I teach special education.  Specifically,  I teach 8 male special
education students who have been diagnosed with behavior disorder, ADHD
and other things.  All of them are on medications and some have
multiple pills.  I know with certainty that some are better off for our
knowledge of pharmacology but I can't help but think in a health
care system based on profit that there is some motivation to prescribe
medications that are unnecessary.

Once in awhile my students
aren't able to maintain control of their behavior.  By itself, that is
also all right because everyone has problems at times, but there is the
expectation that we learn from experience.  My student is angry with a
peer because he believes this peer has been provoking him.  He looks at
me and says Mr. Tim take me to the nurse I need a PRN.

Prn is a
term for as needed medication.  In this case and frequently, they try
nothing else to learn to cope with their unpleasant feelings. This
child has clearly at age 12 already learned that if you don't like how
you feel take a pill. The Pharmaceutical Industry has us all
brainwashed into believing there is better living through chemistry.

Andrew
M. Weiss quoted a study by ( Woodward 1997 ) that in 1995 there were
2,357, 833 children  diagnosed with ADHD.  That is twice the number in
1990.  Along those lines, Oregon State University College of Pharmacy
noted in a study that 80% of the worlds stimulant medication is used in
America.

In another study by Todd Neale for Med Page Today, the
prevalence of prescription drug use was highest by a significant margin
for American teens.  It was 6,6% for American teens, 2.9% for Dutch
youth's and 2.0% for German youths.

In our society I would
question if it is still okay to be a child.  Many of the so called out
of control behaviors of my boys were behaviors I had when I was their
age. What got them placed at the school where I work at were not normal
behaviors but many of the day to day behaviors that are called out of
control are.  Since most of those on these meds are boys let me be the
Devil's advocate and ask if some of this isn't that it is really no
longer all right to behave like a boy.  As a teacher I see many
instances where it would seem as if the attitude is that boys need to
be saved from being boys.

The FDA did an investigation into
antidepressants in children in 2004.  They concluded that drug
companies routinely suppress negative findings and manipulate
statistics to suit their purposes.  Children as young as two are being
prescribed Ritalin.  Dr Peter Breggin points out how drug companies
have bought off the psychiatric establishment.  In September 2008, The
Law Project for Psychiatric Rights filed a case against the State of
Alaska to stop over prescribing medications to children.

I think
that the over medicating of our youth has another antecedent than just
the profit motive that may give us pause to consider which is more
abusive.  My mother was not one of those," wait till your father gets
home," mothers.  Today she might have been visited by Child and
Protective Services.  As a society we struggle with how to define what
is abuse.  I had friends who were abused.  What my mother did was not.

Be
that as it may,  what is appropriate for parenting has changed and
while we have taken things away from parents as a way to enforce limit
setting, we have put nothing back.  Are we replacing parenting
and limit setting with prescription drugs to chemically restrain our
children.  We might want to ask which is more abusive in the long
run. I believe chemical restraint is after 35 years working with teens
in residential and school settings.

Dr. Peter Breggin states,"
The medicating of them becomes a coercive response to conflict."  "The child is drugged into a more compliant submissive state."  Maybe
creating docile people  who obey without question and just accept their
fate is what this is all about.

Source: Examiner.com – http://tinyurl.com/mz9unx