#Medicating Our #Kids: A #New #Perspective on #ADHD

Written By: 

Kelly Brogan, M.D.

"She has a remarkable ability to engage in a task. We use her as a model for the other kids, to show them what we want out of the journaling project," said my daughter's nursery school teachers as we sat together on diminutive, paint-splotched furniture. Rather than feeling self-satisfaction at her stellar "performance," my mind wandered to the greater issue at hand here: what is happening to children, how are we being manipulated by industry to interpret it, and how can awareness be raised around better solutions other than ADHD medications for kids.

A candid and uncharacteristically provocative piece entitled the Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder ran in the NY Times, as part of an effort to raise this awareness. The article discusses the making of an epidemic, much as Robert Whitaker, author of Anatomy of an Epidemic and host of Mad in America, has in his efforts to expose the manufacturing of a profit-driven machine into which our children are being fed. The Times article begins with a bird's eye view of the alarming statistics:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the diagnosis had been made in 15 percent of