This New Scientist article caught my attention. Apparently the diagnosis of ADHD and prescibing of Ritalin and related drugs to children and youths is nothing short of rampant — more than 4 million kids nationwide. In an otherwise straightforward article, this bit of weasel-speak up front got my attention:
Just as worrying, large numbers of children who do have ADHD are going undiagnosed.
Seeing as how — a few years ago — all cases of ADHD went undiagnosed and yet we somehow managed to function as a society, I’m going to have to allow that I’m just a tad more concerned about the questionable drugging of millions of American kids than I am about the few bona fide ADHD cases which have somehow managed to slip between the cracks.
As grim as all this sounds, it may just be the tip of the iceberg. A long-time Speculist reader who wishes to remain anonymous has provided us with a chilling glimpse into social engineering by way of pharmaceuticals as practiced in his local school system. The endgame of this project appears to be a solution to The Boy Problem (as countered/deconstructed/fisked here.)
The letter is presented here in it’s entirety:
What To Do With These Boys?
Since my wife and I have sons, the above title is a question we ask often. Don’t take that wrong, we wouldn’t trade parenthood for anything. We love these guys, but I have an admission: they just entertain the heck out of me. Who needs television with these kids running around? We’ve got our own full time comedy/drama going around the clock. They are also thoughtful and very smart. They are a joy.
I’m not so sure that everyone appreciates these comedians quite as much as their mother and I. Our experience with first grade in the public schools has been, to be charitable, mixed. When our oldest child, let’s call him “Adam,” was in kindergarten he did quite well. By the end of that year he was reading and counting. He was quite ready for the first grade. If only he had gotten a good first grade teacher.
The teacher he got was apparently of the opinion that if there is a problem, a boy is to blame. We saw early that Adam was not thriving in her class. We asked many times to have our son removed from that classroom. The school wouldn’t hear of it.
At the end of that first grade year Adam was barely reading. He had to be forced to even try. Worse, he had learned to hate school. I decided that we as parents were partly to blame for this situation because we didn’t push hard enough for Adam that year. It was a hard but valuable lesson for us.
We pulled Adam from that school and sent him to a private school. The tuition runs about the price of rent on a small apartment, but we are glad to pay it. Our reason for leaving was more than a single bad teacher. We understand that you will always encounter problems at any school. What chased us away was the complete disinterest of the school to address the problem at all. By pointing out a problem, we were treated as the problem.
Adam is now in the third grade and he’s finally back on grade level. It took a year and a half for him to catch up. More importantly, he seems to be enjoying school again.
After that experience we felt that we couldn’t trust our local public school with our children. But sending all four of them to private school (and then, hopefully, to college) looked prohibitive. So, for the next child we tried to go the magnet school route. We had our second son, let’s call him “Bobby,” tested for magnet. He past with an excellent test score.
Like his older brother Bobby did fine in kindergarten. The problem came once again in the first grade. I think Bobby may have gotten off on the wrong foot because he is talkative. And, let me be straightforward about him – he’s a challenge everywhere he goes. We knew he was very smart and we suspected that his being smart might lead to problems in class. It seems that the top and bottom of the class always end up being the disruptions.
But his teacher pushed to have him tested for AD/HD. His mother and I knew that this was nonsense. The boy can sit and watch full length movies without moving if he’s interested in it. He can play video games for hours and he can engage in elaborate imaginative games with his brothers. In short, he pays attention when he’s interested.
We made an appointment with his doctor anyway. When my wife arrived at the doctor’s office with Bobby, she was surprised to be given a permission form to allow the doctor to consult with the school about Bobby’s possible AD/HD. Further, it would allow the doctor to share Bobby’s entire medical records with the school. When my wife called me about this she and I agreed that under no circumstances was the school to be allowed to have Bobby’s medical records. And, based on conversations with other parents at the school, we suspected that the school was systematically over-medicating boys. If that was the case they were probably experts at telling the doctor exactly what was required to have children put on meds. So they were not to be consulted by the doctor. We decided that beyond Bobby’s shot records, the school had no business with his medicals.
The pediatrician stated that having the school involved was standard procedure, but he was supportive of our decision and stated that the school’s involvement would not be necessary for him to make a diagnosis. After a lengthy session, the doctor stated that Bobby had no symptoms of AD/HD. Further, he said that Bobby was obviously very smart and that boredom might be the root of the conduct issue.
The school has a special program for gifted children called “Gateway.” We thought that if we could get Bobby into that program that it might help the conduct issue. If he’s being challenged for at least part of the school day, we thought, maybe it would help him deal with his normal class for the rest of the day.
Unfortunately his teacher refused to sponsor Bobby for Gateway because of his conduct grades. We saw this as a Catch-22 we had to break out of. We felt his poor conduct was the product of his giftedness – we couldn’t let conduct be the reason he was kept out of the gifted program.
So we went behind her back. My wife began meeting with the administration insisting he be tested. On the third meeting she finally wore them down. They hated the idea of having him tested without a teacher-sponsor, but they also hated having to constantly deal with a pushy mother.
When they tested Bobby they were blown away. We were told by the Gateway administrator – a regional official independent of the school – that if any child needed Gateway it was Bobby. He was happy to get him.
Unfortunately this didn’t help us with his teacher. By this time she was aggravated because we had refused to have the doctor consult with her about his AD/HD diagnosis. And, as if that wasn’t enough, we had the audacity to get him in the Gateway program behind her back.
Big coincidence – about this time Bobby’s conduct grades dropped so low that the school told us that he was in danger of “not having his contract renewed for the second grade.” This would not be an expulsion exactly, but the effect would be the same.
So my wife and I scheduled a meeting with the school principle and Bobby’s teacher. We asked whether they would consider moving Bobby to another class. As was the case in our local public school, the magnet school wouldn’t think of moving a child to a different class. If the best interests of a child is the prime goal of a school, why is changing classes never permitted? Certainly this would be the right thing to do on occasion.
But the principle quickly moved the discussion to AD/HD. The principle and the teacher were obviously upset that the school was not consulted by the doctor. My wife and I informed them that it was our decision – not the doctor’s – to exclude them and that neither we nor the doctor believed that Bobby had AD/HD. The principle actually suggested at that point that we should consider using another doctor. Any doctor that would agree with parents to exclude a school from the decision to medicate apparently wasn’t a good doctor.
I am not a parent who thinks no child should be medicated for AD/HD. The disorder is real and medication often helps these children. But I also believe that some schools are bullying parents into placing children that don’t have the disorder on medication. I’m sure that medicated children – especially boys – are easier to manage. But frankly I don’t care what’s easiest for the school. I want what’s best for my son. Bobby is smart, and when challenged he gets excited about learning. I didn’t want for him to lose interest in learning like Adam did for a time. And I didn’t want him to be a pawn in a power war between the school and his parents.
The next day was the final straw. We learned that the teacher had been taking the word of Bobby’s classmates for many of his conduct marks. She had begun giving him conduct marks about things she didn’t witness. The tattling of any student – particularly girl students – was sufficient to give Bobby a negative conduct grade. From this we deduced that we no longer had a partner in that teacher. It seemed to us that she had decided that Bobby should not return to magnet school for the second grade.
That day was the last day Bobby attended that school. My wife and I agreed that even if Bobby had to be home-schooled, it would be preferable to continuing under the conditions that existed. We talked first to the private school where Adam is attending. They would discount tuition for a second child, but it was still going to be a challenge to pay for it.
It was then that the regional administrator of the Gateway program came to our aid. Because Bobby had tested into the program, Gateway had developed an IEP – an independent education plan – for him. Once accepted into the program, gifted children in this State have the right to attend the closest school – in or out of their district – that can provide for their special needs. Fortunately, our local school where we had the problems with Adam was not equipped to handle gifted children. Instead another school – a small neighborhood school just down the road – could take Bobby. He was back in school by the following week.
I’d like to say that Bobby’s conduct has been perfect at his new school. Bobby has gotten in trouble a couple of times, but there is a significant difference at this new school. This school’s conduct expectations of Bobby are reasonable for a normal first grade boy. He is not expected to be a miniature graduate student. Bobby senses this and is making an effort to meet their reasonable expectations. He’s happy at the school and they seem happy to have him.
Each day Bobby spends an hour outside his regular first grade class for the Gateway program. In Gateway he is being given the freedom to see what he can do. Last week he pushed forward and completed the fifth grade math curriculum on computer. I suspect that he’ll be doing high school math next year.
Bobby is a square peg to the round hole of standard first grade. It might have been possible to make him fit with drugs, but at what cost to him? I’m glad we’ll never know. Instead, he’s getting what he needs to stay interested in learning. And, for him, it didn’t have to come from a pharmacist.