With Turnover High, Schools Fight for Teachers

[Aliantha]

I don't think i'm definitely wrong about what I said. I said it was in my personal experience. I said there are studies to support my claims. You must be aware of them or you wouldn't be arguing against them.

Most people only use 10% of their brain. That means about 90% of everyone's brain must be 'shut down'. Actually, i'd be interested to know what you mean by shut down.

With other illnesses which affect the brain zer are vays off making zem vork you know.

btw, I also definitely did not say that your child has been misdiagnosed. I said that I believe very few children actually have the disorders they've been attributed with.

[smurfalicious]

I used to believe the ADD/ADHD thing was crap. And to medicate young kids so quickly rather than nixing the bandaid and getting to the root of the problem was a crime against the child. And for the most part, I still feel the same way.

However, my best friend's youngest son, who is not lacking for discipline or attention or anything else, and is the sweetest and most loving little boy, has some serious freaking issues with attention. If he was my kid, I would have either killed him or been institutionalized myself years ago. I love him, but he drive me nuts to be around him. It was a hard 2-year decision for his parents to medicate him, but it has helped him tremendously. He nearly failed 2nd and 3rd grades, but seems to have turned a corner and is doing MUCH better since getting his meds straight. He's like a totally different kid who can carry on a conversation now without being all over the map and largely incoherent with his thought processes.

The problem is that it is so much easier to keep reapplying a bandaid than it is to find the root of the problem and fix it. It's been my experience that both parents HAVE to work full time to survive, and they're tired and less patient with their children, and have less time to spend with them. Parents fail their kids.

Schools are more concerned with guns, knives, drugs, perverts, and mysterious white powders than education - and can you blame them? Schools fail the kids.

And then you have some drug-pushing "doctor" whose education was - directly or indirectly - paid for by the pharmaceutical companies, and they're just happy to keep scheduling office visits and writing more scripts for the kickbacks.

The whole system is fucked up, and it's out of control. There isn't any one person or entity to blame - it's the sum of it all.

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

Most people only use 10% of their brain. That means about 90% of everyone's brain must be 'shut down'. Actually, i'd be interested to know what you mean by shut down.

That is a myth, most of the brain is used for memory storage so it won't be active like the rest but every part of the brain is used by a healthy person.

Originally Posted by smurfalicious

I used to believe the ADD/ADHD thing was crap. And to medicate young kids so quickly rather than nixing the bandaid and getting to the root of the problem was a crime against the child. And for the most part, I still feel the same way.

I think a lot of the ADHD has to do with age and once they hit puberty, they will outgrow it. My younger brother took medication for ADHD and it actually did help him (he got better grades, ect) and now he is much more calm even being off it for a good amount of years.

As long as parents stress self control to their kids when they are taking breaks from their medicine I'm sure most kids can outgrow ADD/ADHD.