The drugging of the American boy.
The United States government first collected information on mental disorders in 1840, when the national census listed two generally accepted conditions: idiocy and insanity. A century later, psychiatrists knew more. They had options when making diagnoses, and by the 1940s difficult kids were classified as “hyperkinetic.” Other terms would follow, like minimal brain dysfunction. In 1955, there came a pill doctors could prescribe for these children to temper their hyperactivity and make them behave more like “normal” children. It was a stimulant, so called because it heightened the brain’s utilization of dopamine, which can improve attention and concentration. The active ingredient was a highly addictive compound called methylphenidate. The drug was called Ritalin.
By 1987, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) had settled on a more refined name for a disorder among children who exhibited the same set of symptoms, including trouble concentrating and impulsive behavior: attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. ADHD. At the time, in American schools, it was still considered unusual for a child to take Ritalin. It was, frankly, considered weird.
Today, it has simply become a default method for dealing with a “difficult” child.
“We are pathologizing boyhood,” says Ned Hallo-well, a psychiatrist who has been diagnosed with ADHD himself and has cowritten two books about it, Driven to Distraction and Delivered from Distraction. “God bless the women’s movement–we needed it–but what’s happened is, particularly in schools where most of the teachers are women, there’s been a general girlification of elementary school, where any kind of disruptive behavior is sinful. What I call the ‘moral diagnosis’ gets made: You’re bad. Now go get a doctor and get on medication so you’ll be good. And that’s a real perversion of what ought to happen. Most boys are naturally more restless than most girls, and I would say that’s good. But schools want these little goody-goodies who sit still and do what they’re told–these robots–and that’s just not who boys are.”
[…]
48% OF SUBJECTS OF ONE STUDY WHO TOOK ADHD MEDICATIONS EXPERIENCED SIDE EFFECTS LIKE SLEEP PROBLEMS AND “MOOD DISTURBANCES.” IN ANOTHER, 6% OF CHILDREN SUFFERED PSYCHOTIC SYMPTOMS, INCLUDING THOUGHTS OF SUICIDE.
Broward County launched its “education not incarceration” experiment four months after Zimmerman was rightfully found not guilty in the Martin case. By this time, Sundance and his fellow Treepers had exposed the corruption that Miami-Dade’s seemingly enlightened policy had wrought within its school police department. Given the mainstream media’s failure to follow up on Sundance’s work, even in Florida, it is likely that Broward officials did not know how deeply the policy had compromised police work in Miami-Dade.
I know what’s happened to this society – it’s a parenting failure. Parents who won’t control their children, parents who won’t monitor and speak out about what’s happening in the schools, parents who won’t provide leadership in their communities to organize and fight against the creeping rot.
“… its school police department.”
Think about how insane that is.
I’ve got three boys that will start school in the next year and the idea of a teacher suggesting medication or an adhd diagnosis is absolutely terrifying.
The doctor who recommends “catching” them demonstrating correct behaviour is on to something significant from what I’ve experienced with my own young boys though I would also add a whole lot of physical activity
Agreed, it is a parenting failure though I wonder if it goes deeper than that.
We have a society that is so immersed in the acquisition of ‘trinkets’ and doing it on almost unrestricted credit that is in itself a drug of sorts. Its also a form of slavery cleverly disguised as affluence.
Just how much of this latest, greatest stuff one really needs is of course a personal choice if one is paying cash, but we know that most people are up to their eyeballs in debt and preoccupied with covering their monthly payments while at the same time wanting more.
Truly this could be classified as the ‘opiate of the masses ‘and we know that drug addiction in its later stages occupies the user’s full attention span while it hollows out their critical thinking.
Kids are always high on the list of collateral damage where drug abuse is present.
This is really the tip of the iceberg, but one has to start somewhere on the road to recovery.
I was never proscribed drugs for my rumbustious behaviour in class. The remedy for that was a nice thick leather strap…….from a woman teacher in grade one class in a small little prairie town Trossachs in Sask. The year was 1969.
Nearly one-quarter of all children in the US are being raised in a single-parent home.
Over 90% of those single parents are mothers.
The old adage still applies, especially when it comes to boys – “Mothers raise children, fathers raise adults.”.
Hence the term “Momma’s boy”.
Boys then hit a school system where 86% of primary school teachers are females.
The poor kids don’t stand a chance.
I am coming around to Broward sheriff’s point of view.
“We have an active shooter at the feminazi professional protester school”
“Bob, if we go in there, we are getting Zimmermaned/judge Moored/Damored… I say we just stay outside.”
“You’re right; let them eat some other tool of the patriarchy.”
Drugging is only the most obvious negative effect of the girlification of public schools. Being a boy or being masculine is being actively promoted as a negative by the teachers unions and school boards. Society as a whole has been seeing the negative effect of this for years. Anyone who uses the term ‘toxic masculinity’ should be considered a murderous terrorist and treated accordingly.
Jordan Peterson did an excellent segment a couple of nights ago with Tucker Carlson on why young men turn violent and then deconstructed “toxic masculinity”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci7iM7c3VB4
“We cannot win Bob. Now it looks like they are trying to hang us out to dry like those cops in Baltimore and Ferguson.”
“Men, you can’t be Baltimored/Fergusoned for handing out parking tickets. So that is all we are doing. If you are ever called and there is a 1% chance it could be Trayvon, just look the other way.”
If any of you ever do anything to bring BLM to town, it’s all our azzes.eloyca
I heard something interesting from a London EMT surgeon who specializes in sleep-disorder surgery. He noted that the big increase in ADHD diagnoses — in which the patient exhibits symptoms much like those of a sleep-apnea sufferer — coincided with the big reduction in tonsillectomies and adenoid surgery.
I believe there is a DIRECT correlation with the increase in WOMEN in Elementary Education starting in the mid to late 60’s and the subsequent increase in the use of RITALIN to control NORMAL boys.
One might note that the majority of these women, single, childless and most likely Left Leaning then and now have/had no idea how to handle NORMALLY Rambunctious BOYS.
Who if left alone these days might actually grow up to become normal kids & God Forbid, CONSERVATIVE VOTERS…nowadays, drugged & indoctrinated they just go out, buy an ArmaLight and “light” up a School.
Lots of Failures that are SYSTEMIC in our society: Single Parenthood, divorce being free and easy, Sex education on ACID, LGBTXYZ BS being rammed up one’s (_i_) from Grade 1, ALL Moral values in the Shitter – no God allowed (except Allah), Violence on TV praised and rewarded (EMMY’s etc). Such an enlightened society we have eh..??
It is and never has been the Fault of GUNS or lack of control thereof. But can’t inform the LEFT of that – t’would make puree out of their Victim-Hood Mythology – Ideology (all part/parcel of Marxist Dogma IMHO)…its also why the Indian ACT will never be repealed (Another 5 Billion added I see this year..?)
What a messed up Society.
I get the overall sense of your comment. It is largely about parents. However …
“parents who won’t monitor and speak out about what’s happening in the schools, ”
Try and speak out in school and YOU too will be considered disruptive. THEY are teachers and professionals and THEY know everything. And YOU are not a professional educator. End of discussion. We ran into this 30-40 years ago with our boys. Just TRY telling the school system that they perhaps are wrong. Throw in a socialist govt and the ATA …
The rot is deep. TRY having a debate with a university professor about (say) climate. Colleagues and I who have decades of scientific education and experience have tried. THEY are never wrong.
Our educational system (from K to U) is corrupt with arrogance, poor scientific training and closed minds.
“Try and speak out in school and YOU too will be considered disruptive. ”
True, it’s not easy or pleasant – but that’s the responsibility of being an adult and a parent. Besides, in almost every case where I’ve heard an utterance like this, the guy has been using it as an excuse for inactivity, rather than speaking from experience.
We are where we are because people the vast majority of people are shirking the duty to stand up and speak out.
When I was a kid, boys spent much of their time in physical activities, actually almost all of their time. A group of kids meant a ball game. I lived in the country and when I was 10 years old we would go for 10 mile bike or walking trips to the closest lake quite regularly. I think nature designed boys to tire themselves out. They are hard wired to be little shits. Drugs aren’t the answer. The need to be tired out and they need a few fistfights to legitimize their hierarchy. The losers of scraps learn how to take defeat without being a little princess or victim.
Yet another problem brought to you by people who think the differences in boy behaviour and girl behaviour is a social construct. It’s like they’ve never been around boys, especially working class or farm/ranch boys who tend to be more curious, louder, higher energy and bolder. Even as adults there’s a big temperament difference between tradesmen and other blue collar workers vs. academics, office workers and other white collar workers. Is there a difference in rates of problem behaviour diagnosis between the sons of blue collar workers and white collar workers?
I suspect yes but maybe not because upper middle class parents tend to overmedicate their children. In the summer camp registration lineup, most parents have a bag full of medications and/or a list of diet instructions. I also noticed that this is more so with younger campers and less prevalent with teenage kids. Still, there’s a huge generational change in medication rates. Why do today’s kids suddenly require so much more drugs than previous generations?
It’s not just a feminist war on boys and men. Feminists also don’t like traditionally attractive women particularly those who use their looks in their careers, women who drop out of the workforce or any other non-leftist women.
“God bless the women’s movement–we needed it–but what’s happened is, particularly in schools where most of the teachers are women, there’s been a general girlification of elementary school, where any kind of disruptive behavior is sinful. What I call the ‘moral diagnosis’ gets made: You’re bad. Now go get a doctor and get on medication so you’ll be good. And that’s a real perversion of what ought to happen. Most boys are naturally more restless than most girls, and I would say that’s good. But schools want these little goody-goodies who sit still and do what they’re told–these robots–and that’s just not who boys are.”
A whole paragraph of derp from the doc.
ADHD is over-diagnosed. A few children have brain damage with one symptom being hyperactivity. For those children, Ritalin is helpful. I suspect that the vast majority of the children actually have a behavioural disorder, for which the intervention should be setting firmer, consistent limits, I.e. good parenting. In addition, a few others my have other language or learning disabilities or emotional/personality disorders. Diagnosticians are not being sufficiently careful in diagnosing a child. Drugs like Ritalin are not helpful for these other conditions.
everyone makes choices everyday. play nice in the sandbox, otw?
Teachers cannot and do not recommend drugs any more than would a minister, a police officer, or the local mechanic.
Same here. The thing is, most boys are not meant to sit all day. We need to spend our energy. For us, the prospect of being walked to the principal’s office and face the ‘strap’ usually kept us in line.
THEY are teachers and professionals and THEY know everything. And YOU are not a professional educator. End of discussion.
A couple of years ago I was having a discussion with a female vice-principal who was bragging about her CV and subsequent rapid promotion. She admitted that all she had to do was recycle ten year old pedagogy papers, because the fashion in pedagogy cycled every decade.
I pointed out that if the recommended pedagogy just kept recycling, that surely meant that either no one was measuring the outcomes or the pedagogy didn’t affect the outcomes, since if there were a meaningful difference in student achievement you’d just stick with the best pedagogy.
She didn’t talk to me for the rest of the evening.
Like the overwhelming majority of “soft” sciences, the teaching profession is mostly bullsh*t.
Each and every thing wisely commented above is true (or more accurately) is PART of the WHOLE truth. Well said SDAers … My first addition:
+ No teacher should ever “prescribe” medication or “diagnose” hyperactivity … however … in most every case your child’s teacher spends MORE waking hours of the day with your kid than you do. Teachers observe behaviour in your kid that you may never see. Kids often behave very differently outside the home and supervision of a parent. Teachers have (and should have) great responsibility over your child. For example; it is the LAW, that teachers MUST report any evidence of child abuse to authorities. And any such evidence will be followed up IMMEDIATELY with the utmost seriousness … to protect the child.
However, simultaneously, teachers are PROHIBITED from disciplining your child … or even referring your child for discipline (thanks to the racist rules of engagement installed during Obama’s reign). Your child has more POWER in the classroom than the teacher. And if you believe your child doesn’t KNOW this (as instructed by some truly awful parents) then you are just being naive. The inmates are running the asylum. The kids (and some rotten parents) are in-charge.
My own sweet (universally beloved) elementary school teacher has been “written-up” by her school district ONCE in her long teaching career. And here’s the ridiculous story … she had one little (Black) girl in class who was a troubled child and a bully. After observing an incident of particularly violent bullying perpetrated against an (Asian) girl classmate on the playground … following persistent targeting of this little (Asian) girl … my wife held BOTH of these girls after class to “talk” about proper behaviour and to “listen” to each other (one of the “approved” methods of using “I-messages” to share “feelings” in lieu of discipline). Well … when the little (Black) girl’s grandmother found out about this … she went ballistic and “reported” my “racist”wife to the Principal and to the District. She claimed that my wife was singling-out her perfectly well behaved (Black) granddaughter for “racist” discrimination. Yes, of course, the little girl’s crack mother and unknown baby-daddy abandoned this girl to her grandmother to raise. Thankfully, the Principal and School District knew better … that my wife had acted perfectly according to their rules for (my opinion) non-discipline, discipline. But THIS is how children have been empowered by our SICK, upside-down society to rule the roost. Who can blame teachers for wanting to chemically-castrate little boys AND GIRLS TOO!? All other RATIONAL tools for “reasonable” classroom discipline have been taken away.
The image of a mean-faced Nun smacking a kid’s knuckles with a wooden yardstick has been made into a shameful meme of the (ewwwww) 1950’s. Yet, I ask … what is more shameful? Listening to a heartbroken father talk about how his daughter was shot 9-Times!! by a LOSER who should have been disciplined, if not institutionalized … or a kid suffering the indignity of a public knuckle-rapping -in the very moment- for their transgression ?
Our society has been systematically empowering the FRINGE. Empowering the oddballs. Empowering the DANGEROUS deviants. Kneecapping the NRA won’t solve anything. If we don’t rethink who we empower and “protect” and who DESERVE to be disciplined … we won’t solve anything. Despite the dog and pony show by MY President … I don’t recall hearing anything said about the “rules for interdicting troubled children”. Too bad. We need to reverse THIS terrible legacy of the Obama years.
“Teachers cannot and do not recommend drugs”
Wrong – happened to us.
“Teachers cannot and do not recommend drugs …”
I think you meant to say “Teachers are not qualified to and have no authority to … and if any are doing that they should not be.”
Also, the lack of male elementary school teachers is a huge factor, I believe.
The women elementary school teachers want the boys to behave like girls in the classroom.
I love how the author thinks that medicating kids is a problem but not incarcerating them, as if police have any place in a school during normal operation.