A little while back I posted an article on my Facebook page about the over prescribing of prescription medication for children. Not just any
medication but anti-psychotic. I shared with a comment about how very sad I was
to read the figures and how wrong I felt it was. 100,000 scripts for children
alone in Australia seem astonishingly high and I question whether all children
prescribed these meds actually need them. I have been in the
ADHD/ASD/Gifted/Specific Learning Difficulty arena for over 20 years now and
have done much reading and research around this topic. I was married to a man
diagnosed with ADHD, I have a nearly 20 year old diagnosed with
ADHD/ASD/Gifted and with specific learning differences, namely dysgraphia
and dyslexia (a lot of unnecessary labels me thinks and one has to beg the
question why?! - but hey that is whole other discussion!) I have also taught in
schools where children have similar diagnosis (or not) but are medicated and I
have formed some strong views on it. They are merely my views woven from the journey
I have been on to find me where I am now with my thoughts on all this and that
being that there are far too many children being prescribed strong medications,
with little research into the long term effects on the developing brain and
those said same medications often having some quite extreme side effects that I
have heard about through friends and from my own observations whilst teaching. I chose not to medicate my son after doing
extensive research, soul searching and discussion with him over the years. I
loved my son as he was. As a child he shone to me like a beam of light, always
happy, fun loving and kind. What were his issues? He had bucket loads of energy
(some like to say hyperactive), he did things his way, questioned authority
when he did not see a reason for something and questioned most things in life
and the universe from how milk got from a cow to how a wheel turned to how one
might travel in time - insatiable and never ending his quest for knowledge. His
brain was a dynamo, always exploring and enthusiastic about everything! Why
would I mess with that? He was 3 or 4 when he was first diagnosed with ADHD. He had stood out as being different from when
he started at nursery when he was 2 and I as a single Mum went to University to
study for my degree. I was often called
in for "chats" about my sunny boy. They did not always have the same
upbeat view of my son that I had. They
found him hard work. So hey why not medicate him? The interview where this
decision was made took about 1/2 hour where I had to fill some questionnaires,
(as did the nursery he was in at the University I was studying at) and they had
a chat with me. They diagnosed him with ADHD (after hearing that his Father was
diagnosed with ADHD as a child and was on Ritalin until the age of 16). I
accepted the diagnosis but I rejected the need for medication. It actually
filled me with horror. Why would I give me beautiful perfect child an amphetamine
(with similar effects on the brain as speed and cocaine?) He was 3!! The
response to my decision from the psychiatrist was that what I was doing was
"an indirect form of child abuse as I was not offering my son the window
of opportunity to realise his full potential" Wow! What a burden to put on
a Mother's shoulders and on my shoulders it fully sat as I had no support being
a single Mum and little family support as my Mother had died the year before
the birth of my son. There were no support networks like there are now. No forums. No Facebook. Nothing. I cried an ocean of tears and toiled with what
they had told me but my instinct was to say no to drugs. So I did. We continued
on enjoying our life but with many phone calls from nursery, child care or whoever
was looking after Samuel for me - mostly telling me what he had done wrong and
how they could no longer look after him. It was a very stressful time for me
and I questioned my decision often but that deep instinctual protective
maternal force kept me on the path I had chosen for us. I have never said no to
medication as I know it can help some children immensely but I felt for us
there were other things I wanted to try. I looked at his diet and eliminated
all artificial additives, natural siliciates and basically did an elimination
diet where you take the diet back to basics and slowly introduce foods back in
to see if there are any side effects from those foods. Food definitely did affect
him but it was not a miracle cure. I also took him to a naturopath and we also
added some vitamins, omega 3, minerals and they too helped but again it was not
a "cure". And I say "cure" because that was often the word
used about my beautiful boy. I started to question this and ask what was it
they wanted to cure? An insatiable
curiosity and need for answers, a busy body that needed to move to learn, a self-motivated
investigator who did not want to sit and do what others expected of him but
wanted to seek out his own interests (and yes this was evident from the get go
- which I think is the same for all children but maybe those with these
diagnosis are a little more extreme in their behaviours). I loved being with Samuel and he lit up my
world. The heavy load came from others views and expectations of him and I was unwilling
to medicate to appease them.
I had other reservations for the
use of medication. I had been married to a man who was diagnosed with ADHD. I
had not even heard of this condition until I met him. He was exciting,
vivacious, interesting, fun, kind and thoughtful and I loved him very much.
However, amongst the good, there was a darker side. He had a problem with
drugs. When we first met it was only marihuana but then things seemed to spiral
and once he had moved to the UK from Australia (where we had me) his drug problem
had grown to include heavy use of ecstasy, speed and cocaine (amongst other
things that I dared not know). His life crumbled. We were very young and his
problem was out of control. My beautiful Mum had been diagnosed with cancer and
neither of us particularly coped with the stress from that. He became erratic
and violent and we were known to the police and a number of restraining orders
were put in place after I had been the victim of domestic violence on a number
of occasions. Our lives were crazy and completely dysfunctional. I was mourning
the death of my Mother and he was dealing with his unresolved childhood issues
of being a kid that was totally misunderstood and self-medicating turning him
into a danger to himself and us. This was a beautiful human being who I saw as
being damaged by a system that deemed he did not "fit". He was
punished for being himself. He was always in trouble in school and spent much
of his time outside the principal's office. He was also medicated with Ritalin.
He said he hated it. He felt a lack of control and he hated the way it made him
feel. Those memories of what he had told me and the tears I had seen him cry
propelled me even more to walk a different path with our son who had been given
the same diagnosis as his Dad. I wanted to rewrite history, not repeat it and
right a wrong for Samuel's Dad, even though he was no longer in our lives
having moved away and us not seeing him ever again from when Samuel was about
3. This was so important to me. His story scared me. He scared me. My son's
diagnosis scared me. I wanted a different story for Samuel, so I chose a
different path and thus began my feelings about the use of medication.
I also met a couple of other Mums
whose children had similar diagnosis and they trialed medication and it was
not the magic cure that so many touted. They had no fewer problems than my son
who was not taking it. I also in time met another child again with a similar
diagnosis and he was on a cocktail of medications and he was actually doing no
better but worse than my son. I saw medication as being something that promised
you the world and let you down over and over again. I also started working at a
school as a teacher aide, working with 5 year olds. I always remember one dark
haired little boy with the palest skin and sad eyes. He had been put on Ritalin
to help bring him out of himself and to focus. What do you want a boy of 5 to
focus on? Sitting at the table struggling to read because he is not ready or
letting him play and play all day until his cheeks become flushed with joy and
his eyes light up? I would choose the later. He would cry to me that he did not
want to go to the office at lunch time for his little white pill. He would cry
to me that they made his head hurt. I so wanted to stop that for him. I wanted
to scream at the school. I wanted to scream at his mother for listening to
those Drs who no doubt made her feel as guilty as they had me by saying that if
she did not give him those little pills she would be offering him no window of
opportunity in his little 5 years of life! What had gone wrong with the world
that we find ourselves in a place that we feel the need to give drugs meant for
grown bodies and brains to babes with precious minds that are still forming? It
was all so hard for me to understand but again cemented my feelings that giving
Samuel no little white pills was the right choice for us. I did not want to see
my boy clutch his head in pain or cry with a complete lack of control over this
decision. The powerlessness of childhood is something I struggle with. That
little boy had no power over his destiny and I felt powerless to help the
little man in my care at school other than to hug him wipe his tears and hear
his feelings, but I could help my own son and I would and I did – drug free. I am not touting this as being the best way
but it was the way for us and in the same way that others don’t like to be made
to feel guilty for medicating their children I don’t want to be made to feel
guilty for choosing not to. My son is 19
now, in his final year of a software engineering degree, has a girlfriend,
part-time job and is a happy human being who likes himself as he is. If the powers that be had had their way he
would have been medicated and I think that where he is now shows that it just
wasn't necessary. So yes, sorry to
those who got angry with me for posting the article that stated those stats and
had the need to justify why medication is the answer for their children but this story is my
reasoning for my big questions on why so many children are being medicated and
most often than not to stay in an education system that cannot cope with
difference. Something is very wrong in
that for me but hey we are all entitled to our own opinions and for the story
of success that I give here about my own son I know there are others that will show how
medication was right for them. Life is never
black and white but many shades of grey and one person’s truth is not the same
as another’s and that is ok but at least try to be open minded and just accept that every opinion is just someone's perspective and their truth and every bit as real as your own..
