To borrow a catchphrase from Chazz Michael Michaels (actor Will Ferrell's egomaniac, substance-abusing, figure skating character), the increasing number of kids on psychiatric drug prescriptions is "Mind-Bottling", literally. "You know, when things are so crazy it gets your thoughts all trapped, like in a bottle?"
Here are some of the statistics:
- 8,389,034 kids from 0 to 17 years of age are on psychiatric drugs for ADHD, anxiety,bipolar, depression, or other diagnoses such as oppositional defiant disorder (ODD)
- 1.1+ million are infants, toddlers, preschoolers and kindergartners:
- 274,804 are 1 year old or less;
- 370,778 are 2 to 3 years old;
- and 500,948 are 4 to 5 years old.
These figures from IMS Health gave me a slight case of Numerophobia. While reviewing the report, I felt more dumbfounded than the last time my kids needed help with their Common Core Math homework. Drugging seven million kids six to seventeen years of age is quite disturbing. I find it sad that parents, educators and clinicians cannot find a healthier more effective way to help so many kids. For more than one million children five or younger to be diagnosed and drugged for a trendy collection of mental disorders, however, is sickening.
How can so many kids, who have not yet mastered potty-training or possibly learned to tie their non-Velcro augmented shoes, be diagnosed and drugged for supposedly displaying abnormal behaviors associated with mental disorders? They have been on this planet for less than 60 months! Isn't it possible they just need a bit more time to learn our social expectations? Isn't patience still considered a virtue?
Comments (0)