Adhd and Medication
Essay 1 Response to a Reading
ADHD and Medication A five year old boy comes home with a note from the teacher stating “Johnny has been acting up again in class for third time this week. In my professional opinion Johnny has ADHD. Please take him to the pediatrician to get him evaluated.” That was a scenario that many parents have had as a reality. “74% of youth who sought mental health treatment received prescription medications” (National 13). Are our youth being medicated too much because teachers say they are acting up, when it is just normal childhood behavior and needs a little discipline? In his article “Twenty Years of Medicating Youth: Are We Better Off?” Robert Foltz presents information to help explain just that. Foltz talks about how in today’s society, medicating children with ADHD, or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, has become a cure-all treatment for this disorder. I tend to agree with Foltz’s viewpoint on this subject. Too many people today are willing to just medicate children to help control them in and out of the classroom instead of taking time to find out what would really help them focus. “The United States is now medicating youth more than any other country” (31). That is the main statement Foltz makes in his article. Today ADHD diagnosis is on the rise, whether from advances in the technology to detect it, or from children having more behavioral disorders. The bottom line is we, as a society, are treating it with medication more now than ever before. Foltz talks about how different types of medication such as stimulant and antipsychotic medications, are used to treat the behaviors. He is calling for strategies to bring back a more relationship-based treatment for children with ADHD. “In 1990, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) determined that the United States used approximately 2,000,000 grams of Ritalin. In the 2011 INCB data, the US now uses 55,550,320 grams. This staggering 25-fold increase
ADHD and Medication A five year old boy comes home with a note from the teacher stating “Johnny has been acting up again in class for third time this week. In my professional opinion Johnny has ADHD. Please take him to the pediatrician to get him evaluated.” That was a scenario that many parents have had as a reality. “74% of youth who sought mental health treatment received prescription medications” (National 13). Are our youth being medicated too much because teachers say they are acting up, when it is just normal childhood behavior and needs a little discipline? In his article “Twenty Years of Medicating Youth: Are We Better Off?” Robert Foltz presents information to help explain just that. Foltz talks about how in today’s society, medicating children with ADHD, or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, has become a cure-all treatment for this disorder. I tend to agree with Foltz’s viewpoint on this subject. Too many people today are willing to just medicate children to help control them in and out of the classroom instead of taking time to find out what would really help them focus. “The United States is now medicating youth more than any other country” (31). That is the main statement Foltz makes in his article. Today ADHD diagnosis is on the rise, whether from advances in the technology to detect it, or from children having more behavioral disorders. The bottom line is we, as a society, are treating it with medication more now than ever before. Foltz talks about how different types of medication such as stimulant and antipsychotic medications, are used to treat the behaviors. He is calling for strategies to bring back a more relationship-based treatment for children with ADHD. “In 1990, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) determined that the United States used approximately 2,000,000 grams of Ritalin. In the 2011 INCB data, the US now uses 55,550,320 grams. This staggering 25-fold increase