Ritalin for Naughty Children ?
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| Image credit: Georgie_grrl |
Ritalin is a widely-used drug intended to treat children and adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). There is much controversy surrounding the use of this drug and many people claim that it is over-prescribed. In the United States, there are many people who claim that there are dangerous side-effects to the use of Ritalin and you can find numerous websites describing cases in which children have faced long-term and sometimes fatal consequences as a result of using this drug. However, most of these sites were set up by people who, although they may personally have had negative experiences, are not doctors or medical professionals in any form and thus are not really in a position to make claims regarding the efficacy of the use of Ritalin.
If someone took the time to really investigate the efficacy of the use of this drug – for example, going into university databases or even using Google Scholar, and critically appraising the evidence according to objective markers – one would probably have to come to the conclusion that Ritalin is indeed an effective intervention when accurately prescribed.
Ritalin is a medication for ADHD. It is actually a stimulant – it stimulates the dopaminergic system and, in effect, stimulates the creation or effective use of dopamine in neural regions responsible for calming us down and enabling us to concentrate. This is all well and good when there really is a problem in those neural regions; the problem arises when the problem ISN’T there and when Ritalin is inaccurately prescribed. For example, emotional problems can often look like ADHD and if Ritalin is prescribed in these cases, will clearly not solve the problem.
The inappropriate use of Ritalin is rampant, and this seems to be where the real problem of its abundant use begins. If ADHD exists in between 5-10% of the population, then this should be the frequency with which ADHD medication is prescribed. Yet this is not the case. Ritalin is all too often used inappropriately and you can find websites advocating its use with naughty children to improve their behavior. This is just another example of the misuse of drugs in our society and people’s tendency to search for ‘quick fixes’. Instead of considering introspection and asking questions about whether or not their child’s behavior reflects the morals and values (or lack thereof) with which they are being raised, parents all too often opt to simply medicate their children.