Blog 4

While reading "Medicating Young Minds," I was comparing Andrea's story to my 7 year old son. I received a call from his teacher recently regarding his decrease in academics. She stated he is distracted, doesn't complete his work, and appears to not understand the work they do in class. I know my son understands his work because he has no difficulty at home with his homework. All I could think was; he is just like his dad. ADD is the perfect description of his dad. He is so distracted all the time, full of energy but when it comes to multitasking or anything that has to with listening/concentrating that becomes difficult for him and frustrating for me. As my son get's older, he is taking on more traits of his father's personality and it is becoming a concern. Now I'm meeting with a educational team to figure out a "good plan" for my son. My fear is that I don't know what I would do if he were to be diagnosed with ADD, ADHD. Medication or no medication? According to a Mayo Clinic study, children between 5 and 19 have at least a 7.5% chance of being found to have ADHD, which amounts to nearly 5 million kids. Other children are receiving diagnoses and medication for obsessive-compulsive disorder, social-anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, pathological impulsiveness, sleeplessness, and phobias. I worried in past my son may have a little bit of OCD because even his kindergarten teachers would tell me that he was a "perfectionist." He would get extremely upset if he messed up his work and obsessively erase and rewrite it until it was perfect in his eyes. As he gets older, the perfectionism seems to decrease and the distraction and other typical "ADD" behavior seem to increase. As of right now, I don't think I could put my 7 year old on ADHD medication. A line that stood out to me regarding medicating kids is, "When then health of a child's mind is on the line, getting it wrong is something no parent wants." The risks of not treating a ADHD are frightening and therefore puts parents in a difficult situation. The child could result is dropping out of school, substance abuse and trouble with the law according to studies. So what is the right decision when it comes to your child? I was really surprised and saddened when reading about how 10% of all American kids may suffer from some mental illness and twice that many may have exhibited symptoms of depression. According to a study by professor Julie Zito of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, "use of antidepressants among children and teens increased threefold between 1987-1996, and continues to climb." That brings me to my question of- are these children being properly diagnosed? Is medication such as Ritalin and antidepressants an easy fix? I'm not opposed to medication by any means, only if it is needed for the appropriate disease in order to maintain quality of life. But personally I feel doctors sometimes use medication first before exploring other options as well as providing further testing in order to get an accurate diagnosis. With that in mind, I really liked the line summing up the conclusion in this story. "Perhaps the most powerful medicine a suffering child needs is the educated instincts of a well-informed parent-one who has taken the time to study up on all the pharmaceutical and non pharmaceutical options and pick the right ones."