eLetters: Prescription Pooh [CMAJ

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eLetters: Prescription Pooh
In response to: Pathology in the Hundred Acre Wood: a neurodevelopmental perspective on A.A. Milne

David McWilliams
Email: dmcwilliams@focal.com
Affiliation: None
Posted on: February 8, 2001

I wanted applaude the authors of 'Pathology in the Hundred Acre Wood: A Neurodevelopmental Perspective on A.A. Milne'. I am a father of a two year old boy and have been concerned with the amount of press that is published about using drugs to control our children. To me it amounts to medicating our youth into submissive robots who can not express themselves in any way other than what is considered 'Normal and Acceptable' by 'Society'.

There are cases, I am sure, where medication is the only solution to a childs problems. The problem I have is that I think that Doctors and Schools are classifying children in the catagories too often. I think back to when I was a child and what I was like and cringe at the amount of modern drugs that could have been prescribed to me. Thankfully I was born too early to have to endure that kind of abuse, but kids today are not that lucky.

I think much of the popularity for reprogramming our childrem stems from the over crowded schools and two income families. Teachers can not control 30 children at one time anymore. Laws prohibit any discipline in the classrooms that would normally keep a youngster 'in-line' and teachers are forced to look to alternatives. What better way to make sure 'Johnny' stays in his seat than to pump him full of some drug that takes away is creativity and curiosity. Also, two family incomes have become a necesity in our society. The direct result of which is children do not have the normal control of a parental figure to teach them what is acceptable and what is not. So again, let's pump up the volume of 'control' drugs so that they do not even have a desire to act up. To me the message is clear. We engineer eveything we can with drugs to make it 'better' than it is normally. Steriods in cattle make them bigger and more valuable. Ridalin in childrem make them more manageble. The downside is that the ramifications can be devistating. Let's consider that before we say O.K. to medicating normal, healthy children because we do not like a 'kid being a kid' anymore.