Are We Overmedicating Our Kids?

Ritalin, Zoloft, Xanax, Ambien... seems like whatever problem you have, science has created a wonder pill that will erradicate it. But just because a pill exists, does that mean we should take it? Or give it to our kids? Today, more and more children are being prescribed medications that will alter moods, keep them focused, and better their behaviors. But how does one distinguish between normal teenage angst and true depression? Giyen Kim of Bacon Is My Enemy asks, "Are we overmedicating our kids?"

Do you think children are overmedicated? Do you seek prescription medications as a last resort? Or do you pretty much follow the advice of your doctor? Join the Momversation by talking back in our comments.

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kristi
3 yearss ago

I think there is such a fine balance between natural methods and scientific methods. I mean this has been such an issue in my life since I was a child. My Mom was always medicated for something and granted she has anxiety issues, depression and had a VERY bad surgery that went very wrong but I think as a result when I had a headache as a very young teen, I didn't get a regular strength tylenol...I got two tylenol with caffine and codine because that's what she would take. And now...if I have gotten to the point where I may need pain meds...that is what I have to have because my body has adapted to it. I see a Naturopath for fatigue and she has helped me sooo much more then my doctor could because my original doctor can only (like you said) see me quickly and get me out the door with a perscription...and also she can only go as far as blood tests will take her. HOWEVER, I still have issues enough that I too have (after ten years of fighting it) thought that maybe I may need to get some stronger help. Now I agree with Heather...why did I wait so long?? I think the big reason is one...I wanted to try everything else first before I "caved" into the anti-depressants...but two, natural methods can take more time and if you are not consistant it can prolong the good effects it could have. AND really, Heather, like you said about meditation, excercise and eating healthy...is not always enough...it also takes tons of more dicipline and when you're feeling THAT crappy, it's hard to do all the good things for you and you need that extra help. That being said, do I think we drug our children too quickly? I think that for sure that can happen and that with our children we really have to listen to our mommy instincts...and listen to our kids. And we need to be proactive...get all the proper tests and then some more. (It took me 10 years to take a food allergy blood test and now I feel so much better! 10 YEARS) Find the balance between both. :) http://thedrennans.blogspot.com PS-Dana, I suffered with allergies as a child and now still as an adult so I feel for your son greatly!

Natural Mother
3 yearss ago

My question is - why do so many doctors hand out medication before first finding out what's in a child's diet? If we cut out most of the crap (additives- artificial colors and flavorings, refined sugars, preservatives, hormones, etc.) we would probably find out that most of the kids who are on meds for hyperactivity, concentration, depression and allergies don't need to be on meds. I know several kids who take ADHD medication and their parents' let them eat junk food late at night. Also, many kids have food sensitivities. Try taking certain foods out of a child's diet first and see how they react. Gluten is the number one culprit for difficulties with concentration and depression. 1 out of 55 people has a gluten intolerance. Before putting your kids on meds, you should first give them a chance and see if the problem is something they are eating and not a problem with them. Another thing that is very hard for people to come to terms with- all children are different. We try to put every kid in a little box and say "This is the way you should be!" One of the best books that I have ever read is "The Trouble With Boys". It's not just about boys...it's about every child who does not fit in that nice, neat little box that teachers like to teach to. Every child is different. Every child learns differently. It is so unfair that we blame our children for not being "normal". What are we teaching our kids by telling them that they aren't good enough. We are failing our children by feeding them inadequate meals (nutrients) and by pumping them up with drugs to turn them into what we deem as controllable. Regarding not feeling well enough to change your diet- I was feeling the worst that I had ever felt when I changed my diet. I could barely stay awake during the day time, I had no motivation to do much of anything, my body always hurt and I could not concentrate enough to help my son with simple math problems. I knew I had to do something. I decided that I didn't care how badly I felt....Feeling badly was so much harder and took so much more energy than feeling well, so I told myself there was no way in hell I was going to go another day without taking control of my diet and taking back my life. It took three months for me to get to a point of feeling somewhat "normal". Four years later, I am now gluten free and mostly grain free- the only grains I eat are brown rice and oatmea; I rarely eat anything with preservatives; I gave up my Dr. Pepper (that was probably the hardest); I only eat natural sugar or xylitol- nothing refined; I have limited my saturated fat intake and have upped my good fat intake and my diet consists of about 60% fruits and vegetables. I rarely crave the bad foods that I used to eat and eating gluten makes me sick, so I don't even think about it. It was the hardest thing that I have ever done but it was also the best thing. I have now completely changed not only my diet but also my entire family's diet. I took my son off of gluten, casein, artificial food coloring and additives and his school life (though not perfect yet) is so much better. My daughter is only strictly off of gluten but never seemed to have the same problems as both my son and me. My family is so much healthier now because at the lowest point in my life, I decided I was not going to allow myself to wallow in my sorrows. I know that it seems inconceivable to change the way you live- but to let you know, taking control of my health and my family's health was the most liberating thing that I have ever done! It's not as difficult as that stone wall that I felt was in my way. Once I got started, did my research and really started to learn about my body, it became easy to tare that wall down.

Knifty Red
3 yearss ago

I don't have a problem with medication, what I do have a problem with is the general public diagnosing their own symptoms. If they feel sad, then boom get the anti-depression pills. They feel hyper then boom get that Ritalin out. My son was diagnosed with ADD when he was 8 years old. Years before he was diagnosed, we tried everything you could think of from not eating anything with Red dye #5, to less sugar, more protein, changing of sleeping patterns. Once my son was on medication it was like night and day. Medication can be a wonderful thing when used properly and not just willy-nilly. In order for my son to be properly diagnosed he had blood tests run, several appointments with a psychiatrist whose trained in evaluating and testing for attention disorder. We certainly didn't walk out of the office after one visit with a prescription.

bwankel
3 yearss ago

I think the number one factor here is that TV shows and celebrities (save for Tom Cruise :) have made taking meds, specifically anti-depressants, glamorous. And the pharmaceutical ads have made it seem normal. Needed, even. And I agree with Daphne, kids are only a product of the society they live in. They are bombarded with misinformation about meds. I'm an advocate of meds, but only when other alternative therapies have been tried. My brother has ADHD. Ritalin is eventually what completely changed his life for the better. But that decision was only reached after 2 years of psychiatric evaluation and alternative therapies (and we were the OPPOSITE of rich, this was right after my parents' divorce, so don't tell me people can't do this, my mom did it on her $25,000 salary). Also, my mother has major issues with depression and is taking anti-depressants. She does not like the stigma they carry, so sometimes she tries to go off of them for a time. And it is like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I REFUSE to deal with my mother when she is not on her meds because she is unstable and hurtful, and I can't have my son around that. So there you have it, my experience with meds. But, people have to be carefully evaluated. And people need to take meds off the pedestal they have them on. They are not the end-all-be-all cure for every problem known to man. Also, some problems manifest in different ways. My brother's ADHD and some other child's ADHD are not the same and should not be treated the same by the medical community. It's a combo of lazy doctors and misinformed parents, IMHO. P.S. Let's not be flippant about specific conditions. You don't have RLS, so just be grateful. But, by not having it you don't understand even a tiny sliver of it. Someone else, however, is actually suffering. They don't make up names to conditions that don't already exist.

Jeni
3 yearss ago

Whoa this struck a nerve for me because of Dana's comment...."Restless Leg Syndrome"....sounding like give-me-a-break. RLS is real and as someone who suffers from it, I can tell you it's miserable. Unfortunately I cannot take the meds for it because for me it makes things worse, but I know meds have helped many who suffer from it. Please educate yourself before blasting or spreading misinformation about a condition or syndrome you may know nothing about.

brandiwithani
3 yearss ago

I absolutely think that we are an over-medicated society. Just because something is available, does not mean that it is necessary. And I think as a whole, we are weakening ourselves and our immune systems by jumping for the medicine cabinet at every little twinge. Now I'm not bashing medication on a whole. I think it is wonderful that it's available.....when it's NEEDED. A couple of examples of medicinal pressure: When my daughter....she was 8 at the time had to get a filling at the dentist. They gave her nitrous. She wasn't nervous, she wasn't scared, they didn't even ASK me. I found that completely unnecessary. When they were finished they handed her a tylenol and she looked at me. I told her she could take it if she wanted, or she could save it if she thought she might be in pain later..... she politely refused. The dentist looked at her in complete shock, like this had never happened before and she wasn't sure what to do. Later that day my daughter commented how she didn't even have any pain at all and that it would be weird to have taken medicine for no reason. When I was in the hospital after giving birth to my 3rd child, one of the nurses came to check on me. She asked if I was in any pain and I said "eh, a little uncomfortable, but not too bad. She offered me morphine. I'm sorry but WTF? I asked for an ibuprofen instead. I was in mild discomfort and I'm nursing and she's just passing out the narcotics. Yeah, I think there's something wrong there.

Jo Anna
3 yearss ago

Okay, I think I'd like to take this down a notch, if that's alright. Like most hugely controversial topics, it's easiest to battle from the opposite ends of the spectrum. Either you're pro meds or you're pro natural living, and you likely have a long list of very real and rational reasons for your advocacy, but I'm one of those people (and I'd venture to guess there are probably a lot of us out there), who don't have protest-worthy feelings about this topic, who live their lives somewhere in the middle, and who are confused most of the time about what is best in what situation for what child in what instance. MEDICATION In general, I guess I would have to say that we do not medicate our children. We have a first aid kit in our home that has a still-sealed-for-6-years bottle of that poison control medicine you MUST have when you first realize you're about to bring a baby into what used to be a carefree and completely uncontrolled environment. We have hydrocortizone cream, bacitricine, all the anti-bacterial ointments, peroxide, calamine lotion, a bottle of children's tylenol, vicks, arnica gel (for growing pains), a humidifier, and naturally flavored cough drops. But that's about the extent of it. I typically use a crushed tylenol paste on insect bites before I "resort" to hydrocortizone or bacitricine. I use 3 cold glasses of water, cold washcloths, and massages for headaches and have never given my children medicine for that (being a teen with tylenol-controlled migraines that I eventually learned to control with diet in my 30s was a long lesson I don't want my children to have to relearn). I only "resort" to the children's tylenol when their fever reaches about 103 and it's the middle of the night and I won't be able to monitor it every second. Fevers are a body's sign that it's fighting off something else, and I do try to let their bodies learn to fight off as much as possible -- without endangering them, of course. And the same goes for coughs. We do not give our children cough suppressants, as I feel their coughing is their bodies' natural response and don't want to interfere with their ability to purge themselves of the creepy cruddies. I will mix up honey and lemon or give them an all-natural cough drop to help soothe them if their throat is becoming irritated, but we don't have benadryl or dimetapp or any of those things in our house - for any of us. A year ago, though, my daughter had to be put on an inhaler for about a month. We followed the doctor's instructions to the letter, but stopped the medication when she appeared to be getting better, and have not returned to it. So, it's not like we're anti-meds entirely, you know? However, we don't get flu shots. We don't go to the emergency room. I've cleaned, disinfected, and patched up all of their wounds at home, and am a big fan of liquid adhesives. We do have our regular doctor's visits, though. And my kids are (a little reluctantly on my part, I will add) completely vaccinated. DIET We have incorporated more soy, grains, fruits and veggies into our diet since having children. Our kids don't eat any candy or completely empty sugars (like frosting or kool-aids). We've moved to low sugar jellies and apple juices (because "no sugar" actually means they've substituted it with something far worse). Our kids always have two glasses of milk for breakfast, a cup of orange juice, apple juice for lunch, and water for the rest of the day, including dinner. Which means there are no sweets at all after 4pm. But we're not health nuts by any stretch of the imagination (don't even shop at Whole Foods or Trader Joe's, for goodness sakes) and are surely doing a million things wrong still by those standards. But even these subtle changes in our diet have helped tremendously with their ability to concentrate and their ability to control their own behavior (they're 6, though, so that's all relative). SLEEP Our kids are asleep by 7:30 every night and up by 6am, but they're twins, so we've had them on a pretty strict sleeping schedule since they were about 4 months old. Our kids have never even had an ear infection, and besides breastfeeding them til they were 2, and I don't think I can emphasize this point enough -- I would attribute their excellent health more to the fact that they're getting a full night's sleep than to almost anything else. Sleep is when you're body goes into self-help mode. It's reparative and restorative, and cannot be discounted when you're talking about making changes that affect behavior and concentration. BACK TO THE POINT So, I guess in response to the question posed, my answer is yes, I do feel that as a society we too hastily make the decision to incorporate medicine into our daily routines solely for convenience. At the same time, I am a huge advocate of science and discovery and, hell yes, even convenience, and believe that we have the brilliant minds in this world and the subsequent technology in this day and age to aid the efforts of caring for our loved ones precisely so that we don't have to resort to things like bloodletting anymore. So there must be a way, a middle road by which we can balance allowing the amazing machines that are our bodies do the jobs they were created to do while at the same time incorporating those advancements that encourage, but don't obliterate our self-healing efforts. And I think, personally, that you spend the rest of your life negotiating that line every single hour of every single day. And, you know what, that's okay. Because as long as you're not allowing yourself to just be spoonfed by one side or the other. As long as you're researching (even a little), and asking questions, and trying new things, and allowing yourself to be flexible enough to experience the benefits of both worlds when they make sense for you and your family, then you're right where you belong. The Adventures of Saia & Chago

yesala
3 yearss ago

To the mom who is worried about steroids for asthma: you may not know those steroids are not the same ones body builders use. Your son will not become a muscly, small packaged body builder on them! But not using them when indicated can result in chronic airway inflammation, increased risk of chest infections, death, and shortened lifespan. (Of course I don't know your son's medical particulars but those are the risks, in general, of insufficiently treated asthma.) I think it's a great idea to talk with the doctor and have him or her explain the mechanism by which the medication works, and why steroids for asthma are not the same thing as steroids for body building. Knowledge is power! Good luck. :)

Ghanimatrix
3 yearss ago

I think part of the problem is that the medical industry likes to maintain a mystique about what they do, like med school is where they learn great mysteries and secret handshakes and whatnot. They try to make us feel like we can't make judgments about our own bodies. I totally disagree with that. My approach has always been to go to the doctor with a specific diagnosis already in mind and a requested treatment whenever possible. I do not hesitate to educate myself about medications and alternative treatments. I have thrown away many prescriptions without ever filling them because I knew they were not what I needed. I think people WANT to walk away with some tangible thing like a prescription so they can feel like they have gotten their money's worth. When it comes to my kid, my approach is to take him to the doctor to verify there is not something more serious going on. I am perfectly happy to walk out empty-handed, with instructions for him to get plenty of rest and drink lots of fluids. My doctor is my safety net, NOT my guru. I take medication for my bipolar disorder and for depression. My doctors allow me to adjust my meds as I see fit, and give me advice about it when I check in with them each month. I stopped cold turkey when I got pregnant, and did not start again until over one year later, even though they told me the antidepressant was safe to take. I could tell that I didn't need it, the pregnancy hormones really changed my state of mind. Of course, I had done my own research and found that many women suffering from mental illnesses experience remission during pregnancy. Of course, your average moron isn't going to read medical articles, they are just going to go to their miracle medicine man to shake the bones over them and give them pills to take. It's everybody's fault, really. People want a miracle cure, doctors want to please their patients, and the drug industry wants a fat paycheck. Good luck breaking that cycle.

bethany Coffey
3 yearss ago

Dana, lady, I love what you usually have to say, but i gotta add...restless leg, man...don't knock it till you've experienced it. I've had it all my life and that crap sucks! I have also, consequently had insomnia for a very very long time and I firmly believe that if I had gotten my restless leg under control a long time ago, i wouldn't have had to try every sleep aid under the sun! But as for children, I think we, as a society are too quick to medicate, and when you get into the realm of mental disorders and medications, well that's kind of a whole other, and tricky world. I feel for anyone who has to deal with it because so often, it's just trial and error, hit and miss and so very little is really known!

Are We Overmedicating Our Kids?

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