Medicated Generation

        The Diagnostic and Statically Manual of Mental Disorders (best known as the DSM) will, by 2013, have broadened the guidelines for mental disorders, according to the Telegraph article. In other words, more people will fall under the ‘mental disorder’ criteria, resulting in more diagnoses and more prescriptions written. Specifically, social anxiety disorders in children, will be easier to identify. The article claims that the newly “refined” DSM will result in “quick fix, drug-based remedies for simple childhood problems such as unhappiness and shyness – states of being which, surely, are part of normal childhood”. Some worry that the kids’ well-being is not in the intentions, but the sale of pharmaceutical drugs is. The use of pharmaceutical drugs is the “fourth-leading cause of death” in the United States and account for “2.2 million hospitalizations per year”.
       Feeding children prescriptions that alter their state of mind should not be so prevalent. Behavioral issues (some minor, some not) are to be expected in youth. I have never understood Attention-Deficit Disorder, for example, which is defined as “a condition, usually in children, characterized by inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness”.  I don’t know anyone that doesn’t have some degree of ADHD. It can be a real problem, sure, but there are holistic ways to treat the symptoms  than turning to brain-altering poison. Prescriptions are a “quick fix” that can have life altering repercussions such as addiction and even death.
        Telegraph further explains the trouble with prescribing drugs to children, “the thing is, this is how we deal with the behavior of the young now — with medicines. I heard recently of a leading primary school which insists that children with behavioral problems take medication. The trouble is, once you start treating children with drugs, where do you stop? Inevitably you rely on the drugs to change the mood and behavior, and you stop searching for other solutions”.  The “other solutions” (that actually work) may be hard to find, but parents shouldn’t stop searching, because, “no one can be sure what the effect on the brain is of taking them all through childhood and on into adulthood. It is an experiment, and children are the guinea pigs”.
        There are mental illnesses where medicine is crucial for the child to simply get through the day. But that is not what this article is about. The milder ailments, in cases where the side effects are worse than the behavior itself, should be treated with a holistic approach. Not only are the kids at risk for addictions, side effects and death, but it makes them more likely to take drugs as adults, in search of a “cure”.