Barbie Bilo (Edison): Just another Kid with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder)

In today’s society, it seems ADD medication and kids diagnosed with ADD  are a dime a dozen. Some teachers are even beginning to require that parents get their kids tested and drugged for class just so they will be easier to handle.  It seems everyone thinks they know exactly what ADD is and how it should be handled. Just give the kid some Ritalin right? Not right, and not true. The truth is that most kids that are diagnosed with this disorder just haven’t reached the same level of maturity yet or are just being kids. Not all kids are the same, and now, this particular brand of different is seen as a negative thing. By giving these kids drugs and telling them to ‘be the same’ we are not only showing them that individuality is bad, we are also teaching them that everything can be fixed with drugs and they will never have to actually work on uneven ground; that they will never have to struggle to get what they want. We are giving these kids a crutch to lean on, and excuse that they will learn to believe they need.

Most people believe in the stereotype that if a kid is energetic and doesn’t SEEM to be paying as much attention as the other kids that means they have ADD.  This is so unbelievably false it’s not even funny. The real truth is some kids will have ADD for real and no one will be able to notice because they are the quiet ones that seem to be working really hard. This is where the problem lies. A child will be classified as ‘slow’ because they are not at the same level as the others and they don’t SEEM to have the popular traits of this disorder. In truth this child simply thinks differently than the way the rest of the class is being taught. Their mind strays constantly from the task at hand but on an internal level.  This child wants to do better but lacks the tools necessary to be allowed to do so. These children are struggling with no one who understands to help them, while kids that have had too much sugar and too little discipline are running around wild and then having excuses made for them to continue.  This is wrong.

On the subject of Ritalin, it is a helpful drug to SOME kids, but it is not the fix-it drug for everyone. It is not the only option to families who face such a decision as whether or not to try medication to help their child. There is nothing wrong with such a decision either. However, it must be made carefully, and real research should be done on the subject. Until one has done such research and has talked to someone seriously who has this disorder, they should not speak of it as if they know everything about it. Most people only know what the media has spit out and the fact that people still put their trust in such things is absurd. The popularization of something like this is disgusting. It is not funny or cool to have an imbalance in your brain that makes it harder for you to succeed and the fact that we have been socialized to do this needs to be reversed.

This entry was posted on 9. August 2010 at 20:48 and is filed under Introduction to Sociology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.