3 Ways to Be Wise About Psychiatric Drugs for Kids

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My husband was diagnosed with Schizophrenia about 7 years ago. He saw several doctors and counslers and took many different medications. Most of these meds did not lessen his symptoms, most only made him drowsy. Some had even more horrific side effects like night terrors. We have found that therapy and monthly sessons with a good doc do the trick better than any med ever could. Unfortunatly more an more dr's are going with the meds because they are easier. I am concerned for my son as some mental illness runs in the family, but I find comfort in the fact that I have already gone through this with my husband. My lesson learned is 1. meds are not always the answer. 2. If it messes up adults, what will it do to our kids? and 3. If all your doc is intrested in is meds FIRE THEM!

Mary of KS 2:31PM January 09, 2010

I would like to see if Nancy would look at a court case where the judge's primary decision to take legal custody from a Father was the fact that he did not want to have his then 9 year daughter taking stimulate. This included moving the child and her little brother from San Diego to Seattle where the step father of a couple months works. The judge treated it as though it were abuse to disagree with the Mother's desire to medicate the child (even with a doctor appt asking for "meds" for weight loss at age 9.) The Father spent almost every day after school working with his daughter to change a failing 3rd grader to a successful grad. Non medicated, the daughter did well and tested well with the district for learning disorder over 4th grade. The mother was allowed to pick treatment without the Father's opinion and seeks orders for the medication to be given daily even on vacations and weekends when the "benefit" is not needed. Does a Father or Mother have a right to disagree with a diagnosis and treatment without losing their legal rights??? I heard about a cancer treatment order, but a subjective diagnosis and treatment.

Jeff Kirk of CA 6:45PM January 04, 2010

1. When a medication is recommended for your child, do your own research, use some common sense, and trust your paternal instincts that God gave you.
2. It's OK to tell the doctor to take a hike, and tell him to give that poison to his own kids.
3. Think of the medication as a poison. Be open-minded about alternative medicine/ modalities.
4. If your son is rambunctious and the school wants to mandate that he take Ritalin and/or Adderall, then you take him out of that school and enroll him in a Christian Academy coupled with home-schooling.

Greg of IL 8:11PM November 30, 2009

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Ivqpdqzl of NE 9:08AM July 15, 2009

The best way to be wise about psychiatric drugs is to completely educate yourself on the dangers of them and their side effects, so that you will horrify yourself and NOT TAKE THEM.
Please do not drug your children up. There are ways around drugs when dealing with behavioral, mood, and personality disorders. Drugs are the easy, cowardly way of dealing with these things. Do research on alternative treatments. But please let drugs be the last resort.

Taylor of KY 10:00AM March 30, 2009

The best way to be wise about psychiatric drugs is to completely educate yourself on the dangers of them and their side effects, so that you will horrify yourself and NOT TAKE THEM.
Please do not drug your children up. There are ways around drugs when dealing with behavioral, mood, and personality disorders. Drugs are the easy, cowardly way of dealing with these things. Do research on alternative treatments. But please let drugs be the last resort.

Taylor of KY 9:59AM March 30, 2009

That using drugs on kids is not always the answer. With the ever increasing knowledge that is out there how are we to know if a kid really has a problem or if they are mimicking the problem? Drugs should not be the first answer to the problem and yes drugs can help, but should parents want to put their kids at risk for potientially feeling like they have to be on a drug in order to function in society? Just a personal opinion as I am currently working to be a psychologist who can not prescribe drugs. I find that there is an increasing number of people who the first thing when they come in is that they need to be put on some drug. Drugs shouldn't be on a patients mind from the get go. This is half the problem with many people today they hear there is drugs to fix it while in turn they just mask the problems instead of working through them and coping. Drugs are helpful in many situations but not all of them.

Amanda Kristin of FL 12:06PM February 25, 2009

As the parent of a child suffering with pediatric bipolar, I am outraged at the growing attacks on Dr. Joseph Biederman. Newspapers like the Boston Globe have become willing pawns in the exploitation of pediatric bipolar disorder and those responsible for the research and targeted treatments so urgently needed for a complexly-ill population of children. You are regurgitating nothing more than a poor reflection of convoluted information from congressional reports and New York Times articles that represent a misstatement of facts and disingenuous innuendo…And, achieved in large measure by writers at the New York Times on a personal mission to eradicate the existence of an illness that clearly takes them and some bureaucrats out of their comfort zone. There have been no formal hearings or findings of fact to support that Dr. Joseph Biederman (or Dr. Frederick Goodwin) have violated any codes of ethics or broken any laws. Yet U.S. News & World Report through "hear" say to quote Nancy Shute, has now participated in Dr. Biederman along with pediatric bipolar disorder being dragged through journalistic mud, a mock trial and jury of none.
Dr. Joseph Biederman defines the word courageous and is a hero to countless parents in America and around the world. He has done nothing but dedicate his life to the research, understanding and treatment of the existence of pediatric brain illnesses and an egregiously misunderstood population of children. A Salem/McCarthy/Nazi witch-hunt to shutdown pediatric bipolar disorder will not and has never stopped the evolution of familial heritability and genetic loading (i.e., my grandfather, father and sister all suffered or suffer from bipolar disorder). An attack on antipsychotics only for the treatment of pediatric bipolar when these same medications are used to treat the far more acceptable, autistic spectrum disorders, is dangerously absurd. And, an attack on psychiatric medications used off-label is outrageous when properly trained physicians and members of the academic research community, know that better than 90% of all medications used to treat children are used off-label. Children with pediatric bipolar disorder live in the 21st Century and the year 2008. It is long overdue for our Congress, media and all Americans to recognize the need for the dollars and commitment necessary to fund research on the brain…children and adults and stop working to destroy the messenger, Dr. Joseph Biederman.
Does no one remember the Salem witch trials, Nazi Germany or the McCarthy nightmare? What's next...institutionalizing all children that are considered to be difficult instead of suffering from a brain illness? And do we put their doctors in jail for researching their illness and prescribing treatment?
I am sick and tired of Americans and an America too narrow-minded and prejudiced to recognize children can, have and do suffer from serious psychiatric illnesses.
Marcie Lipsitt
Michigan

Marcie Lipsitt of MI 11:58AM December 03, 2008

The 'practice parameter' listed in this article indicates that the research has not established that the condition labeled 'BiPolar' in children is related to adult BiPolar. And going to one physician to serve as a balance against another, when it is now clear that psychiatry as a profession has been tainted by drug money, seems like folly. Why not consult an expert that is familiar with behavioral interventions for treating mood and behavioral problems in children?

Stephen Johnson of WI 12:14PM December 01, 2008

Here's the problem with stories about conflict of interest: Yes, Dr. Joseph Biederman did extensive research on bipolar disorder in children, encouraging more widespread diagnosis of the disorder. Yes, he took a lot of money from a drug maker interested in selling medications to treat the disorder. Yes, there was a clear conflict of interest.
But does that mean bipolar disorder in kids is a trumped up or phony diagnosis? Not necessarily. Sadly, much of the coverage of this conflict-of-interest story implies that bipolar disorder in kids is not a real disease, but the product of a conspiracy between a researcher and a drug company. And the likely consequence? Fewer kids will be diagnosed with this disorder, and fewer will be treated for it. If it is in fact a real disorder, which is the majority view among child psychiatrists, these untreated children will suffer.
Paul Raeburn
http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/about-fathers
www.fathersandfamilies.blogspot.com

Paul Raeburn of NY 5:17PM November 30, 2008