The Problem At Hand
The NY Times is running an excellent series on children in America whose difficulties are being diagnosed as serious mental disorders.
This series will without question will spark a lot of controversy as this is one of the hottest topics today.
I hope that this series will bring this topic more into the mind of the average citizen. As a whole we need to be more active and knowledgeable about these disorders and their diagnoses considering there is no exact science to diagnosing children.
In most cases a child can receive more than one diagnosis for their problem at the same time i.e. ADD and bipolar disorder. Of course with every set of diagnosis there is a new set of medicine is being prescribe.
What is worse parents of is disruptive children ones who only a decade ago might have been labeled delinquents or simply problem children are slap with an alphabet soup of labels that constantly change.
Most of this is due the patchwork nature of the health care system. Child psychiatrists are in short supply while family doctors, pediatricians, psychologist and social workers each arm with their own biases routinely hand out their own diagnoses.
What needs to be taking into account is the field itself. Psychiatrists have no blood tests or brain scans to diagnose mental disorders. So they are forced to make judgments based on interviews and a checklist of symptoms. Unlike adults children are usually unable or unwilling to talk about their symptoms.
Many of the experts who diagnosed children with mental disorders are usually back by manufacturers of antipsychotic drugs and financial interests as well.
Again the public needs to become more informed about things and stop letting the machine experiment on the young.
The average child under the age of eight in this country is growing up in a time of constant wars and the possibility or the reality of their parents losing their job that is enough to make anyone a little nervous.
Then in the age of the sound bit, flashy lights and the hideous promotion of multitasking is it no wonder that so many children are having a tough time sustaining their attention, following instructions, listening and organizing? In the case of boys could this not be a case of boys being boys.
As more and more studies on this topic come to light let us hope that quick fix solutions we not just to do and probably have more to do with us being in this current predicament.
Mediate people…
This series will without question will spark a lot of controversy as this is one of the hottest topics today.
I hope that this series will bring this topic more into the mind of the average citizen. As a whole we need to be more active and knowledgeable about these disorders and their diagnoses considering there is no exact science to diagnosing children.
In most cases a child can receive more than one diagnosis for their problem at the same time i.e. ADD and bipolar disorder. Of course with every set of diagnosis there is a new set of medicine is being prescribe.
What is worse parents of is disruptive children ones who only a decade ago might have been labeled delinquents or simply problem children are slap with an alphabet soup of labels that constantly change.
Most of this is due the patchwork nature of the health care system. Child psychiatrists are in short supply while family doctors, pediatricians, psychologist and social workers each arm with their own biases routinely hand out their own diagnoses.
What needs to be taking into account is the field itself. Psychiatrists have no blood tests or brain scans to diagnose mental disorders. So they are forced to make judgments based on interviews and a checklist of symptoms. Unlike adults children are usually unable or unwilling to talk about their symptoms.
Many of the experts who diagnosed children with mental disorders are usually back by manufacturers of antipsychotic drugs and financial interests as well.
Again the public needs to become more informed about things and stop letting the machine experiment on the young.
The average child under the age of eight in this country is growing up in a time of constant wars and the possibility or the reality of their parents losing their job that is enough to make anyone a little nervous.
Then in the age of the sound bit, flashy lights and the hideous promotion of multitasking is it no wonder that so many children are having a tough time sustaining their attention, following instructions, listening and organizing? In the case of boys could this not be a case of boys being boys.
As more and more studies on this topic come to light let us hope that quick fix solutions we not just to do and probably have more to do with us being in this current predicament.
Mediate people…
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