Mental Health Blogs

An interesting column appeared today in the Schenectady Daily Gazette. It’s a rant about medicating kids and is written by the executive director of QUEST, a non-profit for kids, in upstate New York. She walks through a few real world examples of doped-up kids and then lowers the boom.

“Since when have we become a nation of super-conformists, fitting all children into slots and molds, killing initiative, uniqueness and creativity? The Beatles wrote a song about taking a “little white pill” to get through the day, but that song was about a suburban housewife, not a child.

“We scream about kids smoking an ‘L’ or taking Ecstasy or methamphetamine, but yet parents and medical adults are pushing drugs on them from a very tender age. Untried drugs, and by that I mean not tested for use on children. The long-range effects of these pharmaceuticals on children are as yet unknown….

“Frankly, I think the relief of prescription drugging belongs mainly to the teachers, the school system and the parents/caretakers. It would be most interesting to have a symposium of adults and children, a sort of moderated pro and con debate. We frequently talk about quality of life but in a nation that frowns on the use of medical marijuana, it seems strange to allow children to take habit-forming and potentially dangerous prescription drugs. Any drugs given to children 18 and under should be heavily monitored including six-month blood work and weekly therapy sessions, either group or family. Children are more apt to speak their feelings in a situation including like peers and/or complete (including siblings) family members.”

There is something about America as a culture that is so inherently messed up when it’s OK to give kids antipsychotics for non-psychotic disorders but we utterly freak out at the idea of them putting other unhealthy items into their bodies. How do we get this out of our culture?

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