. Giving them some questionable pills is a kindness. At least they recognize there is a problem. Do you have an alternative treatment that works and is feasible? Probably not.

No, you're not the crazy one. Anyone giving their kids mind altering shit is fucking insane. Matter of fact, i wouldn't give that stuff to an adult. People act like brain damaged zombies on those meds.

Not necessarily. I have horrible bipolar disorder and without medication I was literally destroying my body. I have scars and many broken relationships to prove it. With medication I am not a zombie, I'm a normal human. In fact, most people who act like zombies are on too high of a dose, which is scary and sad.

I think we overprescribe medication, but I do think about 5% of people really do benefit from it. Looking back, a very low dose of antidepressants along with my therapy may have stopped the suicidal thoughts that began at age 8.

Again, it is overprescribed and should never be used as the first line of action but rather a last resort, but not every parent is crazy for medicating their child.

Have you ever looked at how many anti-depressants are based on fluoride? There are better answers to these problems. There are safe, natural answers. You are not going to know how much these drugs can damage you for years. I've lived with someone who has been damaged by them. At this point, she knows they've damaged her but she no longer really cares.

I went thru 4 years of trying as many alternatives as I could get my hands on before resorting to prescription meds.... they're the only thing that has helped

As usual. There is a tiny minority for which those pills are a godsend, but then the state and the pedagogical establishment noticed they can fix problems they caused with it. And tadaa, all take 'em pills now.

What is scary today isnt all the bs...its the idea people like it and defend it...top comments are from demons. You think giving meds to someone without choice or consent or that isnt developed yet is sick

It's often something recommended by school staff, to a parent. Many parents will just follow the authority figure.

Not really, considering that our brains don't fully develop until we are 25.

drugging kids is soooooooo much easier than parenting.

So I'm sure that this stuff is over-diagnosed, and there are real problems with the over-prescription of drugs to children, but if you'd ever been around a kid who genuinely has ADHD you'd understand why people are okay with giving them Adderall.

The real problem is that ADHD has a similar issue to OCD, where people think it's not that big a deal and everyone thinks they have it in some way. But the fact is that, like OCD, actual ADHD is completely debilitating without medication to treat it (speaking from personal experience here). It's not just a matter of having trouble in math class or whatever. ADHD makes it extremely difficult to actually listen to what anyone else is saying. This affects school, sure, but it also affects personal relationships, and kids with ADHD are often extremely socially isolated and rejected by their peers. Having ADHD is a miserable experience. There's a reason why ADHD is so often comorbid with depression. Getting medicated was life-changing, for me (although I didn't get treatment until I was 24, to be fair).

I was diagnosed ADHD at age 8(34 now), immediately put on Ritalin and remained on it for 7 or so years. Was a zombie. I complained to my doctor about feeling like a drone that just existed, switched me to adderall along with a cocktail of other pills for about 3 years, again, zombified. Then I started smoking weed. Cannabis helped with my ADHD more so than ANY medication I have ever been on and allowed me to feel normal. No pills, no matter the amount, is the answer.

It's the answer FOR YOU. And that's great, that it worked for you to just smoke weed and not take pills. But everyone is different and there are lots of people who need to take pills. Myself, for instance. So don't assume that your experience is typical or even common. There's a lot more nuance to this issue than you want there to be.

My doc told my mom that I have ADHD and recommended speed, my poor mom trusted him because she thought his intentions were genuine and NOT a kickback taking stooge for Big Pharma

I believe maybe 5% of the kids on adhd actually need it.....

As a parent I refuse to put my kid on something that would slow them down and condition them to take pills.

I don't fault parents because they often are doing what they think is best and who am I to say what is best for someone else's kid.

Medication is a band-aid, not the cure

Adderall and ritalin for kids is fucked, who cares about their school performance at fucking age 7? Seriously? I was also jumping all over the place and distracted so what, it's elementary school, I passed just fine...

No, you're not crazy. If you were crazy you'd be normal and think it's perfectly fine.

Crazy is the new normal. It is moral decay.

Is childhood depression somehow less valid than adult depression? Tonight at 11.

Don't venture into Reddit's parenting subreddit. It'll depress you (no pun intended). There's a post every day about a child getting diagnosed with ADHD and medicated, or one on the autism spectrum.

The solution to any difficult problem is, "you need to put your child in therapy" (which more often than not leads to medication).

As for vaccines, I've seen parents ask, "what's the best way to forbid unvaccinated guests from visiting my children? What worked best for you?" Just think about the very framing of this question. Anyone who is not completely for the full schedule is downvoted, ridiculed, castigated as being a dangerous threat to society...

It's insanity.

I wonder if it's the zeitgeist or if it's shilled. Maybe both.

Just one of the reasons people who work in meds and with meds will be going to hell.

Because a doctor, someone who profits from drugging your child, tells you it's a good thing. Because they are paranoid that their child will fall behind. Because they are unable to see how the way they have raised their child has caused this "medical issue", and would rather place blame on chemical imbalances. Because it is easier to drug the child.

Doctor here. We don't receive payments from evil corporations. In fact anything I'm given in any form from a drug company is logged and public domain. I've even designed custom compounds made by a compounding pharmacy for my patients and I don't get a single dime from them.

In regards to meds for kids, at what age are meds okay? Is it okay to treat a kid with early onset schizophrenia with antipsychotics? I personally have taken a medication since I was a child and without it I wouldn't have become a doctor. It helps me function at the apex of my abilities.

Not all doctors are pill pushers. No doctor is getting kickbacks from pharmaceuticals since the sunshine law in the US. If I eat a drug rep lunch that's logged and public domain info.

You think I like giving kids psychiatric medications? Of course not. But when some 6 year old girl is seemingly immune to pain and always attempting to murder her toddler brother because the voices in her head tell her to do so, we will fix that with diet and exercise right?

Its not always as black and white as you list it here.

That being said, amphetamines and stimulants are WAY over prescribed and I've personally wondered if this is permitted federally as an amped up population has a better GDP.

Parents would rather have a doctor give them pills to "fix" their kids than actually sit down and try to figure out what's bothering them or how they could help as a parent.. prescriptions should be an absolute last case scenario and only for the most extreme cases.

That's just one facet...60% of the entire USA population is on some kind of prescription drug...and they pretty much all have a huge list of possible side effects...yet this is 'normal'...there's hardly ever a real cure to an ailment, just long term treatment so they pharma companies can bleed us all dry for every dollar we've got. And so many people are blindly trusting of doctors instead of doing some research themselves to see if there's a better cheaper alternative they can try.

Kids have a lot of natural energy and in this world of smartphones, tablets, video games, and cartoons- they're typically pacified with these things and have no outlets to channel their energy.

Parents are working longer hours for less money and when they come home to a wired child whom they figured would've already channeled all their energy at school, daycare, practice, whatever- it's too easy to assume their kid must have some kind of hyper energetic "disability." So what do they do? Well they get their kids on the same adderall they snorted in high school to focus on tests and such.

In reality, there's nothing wrong with these kids- they're just energetic. We used to leave the house after school by ourselves and not come back for hours, adventuring in the woods, riding bikes, playing ball- and then we'd wind down with the PlayStation an hour before bed. Kids don't play outside anymore. People are too worried about predators and mosquitoes or sunlight or some shit and would rather raise xbox vampires, so naturally when the kid's all hopped up on natural human energy and the parent is exhausted- it's just too easy to assume there's ADHD/ADD going on and give them a literal chill pill. And then you end up with a zombie.

All part of their plan to produce an unaware and compliant citizenry.

yea they chase down weed smokers as they where the root case of all evil in this world. but at the same time they give children opiate based prescription drugs...

It's bliiiiiiiiiiiissssss

We had trouble with public school officials basically saying unless your child is medicated he's not going to be able to attend. Now we homeschool (we are lucky) and surprise! No add/adhd "symptoms" 4 months later.

I really hope some of you take a breath and consider that for every person abusing the meds, there really are people who genuinely need it. I came from a not so great home and was on my own by the time I was 15, never intended to have kids. Got married, and my husband wanted children. Here I am, 3 kids in. I'm stubborn and proud and I have the will to do things right. I tell you this so that you don't prejudge how others were raised to necessarily impact how they raise their children today. I cook most meals at home, they dont drink sodas (oldest had his first taste of one at 8!). Candy is limited. My first born who is now 10 was from the get go "not right". He screamed non stop, he had food intolerance problems, leaky gut. When he was about 9 months old I can remember his first "trantrum"; growling and rolling around on the ground attacking whatever was near him because he was so angry (and I assume, hurt so much). I did everything I could to refine my diet (he was exclusively breast fed), took out soy, milk, and eggs through diet experimentation and evaluation of his behavior. I still could tell something was hurting him but no one told me it could be something so innocuous as potatoes! Because it turned out when he could finally communicate it, he told me it hurt him when he ate it. We went to the dr and tried formulas with supposedly no "allergies" which hurt him even more than breastmilk with me having eaten something that bothered him. We went to so very many specialists in three different states that were supposed to be highly respected in the fields that we needed help in, and none had any advice if they didn't just call me crazy. He had delays in speech, we did sign language until we could understand what the heck he was saying, which was age 4. His behavior was always like a tasmanian devil. Many days it still is. He can't follow instructions, more than one instruction and he forgets everything, including the first one. He has no ability to think of cause and effect, destroys things intentionally and unintionally, puts himself in very precarious situations, and has frequently seriously hurt his other two siblings because of this. He felt like an utter and total failure at school because he can't do what other kids seem to do so easily. He can't focus if there is any extra stimuli in the environment at all. Now we went through many years of this. I saw the problems coming and I waited a year later than the year he was supposed to enroll in school to start him. I even took him out of school to home school him because he was failing, and in the summers I would teach him what I could to keep him afloat during the year until it was too much (third grade) for him to manage. No amount of healthy food, vitamins and herbal supplements, diet limitations, or exercise has helped him do better. I have wrestled for years after having him officially diagnosed as ADHD with dysgraphia and aspergers tendencies to finally try medication. You know what? He can be a mostly normal kid with the medicine. Do I hate that he has to take it to be "normal"? you bet your ass I do. I resent it. And I'm scared of what it might do to him later, because he's so young. But you know what I do know for a fact? Him being miserable 24/7 and feeling like a constant failure in school work, fighting when he's trying to spend time with his friends, causing non stop problems at home... well those things will make a person feel like they're not worth very much at all. And we all know where that can lead. I still feel the emotional pang of guilt for putting him on medicine. Why can't I find the "magic solution" to make it all better? I'm mom and I'm supposed to fix it. So yea, you guys talking about the damages pharmaceuticals can do are absolutely legit, and I'm on your side too. But the alternatives can be worse.

Because the average person trusts that pharmaceutical industry and is told that there is no other option. And people like me are "crazy and paranoid".

I know a family of 5, and every single one of them is on MULTIPLE medications each for ADHD, back problems, depression, etc. I can tell you right now those medications aren't working... >_>

But everything is connected, you know? It's not that easy to just stop taking meds. I mean it was for me when I had anxiety and OCD pills, but not everyone is med-hardy like me where pharmaceuticals don't make things better or worse.

There was a time not too long ago where teachers would recommend unruley kids simply get lobotomized to calm them down. The medical industry has been pushing cures just as fast as it has been creating ailments to diagnose us with

When I was a kid ADHD didn't even exist. Like most of these modern illnesses, I don't understand why people don't think to themselves hmm okay so either this disease has manifested itself tenfold in the population in the past 20 years, which means there is something REAL wrong with our society, or it's just some made-up illness for mental attributes that our rotten society deems unwanted. 95% of this shit is either one or the other.

ITT: Anti-vaxxers.

Some kids need it...

My parents put me on ADD meds, which in turn triggered sleeping problems, and then finally I needed antidepressants after years on the two prior. I firmly believe ritalin is the source of my insomnia and anxiety. That shit is not good for children OR adults. If people are sad it's because something is missing from their life and it's not a pill they need to find

Raising boys is like having dogs. You can't coup them up. Let them run.

I'm going to try to remember to dig up some sources for this later today, but I have a good friend who is kind of an activist teacher and she is always going on about the huge percentage of students today who are dealing with complex PTSD and associated issues due specifically to their family's personal trauma and upheavals stemming from the economic collapse in '08 - she's shared many eye opening studies about how poverty in general effects the brain, and how parents' stress and anxiety about money, jobs, housing, and even food insecurity profoundly affects the development of children.

I'm a PTSD patient or "survivor" (feel free to pm me about my life-changing experiences with EMDR therapy if you too are suffering) and I absolutely can see how all the symptoms that were ruining my life in the past 11 years would have got me medicated to high heaven had I been experiencing and exhibiting them as a child with all that extra energy and hormones coursing through me.

I don't think it's ok, but I have enough life experience and compassion to know that it isn't a black and white 'lazy vs good' parent thing. It's a serious generation-wide problem that has blood chilling implications our society is in no way prepared to deal with as these kids get older. :(

Maybe some children require anti-depressants because they're depressed...

Nope, you're sane in a world of insanity. Very pleased to meet you.

They do whatever they're told, and whatever they see other people doing

You're just a really intelligent and compassionate individual

I'm a supporter of anti-depressants but jesus christ have these things gone far further than they should.

I am just on this sub to see all of the denial of the Trump-Russia connection, but as someone who has studied medicinal chemistry at the Ph.D. level, you are not crazy for thinking this. Antidepressants and Adderall (which is literally amphetamine, one carbon and 3 protons from being Meth) can have long-lasting effects on neurological development through their modulation of the serotonergic, adrenergic, or dopaminergic systems. Depression and ADHD are not entirely understood from a molecular level and could possibly have many varying causes. Using these powerful neurochemistry altering drugs in children while there brains are still developing is not something I would ever advocate for.

Many parents are too permissive, so their children have little self control. Instead of taking blame (parent or child) we tell the little white lie that it is a physiological/psychological issue that can be dealt with through drugs.

It has to do with an individuals level of belief in modern science. It also has to do with the average persons level of trust in authority. If a doctor says it's okay for a child to take meth amphetamines, then doc knows what's best right?

If I were a parent I don't think I would allow my child to be prescribed these sorts of medicines. I know adults that are addicted to them and have a hard time kicking them. Not good for children in any way

Years of big pharma and indoctrination of the general public into corporate ideologies. THis belief that drugs are the solution, which leads to dependence on drugs. Your body has a natural balance, yes there could be a chemical imbalance, but the pharma industry is not interested in a cure. A cure, a medical system where a medicine is administered and once your body is better that medicine is removed doesnt exist. Yes ideally doctors do try to weine people off, but the pharma has both a hold on prescription and non prescription drugs. Years of this, leads to ideologies that parents developed towards drugs being helpful to their lives, that this then translates into being comfortable in treating their children with medication further fueling dependency.

What is scary is the age at which young developing argonisms of children get exposed to these drugs. Which I have no doubt causes a dependancy on the chemicals in the long run as the body will have to need to produce them, and the child will not have grown to be able to live/adjust their behaviour and mental states to deal with what ever issues they have. Saying that they cant is bullshit, as human bodies and children are designed to adapt and develop on their own. Hence why we need education, and parenting to pass on good behaviours and coping mechanisms etc. But with big pharma only working towards treating symptoms and not finding cure for a desease, means the industry must keep the investors happy. (Sure a cure is not as simple as saying it is so, but as we have seen recently with the epipen prise debacle, phafma give two shits about affordable live saving/curing devices)

Just ridiculous how you're posting and deleting, posting and deleting to a bunch of different subreddits over and over.

following me around

Lol sounds like someone needs a safe space.

I agree with, parents are naive to put their kids on mind altering drugs. They need to sign their kids up for sports, instead of using drugs that changes of the child's brain.

Well you found your safe space alright :)

Where?

Actually a majority of parents have their kids enrolled in daycare and school, where they eat school lunches and have a couple recesses. Other than that they are inside. I don't know about you but I need to be moving around most of the day and get a couple good hours of more intense movement going in order to feel like I was "active" that day.

homeless....like less than 1% of the population. sorry you slipped though the cracks.

I don't think many people do, I'm not sure, haven't heard a lot about it. Ultrasounds don't really help anything in my opinion. Really the only thing they are good for is finding a few very rare defects (not 100% accurate) and identifying the sex of the baby (also not 100% accurate). There is no testing done for ultrasounds, so I skipped them. Everyone thought I was crazy. Baby turned out fine. If they don't help the outcome of a pregnancy, why use them? That is what really made me say no thank you. Doctors pestered me every visit about it though.

We don't know. Nobody has actually studied the question, to my knowledge. Ultrasound has always been considered safe by the medical establishment but that is not a vote of confidence in my book.

High frequency sounds could theoretically disrupt something in development. I know for myself, when I have kids, I'll definitely ask for one ultrasound early in pregnancy. It is very helpful to get one so you can locate the placenta and make sure it's not a molar pregnancy and so on. Beyond that, less is more as far as I'm concerned.

You can treat these kids to amazing success by simply exposing them to nature in a deep way. The programs that have troubled kids live with each other in the wilderness for a couple months does wonders to solve their underlying spiritual crisis.

I'm sorry to be so blunt with you, but you're just wrong and have not worked with the type of kids I work with.

You're preaching to the choir when it comes to giving kids more time to be outside and discover things. As someone who works in public school, I think we are going down a dangerous path where every kid has to be held to the same standard. Charter schools can be a great example of how I think education should be run, but that's a subject for another time.

That being said, it isn't as simple as "Not paying attention, and not having a conversation." If a kid can't sit and hold a meaningful conversation because of his attention span, what do you think happens to his social skills? What about skills we all learned in school that help us in the future? He's certainly not going to form meaningful relationships with peers if they can't hold his attention. That can lead to another whole set of issues like anxiety and depression.

So what do you do for a kid like that? Because I know them. A lot of them. I've seen them on medication, and I've seen them without and I can tell you it does have a positive effect.

Are too many kids medicated? Absolutely. Are public schools drilling kids with way to much info? You bet. Is medicating a child for ADHD an inherently bad thing? No.