Wired - Popping Pills in Preschool (MUST READ)

[NashVegas]

Anywhere else, her revelation might have been a bombshell. But no one flinched when a child psychiatrist told a conference of parents and counselors last month that she had prescribed antidepressants to children as young as 3-1/2.

Audience members at the San Diego conference, after all, were quite familiar with the concept of preschoolers on Prozac. Many of the parents in the audience have children who suffer from a debilitating form of shyness called selective mutism, one of a handful of mental disorders thought to strike children younger than 6. And several had put their kids on the drugs despite their misgivings and well-publicized concerns about the effects of antidepressants upon teenagers.

We are fucking up big time, to allow our kids to be put on meds rather than deal with the sources of their anxieties.

http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,62154,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

1. My sister was told she *had* to dope up my nephew

or they would refuse to keep him in school. He didn't like sitting still, and was rather rambunctious (like any 6 year old boy) - so they strongly suggested giving him some kind of Ritalin derivative. My sister took him out of school and home schooled him for a year.

Now he gets straight A's, and is a budding musical genius (playing Mozart at 8). To think they wanted to dope him into a stupor so he can sit through underpaid teachers reading children's books to him is disgusting.

[lazarus]

2. OTOH

If I had been medicated as a child, my life would likely have turned out a lot better.

Medication isn't bad in and of itself. It's the application.

[MaddogTerp]

3. Typical repuke way to feed the big pharmacuticle companies

if all the drugs were legalized and over the counter, then they would be cheaper and the big drug cos couldn't make so much money on them. that's why the repukes don't want any drugs legalized, because then they're big business buddies wouldn't make as much money.