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Rescuing our kids, not popping pills into them

By Peter West - posted Thursday, 17 December 2009


Thousands of kids around the western world are needlessly drugged every day. A couple of weeks ago Ms Nicola Roxon, Minister for Health, did something to lessen the problem.

Ms Roxon announced the release of some significant documents from two bodies. The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) and National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) have updated draft Australian Guidelines on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). They have issued other information to assist parents and medical professionals to recognise ADHD and treat it appropriately.

The NHMRC and the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) have agreed to make available the draft Australian Guidelines prior to formal consideration by the Council of the NHMRC.

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There are similar moves being made in the UK, with widespread concern about numbers of children too easily being given medication and the National Health Service warning that this could entail “significant risks”.

Warnings are being issued in the USA about medicating young people in a project called "Too Many, Too Much, Too Young". Researchers at Rutgers and Columbia Universities are warning of the dangers of medicating children and urging more care be used before hastening to medicate children. And the US Food and Drug Administration's pediatric advisory committee is considering new warnings about the dangers of medicating children for behaviour, warning of the risk of inducing lifelong health problems.

More than 350,000 Australian children and adolescents have ADHD, the Minister estimates.

But ADHD could far too easily be mis-diagnosed. Symptoms of ADHD include the following: doesn't listen; doesn't follow instructions; loses things; talks too much; interrupts others; and always on the go.

I believe most males could be found guilty of all of these, much of the time. Boys would be found guilty of these by teachers a lot of the time. I know this as when I give workshops on boys, teachers come out with a volley of complaints: loud, noisy, rude, won’t listen, won’t write more than a few words; over-active in class … and so on. When we are panicked into medicating all those suspected of having ADHD, we are devaluing natural male energy.

Apparently the Rudd Government has been concerned for some time that there is a lack of good evidence-based information on this condition. This concern appears to be shared by many medical professionals, parents and educators. I’m not sure who speaks for medicos or parents but I gather the concern is there. Again, it’s been raised in many gatherings I've attended on raising boys.

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Professor David Forbes, Chair of the RACP’s Guidelines Working Group, said: “Treatment may include education, psychosocial strategies, behavioral management and changes in nutrition and medication.”

If the draft guidelines are followed by practitioners, children with ADHD will be carefully assessed, families will be informed of risks, benefits and options and children will receive individualised therapy. It is likely fewer children will be prescribed medication, and that more children will have school and home based programs that assist their parents in managing their symptoms,” said Professor Forbes.

This statement is worth looking at carefully. In other words, there has not been careful enough assessment of ADHD. Too often, parents hear from other parents who say their child has ADHD and is on medication. They ask for medication and believe it will improve their child’s behaviour. In addition, it marks their child out as special. Categorically, some children will need medication. But this should not be prescribed as a first solution. And the medication has many unpleasant side-effects.

Good discipline is difficult for teachers and parents in a time in which there are so many warnings and things we must not do.

But kids need to be active - look at them in a playground, a preschool or on the street. Watch kids wriggle in strollers. I watch my grandkids raid the rubbish bin and attack cupboards. Activity is normal. We can't expect kids to "shut up, sit still, and listen" all day. That's what boys complain that they are told, far too often.

In about 1990 I attended a school camp. It was a middle and working-class state school in the western suburbs of Sydney. “Look at all this medication”, the Deputy said. “The kids are supposed to get this three times a day.” And he kicked the box of medication under the bed. The kids got none of it. They were busy and active all day and they were all fine all weekend. Kids aren’t made to sit still and be quiet.

Are your kids like this? Kids need to move, ask questions: “Why is the sky blue? Why do people wear pyjamas? Why do you go to work?” Don’t leave your precious children to the idiotic things on the “shut up” box in the lounge room. Kids should be out in the garden, helping Mum grow veggies, helping Dad mow the lawn. They learn by doing and are usually happy to help.

Western society is too fond of curing problems with pills. Compare Chinese medicine, which favours acupuncture and hands-on treatment for back pain, with the local GP who too often prescribes anti-inflammatories or aspirin for the same complaint. The drug companies promote their drugs and try to persuade us all to use more. Pills to wake up, pills to sleep better, pills for everything. We can’t solve all our problems by popping pills. Dosing children needlessly is bad for all of us. It teaches kids that pills solve our health problems.

The vast majority of children treated for ADHD seem to be boys. Of course! Boys tend to be more active. Look at a playground and look at the kids racing around, constantly moving. How many of them are boys? Most of them, I observe.

Behaviour issues in the home are much more difficult when there is no father living in the home. Having a father present, physically and emotionally, helps give boys especially a sense of purpose and belonging. Boys suffer more than girls after divorce for this reason, according to many sources, such as Sebastian Kraemer. But in our post-feminist world, nobody wants to hear that males have difficulties.

There are many implications in all this.

  1. We can expect the drug companies, with all their worldwide resources, to fight this threat by every means they can.
     
  2. Teachers will need much better preparation for assisting with the diagnosis of ADHD. To my knowledge, most teachers have no such knowledge. I taught teacher education for 40 years and I watched teacher preparation become more scanty every year as subject matter is sliced again and again.
     
  3. Schools will need help with providing behaviour therapies. Schools will have to move to more active learning to cope with children who are inattentive. But we can’t retain male teachers in most schools past the age of about 35: they move up the promotion ladder or find a better paying job elsewhere. The ones that are left get wearier every year.
     
  4. We know, too, that the federal government does not employ a single teacher or run a single school. Responsibility for state schools falls on State Education Departments, designed, in the case of darkest New South Wales, in 1880. Especially in the largest states, they are heavy, slow bureaucracies full of tired people who weary of the pace of change.

But somehow we must adapt the school to the boy, and not make the boy conform to school. The same goes for girls, whose problems can also be overlooked. Active approaches to learning are usually liked by girls as well as boys.

In sum then, Ms Roxon has done us all a service by bringing these matters to our attention. Let’s accept that kids are active. Let’s hesitate before popping pills in attempts to solve our problems. And let’s stop trying to make boys act like girls.

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About the Author

Dr Peter West is a well-known social commentator and an expert on men's and boys' issues. He is the author of Fathers, Sons and Lovers: Men Talk about Their Lives from the 1930s to Today (Finch,1996). He works part-time in the Faculty of Education, Australian Catholic University, Sydney.

Other articles by this Author

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Related Links
The Fragile Male, Kraemer, S. (2000)

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