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Drugs to Help Kids Become Better Students

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Parents:
if there’s a magical pill that can turn your kids from bad students into
good ones, would you give it to them?

As a parent of a young child in first grade, I’ve been hearing a lot
about how rowdy kids are increasingly being medicated – not necessarily
because they have ADHD – but because that helps in school (or perhaps,
help teachers keep them in line at school).

It seems that there may be something to the rumors, as Alan Schwarz of
The New York Times explains in this post:

When Dr. Michael Anderson hears about his low-income patients struggling
in elementary school, he usually gives them a taste of some powerful
medicine: Adderall.

The pills boost focus and impulse control in children with attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder. Although A.D.H.D is the diagnosis Dr.
Anderson makes, he calls the disorder “made up” and “an
excuse” to prescribe the pills to treat what he considers the
children’s true ill — poor academic performance in inadequate
schools.

“I don’t have a whole lot of choice,” said Dr. Anderson,
a pediatrician for many poor families in Cherokee County, north of Atlanta.
“We’ve decided as a society that it’s too expensive
to modify the kid’s environment. So we have to modify the kid.”

But is it necessarily a bad thing if medication can turn a bad student
into a good one?

For some parents the pills provide great relief. Jacqueline Williams
said she can’t thank Dr. Anderson enough for diagnosing A.D.H.D.
in her children — Eric, 15; Chekiara, 14; and Shamya, 11 —
and prescribing Concerta, a long-acting stimulant, for them all. She
said each was having trouble listening to instructions and concentrating
on schoolwork.

“My kids don’t want to take it, but I told them, ‘These
are your grades when you’re taking it, this is when you don’t,’
and they understood,” Ms. Williams said, noting that Medicaid
covers almost every penny of her doctor and prescription costs.

Some experts see little harm in a responsible physician using A.D.H.D.
medications to help a struggling student.

Link
| Controversy
of ADHD as a disease
[wikipedia]

What do you think? Is society merely forcing square pegs into the round
holes of public education through the use of pharmaceuticals?

POLL: Is It Okay to Medicate Kids Into Better Students?

  • Yes
  • No

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