Comments on: Suffer The Children

By: Kiersten

Kiersten — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 22:08:41 +0000

Interesting, Jeanette. I am watching my seven-year-old who is now developing her cursive penmanship and you can see how this work can have a focusing and soothing effect. Also, I worked with a troubled adolescent who got much relief by doing artistic “graffiti” which involved tracing and retracing intricate handwriting patterns.

Thanks for bringing this to our community.

By: Jeanette Farmer

Jeanette Farmer — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 20:42:32 +0000

As a handwriting remediation specialist, I’d like to offer some insight to other professionals who are unaware of what a powerful influence multi-sensory handwriting has on the young brain. Handwriting has a physiological/psychological link in the brain. That is, the neural activity creates influences individual psychology,i.e., impulse control. As an intentional process, it is especially effective in helping stabilize the emotional brain to develop impulse control and the capacity to focus and attend. (obviously, it avoids the use of amphetamine drugs) Since educators dropped strongly stressing good old fashioned penmanship some 50 years,young brains today have been gravely deprived of essential regulated stimulation while experiencing a vast increase in other kinds of unregulated stimulation. I can’t begin to explain the depths of the influence in this small space, but suffice it to say that because it involves the hand, nothing else done in the classroom can been to compare with the rhythmic, repetitive influence that the manipulation of the thumb and fingers has in its impact on the young brain. Its neural impulses profoundly impact the young brain as they are sent throughout the entire brain. Combining h/w exercises with therapeutic music creates a non-threatening format. This concept has been used across the US and in 20 foreign countries with remarkable results. A Denver lst grade class of emotional disturbed lst graders scored in the 72% in reading with 20 mins a day of this concept. My web page offers much more info–www.retrainthebrain.com

Jeanette Farmer

By: Kiersten

Kiersten — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 17:22:22 +0000

Thank you for your comment, Matthew. I wish you well as you journey forward.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 15:55:53 +0000

I was one of those children, my mother was the issue there, was diagnosed as a hyperactive child at age 3 and 1/2, forced ritalin every 2.5 hours, the dexedrine syrup and spansules in applesauce, after the restraining me to the floor got old, been on every psychotropic from Lithium to Prozac to the Prescription version of actual methamphetamine for my mom to “stabilize” me and it really gets sad when I have absolutely no concept on how to behave properly as a result. I guess it feels like torture in a way. I am a 26 year old adult.

By: Kmareka.com » A Conspiracy of Neglect

Kmareka.com » A Conspiracy of Neglect — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 03:24:11 +0000

[...] Unfortunately, the mistreatment that seemingly marked her home life was to be coupled with mistreatment of a different sortâ€”by the psychiatric profession. Despite the environmental and intrafamilial stressors that no doubt caused Rebecca to act out in any number of ways, the psychiatrist who â€œtreatedâ€? her somehow saw fit to diagnose this child who was presumably barely out of diapers with a major mental illness, bipolar disorder. Having established such pathology (at least within the narrow, biologically-biased confines of his or her mind), the doctor then chose to subject Rebecca to a powerful and, in retrospect, dangerous cocktail of psychotropic medicationsâ€”some or all of which was prescribed off-label. It is difficult to imagine a more negligent and incompetent level of care. A suspension, if not an indictment, should be forthcoming. [...]

By: klaus

klaus — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 15:50:13 +0000

Oh, man, don’t get me started. Please refer to a couple of BusinessWeek articles from the past month. There was one called “Medical Guesswork” in the 5/29/06 issue, and another called “Hey–You Don’t Look So Good” in the 5/8/06 issue.

Taken together, they paint a very unsavory picture of how the medical system works, especially when it comes to drugs and drug prescriptions. The upshot is that MD’s get most of their ‘education’ on drugs, their benefits, their potential problems, etc from the Pharmaceutical Industry. So you’ve got the profit motive getting these drugs into the MD’s kit bag, and then there is a serious lack of follow-up from anyone.

In short, the 5/8/06 article flat-out says people are accusing the drug companies of disease-mongering, and the 5/28/06 article says that diagnoses and treatments are often fads. That is a really ugly combination of unwholesome profit motive and leaving no one responsible for oversight.

And let’s also not forget that drug companies spend more on marketing than they do on research & development. In other words, we have this drug, so let’s medicate as many people as possible with it. That’s called ‘increasing market share.’

By: just say no

just say no — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 15:34:14 +0000

And further than that, Kiersten, the SCHOOLS are pushing parents of students, who do not conform, into 504 plans, which feed directly into the pressure situation you described above. The ‘implied’ alternative is that the child will fall hopelessly behind, making the adult a ‘bad parent’. It could never be a ‘bad teacher’ or ‘bad curricculum’ – that would require self-examination, where the school system notices that creating a giant “Special Ed” generation may be profitable when looking for Fed money, but it is not good for the children.

In as much as I see the insurance industry as an invasive and terminal cancer in our society, it grieves me to see so many parents cave-in to unqualified and, often, unsolicited school pressure.

By: Kiersten

Kiersten — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 23:19:47 +0000

David, As a fellow clinical social worker for the past decade, I have also witnessed the shocking increase in diagnosing children with bipolar disorder and I am equally alarmed. I have also struggled with the lack of restraint and ethics in the way the drugs are prescribed. When I worked in an inpatient setting, pressure from the insurance companies for us to “do something” basically translated, 90% of the time, that the psychiatrist had to put the kid on a medication, otherwise the stay would no longer be approved.

Now things are no different, and are, in fact, worse. Many kids are now being prescribed Seroquel — a drug to treat bipolar and schizophrenia that was only introduced in 1997, has major side effects, and is totally untested on children! Some kids don’t like taking it because it significantly alters the way they feel.

The Clinton administration was supposed to have started major studies into the overmedication of children, but who knows what happened to that initiative — I’ll look into it and find out.

The change in the culture of this needs to come from the psychiatrists standing up to the pharmaceutical industry and exercising much more restraint in prescribing. But who is going to push them to do that? Leaders in their own profession are the only people who might have the clout to do that. We as social workers can make the case that environmental and family issues are central, but the culture of medicating children has grown astronomically in acceptance, and most psychiatrists are willing to go along with it.