Some facts about psychiatric drugs for children are that the drugs are prescribed with a false diagnosis. The children that are prescribed are not seriously impaired by their symptoms, they are merely becoming older and showing signs of adolescents; however, pediatricians see a small frustration in a child’s life and convince the parents or legal guardians that they need unnecessary medications to make the children docile and untroublesome. Little do the parents know, the drug given to the children means more money for the pharmaceutical companies and psychiatric research teams and may not even help the children at all. The medication given to the children is a trial and error situation. The right drug could take years to find. The children taking this drug feel like test subjects when their pediatrician/psychotherapists must monitor them for compliance to the medication. Side effects differ from each individual, ranging from nervous breakdowns, inadequacy, mania, delusions, physical harm, self harm and possible attempted suicide. These symptoms can be treated with even more medication. Other side effects include: headache, stomach ache, dry mouth, constipation, gas, weight loss/gain, and acne. These symptoms might go away or are tolerable. New symptoms are hard to determine whether or not they are due from a new illness, the drugs, or just natural hormone development. Children on a prescribed medication have more difficulty in school. They have trouble focusing due to some side effects such as grogginess, and inability to concentrate. Special preparation is required to help the children make up for lost time they wasted getting used to their medication. The school staff needs time and money to get the necessities the child needs... ... middle of paper ... ...e use of drugs, unneeded or supposedly needed, is wrongly being diagnosed; the children are being put through it against their will. Works Cited Breggin, Peter. "Soaring Numbers of CHildren on Powerful Adult Psychiatric Drugs." BLOG (2012): 3. DEMITRI, MICHAEL. "Psych Central." 30 January 2013. Common Side Effects of Psychiatric Medications. web. 13 December 2013. Hedges, Jennifer. "Prezi." 5 September 2012. The Use of Psychotropic Medications with Children and Youth in Foster Care. web. 13 December 2013. Mercola, Dr. "As Bad as Cocaine and Amphetamines - Will Authorities Now Force This Drug on Your Child?" 18 January 2008. Mercola. Web. 12 December 2013. Staff, KRDO.com. "Over-medication becoming problem among foster kids." 18 July 2012. KRDO.com. 13 december 2013. Stevens, Lawrence. "www.antipsychiatry.org." 1985. PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS:. web. 13 december 2013.
The noon bell rings at an elementary school in the United States. The children walk in a supervised line from their classrooms to the cafeteria. Their smiles and voices reflect their anticipation and excitement after a long morning of learning. Once inside the cafeteria, they find their friends, sit down, and examine their lunches. I hear laughter and the typical lunch trading by those who didn't get what they expected in their brown bags. In the school office, a short distance from the cafeteria, a large group of children somberly wait in line for their medication. The school secretary is dispensing Ritalin. I'm told this medication will help them manage their attention behavior until they go home. But whom the Ritalin is really for is the issue I feel the need to examine.
In summary, the article talked about the effects that antidepressant pills have on children. Immense publicity about antidepressants causing suicidal behavior in children is prompting more parents to hesitate to take their kids to psychiatrists. More doctors are hesitating to put their patients on antidepressant prescriptions. Last October, the Food and Drug Administration ordered black box labels, the most severe warning, on all anti-depressants. Some doctors think that these medicines are "speed bumps" and might end in more suicides. Other doctors think, "For children who really need treatment, a wait and see' approach could be dangerous." The percentage rate of children's antidepressant prescriptions has dropped within the last couple months. Psychiatrist Bruce Black says, "Kids are unhappy for a lot of reasons, and antidepressants often aren't the solution."
Drugs used to help mental illnesses; however, they aren’t always the easiest to deal with. With new drugs being discovered each year, they each will have many side-effects that may not be known to the world. Just remember that there are other options when dealing with children with mental illnesses, than medication such as Xanax, Zyprexa, Lexapro, Adderall, and Dexedrine. It may not be best to use the “easy-way-out” when handling a young child with a mental illness. With prescribing medications to children, they may ruin the child’s life, by causing life-changing effects to happen to child’s body. There is no sense of using medications unless it is absolutely necessary, like when the child is sick with the flu or has a sinus infection. Choose another pathway for your child to cope with their mental illness.
According to the FDA, about 2.5% of children and around 8% of adolescents are affected by depression (Temple). A common way to treat depression is by taking antidepressants. Children and teens have also been prescribed antidepressants for various reasons other than depression such as OCD and anxiety disorders. While it is legal for teenagers and children to take antidepressants, many people are concerned with the issues that taking antidepressants have. Children and teens should be allowed to take antidepressants only when other forms of therapy don’t work. Antidepressants are serious drugs that have severe warnings when children and teens use them. There is also an increased risk of worsening depression and suicide in children and teens, especially in the when they begin to take it. Even the less severe side effects can make quite a negative impact on life.
...hD.”Mood stabilizers in children and adolescents.” Journal of the American academy of child & adolescent psychiatry, Volume 38, Number 5 (May 1999) Papolos, Demitri MD; Papolos, Janice. “The Bipolar Child.” (1999) Waltz, Mitzi. “Bipolar Disorders.” (1st edition Jan. 2000) CABF Learning Center- About Early Onset Bipolar Disorder: http://www.cabf.org/learning/about.htm Bipolar Affective Disorder (Manic Depressive Disorder) in Children and Adolescents: http://www.klis.com/chandler/ pamphlet/bipolar/bipolarpamphlet.htm Child and Adolescent Bipolar Disorder; An update from the national Institute of Mental Health: http://www.nimh.nih. gov/publicat/bipolarupdate.cfm Facts About Childhood Onset Bipolar Disorder: http://www. mhsource.com/hy/bipolarch.html LD OnLine: IEP Individualized Education Program: The Process- http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/iep/ iep_progress.html
The documentary “The Medicated Child” gave me a lot of insight into the lives of children diagnosed with bipolar disorder. When we hear and learn about bipolar disorder, we do not normally think of children. However, there are many children diagnosed with bipolar disorder ranging from all ages. As we saw in the documentary, bipolar disorder can be very hard on both the child and the family, so finding a cure that is effective and safe is important. The video also highlighted how little research there has been on the effectiveness of antidepressants on children.
As a student in the school system, there are many mental conditions that could affect how they perform on a daily basis. One of the most prevalent is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). This is defined as “a disorder characterized by a persistent pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity (Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine). There is much research that is currently being done on this subject as it does impact many students in the K-12 system. As of 2011, it was estimated that around 11% of students had been diagnosed with ADHD. While seems like a small amount of students, it equates to about 6.4 million (Data & Statistics). A huge amount of children in school are having trouble focusing in
Some of the most common words moving around in the psychiatric circle are attention Deficit; hyperactivity; Ritalin; ADD, ADHD. These words are being most commonly discussed by most educators, physicians, psychologists and young parents in the society today. In spite of extensive advancements in technology which has brought new insights into the brain and learning, there is still a lacuna in the field of problems faced by children who are unable to remain focused on the task given to them in the classroom owing to their inability to pay attention.
As a college student, the amount of students on powerful meds for ADHD and ADD is shocking. It is a topic seen in every classroom and heard in many dialogues. Conversations can be overheard frequently about how easy meds are to get and how effortless it is to receive a diagnosis. However, while I know that a vast number of students are taking prescription drugs for ADHD, I don’t think that I ever realized the full extent to which this disorder was effecting America’s youth. It wasn’t until I spent my time volunteering as a paraprofessional in a fourth grade classroom that I felt I truly understood the weight that the number of ADHD diagnosis’s were having on our nation’s children. The supervising teacher I was working with told me that in her classroom of 22 children, six of them were on some sort of prescription medication for ADHD, and many parents that I spoke to tended to blow off the risk factors involved, remarking that the drugs improved their school performance. I was shocked at this figure, especially because after working with the children, even on the days that they forgot to take their medicine, I found that by using different methods of instruction, many of the children didn’t seem to have much less trouble focusing than the children who did not have ADHD. So when we were assigned this paper, I set out to disprove the myth that children who act out in school have must ADHD and need to be put on prescription drugs in order to do well in school.
Most side effects go away after a while, but not always. Some common side effects are nausea, loss of appetite, headaches, dry mouth, dizziness, moodiness, trouble sleeping, and tics. If you change the times of when you take your medicine or what you eat with it then that can cause more side effects. The medication should be taken with food and you should eat throughout the day and drink plenty of fluids. Depending upon your side effects and the results from your medication, the doctor might change
Mental Health is a common topic in all agenda’s in the United States. It is currently looked at broadly across all segments of health; in fact, over the years there have been multiple approaches to addressing the needs of the population affected by lack of mental health or that have prominent mental health disorders. Over the past century the United States has been especially concerned about the mental health problems of our children and youth (Tuma, 1989). Worldwide 10-20% of children and adolescents experience mental disorders (World Health Organization [WHO], 2014). This topic has been so important to the extent that as early as 1909, the white house conference on children recommended new programs to care for mentally disturbed children (Tuma, 1989), but the process seems to continue to be in planning phases with some advancement in mental health policies for children. One hundred years later, the surgeon general national agenda for children’s health, the president’s new freedom commission on mental health and the American Psychological Association are all pushing efforts to address children’s mental health issues (Odar et al, 2013). More so, the stakeholders mentioned above agree on the fact that there is a large gap between the mental health needs of children and the supports and services that are available to meet those needs (Tolan and Dodge, 2005). However, in spite of many different approaches Tolan and Dodge (2005) state that “Children’s mental health continues to be neglected even with growing scientific evidence of the importance of mental health in children’s development” this is occurring specially within the primary developmental systems such as pediatric care and school, and of efficacy of interventions for chil...
The problem of abuse, drug use, and neglect in the foster care system should be addressed immediately and effectively. Community agencies, government agencies, private agencies, schools, Child Protective Services (CPS) and law enforcement need to come together as a team and work collaboratively to help prevent, track and monitor children being placed in any type of foster care or transitional care program. In order to address these issues of abuse, exposure to drugs, neglect, early pregnancy and other mental health issues like anxiety and depression; a plan needs to be in place to fully track all children or child being placed in a different home other than their primary home. This needs to be the primary responsibility of everyone involved
Researches have shown that children in foster care( where a designated adult temporarily cares for a child or children whose birth parent is unable to care for the child.)have a higher risk of physical and mental health problems like ADHD ,Asthma, and depression.We were not surprised by our results considering these children's difficulties researcher Kristin Turney said.This study justifies that kids in foster care are particularly vulnerable to face risks of physical health problems like obesity,asthma, hearing difficulties,and seeing problems. The researchers also found that foster children 7 times more likely to have behavioral problems or anxiety and depression.” We can not determine if fostercare created these problems or
...sm, etc. The argument does not seem to be too believable for it does not show that any of the authors have any experience in the topic of medication and the effects on the youth .Also, the examples et al give are weak and they are not backed up with anything solid. The bias attitude these authors tend to demonstrate through the article does not help with believing what the authors have to say. Lastly, the word choice and attitudes throughout the article are used to try to make the reader fear or question medication on the youth. These words or statements are not followed with any good back up leaving them not as effective. It is obvious that the authors hold values that may differ from the general populations on this topic and they are not ashamed to show it. Having these attitudes takes away from the logic, believability, and credibility of their argument as a whole.
ADHD medications come with a variety of side effects. The most common side effects are decreased appetite, trouble sleeping, anxiety and irritability. In some cases people have stomachaches or heada...