The Medicated Child

I thought it must be on YouTube, so I went looking for it.



Here's the first part (youtube), the whole thing can be viewed on PBS, the link is here.

There were so many times during the program that Eric would come in (or stayed to watch the train-wreck) and I would just find myself shouting and bubbling over, near tears, angry, seriously depressed, suspect of parents, angry at doctors (especially when one mother made an appointment to find out what the alternatives were, to make sure she was doing the best for her child, and leaving with the appointment with the subscription increased instead of decreased) and terrified for the children, and physically ill over seeing their twitches and tics develop.

As all this was happening, I thought of my little son, and his pre-bedtime romps, and how he runs from room to room, stops and does a little wiggle or dance, and runs off again. (Especially if he's not had enough physical activity during the day.)
He has started staying up later - sometimes staying up 'til 11:00 or even midnight.
I thought about this beautiful child - often times full to bursting with energy, a child who does not like to write or draw, a child who has no interest (hardly ever) in doing fuzzy crafts.
I thought of how he craves shouting with laughter.
How physical contact with his Daddy is such an essential -imperative- part of his day.

I thought of someone else parenting him (and all the children like him) and trying to get him to sit in school and pretend to be listening if he were feeling exuberant.
I thought of someone else being his parent at bedtime, and insisting that this child "Go to bed and go to sleep Right This Minute" (instead of being annoyed at the -seems like- middle-of-the-night rambunctiousness, as his daddy and I sometimes are).

My child is not a raging maniac.
He is a little boy.
He gets frustrated at computer games (and old computers that crash every few minutes), he jumps and hollers during an exciting cartoon, he talks animatedly about prehistory, informing his mother and father about evolution, and he has energy to spend.
He (quite naturally for him) sleeps late and stays up late. I think he prob'ly gets that from his daddy.
He is an excellent communicator, is loving, is rambunctious, sometimes loud, and always expressive.

I am terrified and sickened to think that another would judge his exuberance as something that must be controlled with drugs. I don't think it's in question that he would be.

I do not keep my son at home because he is unfit for society, or unfit for school.
I keep my children at home so that I can nurture who they are, and give them a safe place to be themselves, fully and exuberantly.
I love who they are, and shall never consider changing who they are with medication.

I cannot tell how strongly I feel about this abomination of doctors and experts (be they psychiatrists who admittedly do not know much about the drug effects) or teachers or parents who don't know what to do with this child.
I find it the most heinous of offenses that they would look to this child and ask "What is the matter with you!?!" and medicate, instead of finding out what has caused the child to feel so frustrated, angry, irritable, pissed off, disrespected, cheated, abandoned, and sorely misunderstood in the first place.

When will we look to understand the cause of our dis-eases, instead of covering up the symptoms?