Another "what is wrong with people?" thread

Man I could hardly read this. Why do these people have children if they don't want them? I hope the sibling can be saved and taken of their 'meds'.

... great that really puts a damper on my Friday

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Lywyllyn @ Mar 23 2007, 04:56 PM) [snapback]411175[/snapback]</div>

Well, at least the Mom didn't have an abortion! She gets a gold star from the "pro-life" crowd!

 

This is truly tragic. Little Rebecca was failed by not only her parents, but the entire system as well. How many adults of authority saw something 'not quite right' but failed to do something? It would be hard to live with myself if I was in their shoes.

 

the short and long term consequences of drugs on development are so understudied. dumping all that into my kid's bloodstream would scare the living daylights out of me.

it's shameful to see such a horrible misuse like this.

 

There's a song, "Run and Get the Bucket, Give the Baby Some Beer."

People have been using drugs to keep kids quiet since forever. Beer is traditional. And before it was outlawed, laudenum was popular for this. Only, it didn't used to be news. Maybe it's good that it's news now. But I suspect that parents who really do what's best for their kids are the minority.

Psychotropic drugs probably have some legitimate uses, but we, as a society, are far too quick to drug ourselves and our kids.

 

All three kids ADHD?

Anyone know the odds on that?

I'd look to the psychiatrist as an enabler.

 

Well, this raises an important question:

Should mere blood relationship really be the dominant determinant in deciding who should raise a child, and should society begin to define parental fitness criteria which, if natural parents fail to meet such, would mean their children forcibly removed from their stewardship and placed into better circumstances (and what those would be is itself a subject for debate)?

We're already moving in that direction which mandatory reporting if school personnel suspect child abuse - how much further should this trend be carried?

I'm not a parent, so can't offer a fully informed opinion, but I do believe that blood relationship should rank LOW on the list of parental fitness, and I think society in general would improve if more children were rescued from malignant parental environments. Obviously, determining what constitutes a genuinely harmful environment vs a merely difficult environment will be extremely controversial (and likely never fully resolved), but I think we should accelerate our moving in that direction nonetheless. I'm speaking as a non-parent, keep in mind, so you parents out there will have much more informed opinions on the matter (and considerably more emotional involvement in it too)!

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Mar 23 2007, 06:31 PM) [snapback]411224[/snapback]</div>

This is the U.S. I'd say the chances are 100%.

As the story in The Onion said, "Last Child In U.S. To Be Given Ritalin," the story of the only child in the U.S. who wasn't taking it was finally tackled by pediatricians and Novartis salesmen and given his medicine.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ Mar 23 2007, 08:46 PM) [snapback]411329[/snapback]</div>

We cannot rule out the simple fact we are consuming vast quantities of chemicals, some of which are known endocrine disrupters. I am willing to bet that these chemicals are partially to blame for all the "problems" our children are displaying.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(livelychick @ Mar 23 2007, 07:47 PM) [snapback]411292[/snapback]</div>

Because sex is fun and birth control is a sin.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Mar 23 2007, 09:14 PM) [snapback]411271[/snapback]</div>

I definitely understand this point of view, and to some degree would agree with it - That child's life would have been much improved if it were spent elsewhere.

However, I'd like to echo livelychick in her concerns. For me, there would be two main concerns: Who sets the criteria, and how they were monitored.

for the criteria, much of it is already in place. children that are abused of mistreated can be removed from the harmful environment. The question is discovering who these children are. Non-obvious bruising, drug abuse, and mental abuse are at times very difficult to detect. At times they aren't. In this situation, the doctor was definitely an enabler for the parents, when their actions should have set off a few bells in his head. He should have approached the proper authorities and reported their behavior. The teachers knew something was wrong, and they should have said something to the proper authorities. In their defense, it can be difficult to judge these things with so many children with so many different "illnesses" and drugs out there.

For monitoring, i don't think there's much else we can do. The individuals who are in contact with children the most have the ability to have their concerns heard and acted on. Any sort of monitoring past that would start to infringe on some of our basic freedoms.

I detest these parents. I honestly don't know how you can even think to start to medicate a child that young - the child is just starting to speak and string together sentences and coherent thoughts. At that age, growth hormones are wracking the body, and it's not unusual to have tantrums and the like.

The article pointed out an increase in the number of children diagnosed with ADHD and such. They said it could be that it's being misdiagnosed, or that the numbers were lower than they should have been in the past. I say the main reason for it is that more children are seen by psychologists than they used to be. Over the past years, we've seen a growing sense of entitlement in this country. People feel that things should go perfect for them, and don't know how to handle that when they don't - they try to shift the blame elsewhere. So now when a child acts out, they can't understand how it's natural or maybe even their fault - they want to blame some medical condition that can be "treated" by doctors. They take what they've heard of these conditions and go to the doctor, reporting all the right symptoms. The doctor gets to spend an hour or two with the child and parent, which really isn't enough time to diagnose anything. they have to rely on reports from the parents and family history. It's rather disturbing and disgusting.

As a society, i think we need to medicate the children less and the parents more.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ Mar 23 2007, 04:04 PM) [snapback]411181[/snapback]</div>

You are one disturbed individual Stev0, if you think that was an appropriate thing to say or somehow cute or glib.

Wildkow

edited: To remove what I really wanted to say.

 

I didn't read it. Nothing against you, livelychick. I knew it would be bad, and I get the gist of it from peoples' reactions.

I just hug my kids, too. I'm glad my family is sane and whole. Topics like this remind me to be grateful.

 

Part of the problem is the education system. Free thinking, thinking outside the box and creativity do not often work well in some BOE-mandated curricula. So little Johnny "acting up", or not getting with the program is a problem. He's disruptive and preventing the required coursework to be effectively taught. Contact the parents.

Part of the problem is the parents. They have no time anymore for someone who isn't behaving. Let's ignore for a moment that some of this misbehaving is directly caused by this lack of time with them. Why can't Johnny be like the other kids? Call the doctor.

Part of the problem are the doctors and drug companies. All too often, some doctors will whip out that Rx pad at the mention of the first symtom of true attention-deficit disorders, without proceeding further to conclusively prove this. And a lot of times I bet it's the parents pressuring the doctors to give them that wonderful drug they see advertised on TV, or that their neighbors used to turn their little hellion into a perfect little automaton.

I don't intend this as an attack against all doctors, parents, education systems and drug companies. As with anything else, there are good and bad within each discipline. But I think when they collectively coalesce into a belief system that medicating the unruly child is the best option, the child is obviously the one who suffers initially, society later on.

We are a quick-fix, instant gratification society as a whole.

 

Here is a chronology of events.
Chronology

 

There's a lot wrong with people, from creating a 250-lb 7 year-old, or an 84 year-old woman molesting an 11 year-old boy. I try to focus on the more positive aspects of my fellow humanoids.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(eagle33199 @ Mar 23 2007, 10:26 PM) [snapback]411373[/snapback]</div>

When a family is dysfunctional, it is common for its members to pick out one of their number, and label that one either lazy, crazy, stupid, or bad. All the emotional garbage of the family is dumped on that one person, who takes the blame for the emotional illnesses of the family. Nothing is solved, but the rest of the family has an excuse not to seek professional help, and the unfortunate victim of the family becomes even more sick.

In the last few decades, a new factor has been introduced: psychoactive drugs. These drugs really can help individuals with certain real conditions caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. However, dysfunctional families will seek to inappropriately medicate the family member labeled as crazy or bad, convinced that this person really has a psychiatric illness. Then it is the responsibility of the doctor to be very sure that the individual really has the condition in question, and really can benefit from the drug, and to screen out these dysfunctional families where the indicated treatment is probably a long course of talking therapy for the whole family, rather than medicating one person, who in all probability is the innocent scapegoat for the family's dysfunctional condition.

Whenever parents bring a child in for treatment by psychoactive drugs, the family itself should be very carefully evaluated before the child is medicated. Sometimes, it will turn out that the child does need medication. More often it will turn out that the adults of the family need therapy. In fact, any time parents bring a child to a psychiatrist or psychologist, the parents should be evaluated before the child, as they are more likely than the child to be the sick ones.