Should kids be medicated?
When I was younger I was diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). I remember going in and taking the test a very young age. I had to watch a screen and keep clicking the spacebar when a letter showed up that wasn’t x, I couldn’t click the x.
When is the right time to give a child ADHD medication? Should it be when they are really young or just wait and see if they are just a normal kid? Some parents don’t think it’s normal for their child to be so energetic, which makes the parents think that their kids need put on medication when that’s not the problem.
ADD and ADHD medicine should not be given to little kids ages 1-6. Some parents think that it’s okay for them to put their kids on medication even if they don’t need it.
A small amount of children are diagnosed with ADHD. According to Psychology Today, only about 5-7% of children are diagnosed with mental illness.
A lot of kids are prescribed medicine for their A.D.H.D. There are 11,000 kids ages 0-17 that are prescribed medicine. 1.1+ million that are infants, toddlers and are in kindergarten.
There is other ways to treat a child with ADHD than medication. Psychology Today recommended finding a specialist who isn’t for prescribing medication for children with the mental illness. They also said that successful therapy works just as well as medication and that patients don’t need drugs. Also, MedPageToday did a test and found out that only one third of 4,000 patients weren’t taking their prescribed medication from their doctor.
Some parents argue that their child is very hyperactive and they can’t control them. However, that doesn’t mean the child has ADHD; they could just be a hyper kid, which is normally younger kids.
According to Michigan State University, 1 million children are misdiagnosed because they’re the youngest and probably most hyper kid, “Nearly 1 million children in the United States are potentially misdiagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder simply because they are the youngest – and most immature – in their kindergarten class, according to new research by a Michigan State University economist” (MSU)
WebMD uses the Black and White Fallacy which is when the person explaining their argument only gives limited choices as the only choices there are. They don’t explain other choices that the person can do. They aren’t open minded. when they are assuming that the patient reading this article will automatically take medicine for the ADHD first then try other choices because that is the only way to solve their mental illness and it should be tried first.
By automatically assuming that medicine should be the first choice, it is saying that the other alternatives might not work as well or at all.
We could have parents be educated on all choices. The doctors themselves can’t be bias when trying to help the family decide what to do. Also some patients could try try an alternative before totally disagreeing with it.
Children shouldn’t have medicine at young ages because they are still kids and have so much energy. Parents just assume that they need to be put on medication when in reality they are just being normal.
To avoid having to medicate just observe your children, learn how the handle situations with others, and tackle on homework.
We have advanced a lot in medicine but medicine can’t always be the cure.
