I have been in the social
services field for thirty
years. During that time I
have seen many new labels
for disorders as well as a
wide array of new
medications that are
available to treat various
mental health disorders. It
seems that different
disorders become popular at
different times. When a new
label for a group of
behaviors is discussed you
will see multiple people
come back from psychological
testing with that diagnosis.
This is especially true for
children.
When I first began my career
in social services, children
that had attention issues in
the classroom were labeled
hyper kinetic. Many tests
were done on these children
to determine if there were
genetic or environmental
causes for the lack of
attention span. As time went
on a different psychologist
created the label of
attention deficit disorder.
Today there are hundreds of
children that are given this
label each year and the
pharmaceutical companies are
developing different
attention deficit disorder
medication. I ask the
families that I work with to
use caution when using these
drugs to treat what may be a
learned behavior in their
child. Children that are
afflicted with disorder need
to have medication to cope.
They are not able to attend
to their surroundings
without it. However
attention deficit disorder
medication has many side
effects and so I ask parents
to get two different testing
sources prior to placing
their child on attention
deficit disorder medication.
I feel that often times the
quick fix of giving a pill
teaches a child that they do
not have to take the
responsibility to change
their behavior. As I work
with more and more people as
the years pass I find that
troubled adults with few
skills for coping with any
type of life issues, have
been on some type of
medication for the majority
of their lives. Not all of
them have been on
attention deficit disorder
medication, but this is
by far the most prevalent.
They learn early on in life
that they can excuse their
behavior by hiding behind a
label. This is a disservice
to the child and adult. They
need to learn different ways
to help them increase their
attention span. The
medication should be used to
help the child begin the
process of being able to sit
still long enough to learn
new and better coping
skills. Medication alone is
not the answer, there needs
to be a lesson plan that
builds skills along with the
attention deficit disorder
medication.
