What are your thoughts on parents who medicate their children with adderall, stratera, and ritalin?

My grandson is ADHD and I am not really a big fan of drugging kids unless their are no other choices. He behaves a whole lot better when he is on his meds. But sometimes he acts like is in LaLa land. I think I had rather have him a little hyper than have him act that way.

exactly. they dont behave so they drug them up. great solution

My sons were both hyper when they were small, and my daughter to.

Three of my four kids were hyper.The teachers tried to get me to put my daughter on meds.But I didn’t, They are all grown up now and very calm young adults.Sometimes you got to just let kids be kids.

my brother had to be on two medications for that stuff and it didnt help, hes now 21 and still like he needs medication. putting a child on medication is just rediculous and shouldnt be done unless they absolutely have to have it

Depends. Some kids really have mental/concentration problems and the medication helps them to keep it in check.

Some parents exaggerate… or use it as a comfortable way to keep a badly educated brat silent.

I think that people should first try behavior therapy. And only use the medication as a last resort.

I think its a NECESSARY for some but for others its plain stupid, they act as if they need it and some parents do tend to exaggerate a bit.. In my presumption, I find it ridiculous that their drugging their kids but like I stated above for some, its best.

I don’t think ADHD is being over-diagnosed. No doubt some psychiatrists over-diagnose but in general it really isn’t. Rather, in the past it wasn’t recognized and kids who had this challenge struggled. I was one of those kids who wasn’t diagnosed and if I had a less favorable environment I could have easily slipped between the cracks and never realized much of my potential. The one thing I had going for me was a mom who herself was a school teacher. The first 6 years of school where I learned little or nothing she made sure that I kept up with my peers in reading and math. Teachers took my inattention, disorganization, procrastination, and distractability as laziness and poor discipline and instead of helping me with it punished me for it; other kids used to call me dummy because teachers kept me in for recess most of the time and I went back and forth between regular and special ed classes. My daughter has ADHD and I get so many comments from people, “I hope you aren’t considering medication!” Funny how everyone who isn’t raising an ADHD child is an expert on it! My daughter also has dyslexia and when we learned of it we started aggressive remediation and now instead of struggling to read she reads well beyond her grade level. The idea that I should not use every resource available to help my daughter’s ADHD is just as preposterous as taking an half-arsed attempt to help my daughter with her dyslexia.

Parents don’t medicate their children. Doctors do. Its a parents duty to monitor the medication and make sure that it is not have a negative effect and report to the doctor.

I have ADD, and ever since I was diagnosed, vyvanse has changed my life. My teachers used to get mad at me because they knew I was smart, but I just was “lazy” or other things. Now, I’m doing really great. My parents never saw me as ADD, just lazy, because they were undereducated about it. Then I got a job for a couple who both have ADD and their son has ADHD, so they recognized what I was going through. I would have never reached my potential if not for them, so I really don’t think it is overly diagnosed, because there are kids struggling out there, just like I was.