Raising the future leaders of our world is a daunting task that starts in every child’s life as soon as they are born and continues into their formative years. Learning basic functions at birth. Later how to form words. Then these children are sent off to school where they begin learning more comprehensive and academic skills like reading and math. In today’s society the level of judgement on a child’s ability to remain submissive and paying attention to teachers has been translated to giving children labels. These labels are diseases like ADD and ADHD. They are then attached to children and treated with stimulant drugs such as Adderall and Ritalin. As a child it’s easy to accept what other people tell you about yourself as the truth. During years of development children take everything they learn from the world around them. So when a child is put in a new environment and expected to react in a way they most likely haven’t been taught yet and fail to do so, they are now labeled with some type of attention disorder. These disorders are then treated with addictive stimulant drugs. Drugs that affect the chemicals in the brain and are supposed to help the children focus. Growing up my brother and I were both referred to doctors about our ability to pay attention in class. The doctor suggested to my mother that my brother, Zach, be put on prescription drugs to help him focus. My mother being ill herself knew the consequences of starting prescription drugs and refused to do so with her child whom were still developing learning habits in his formative years. She decided to go against the doctor’s suggestion and simply work with my brother and his teachers. In his classes he was able to take tests in silent rooms and sit in the back of classes so when he found himself drifting from the lessons he could stand and re-gather himself. These alternatives to medication worked for him. His experience should serve as proof for why non stimulant alternatives should be considered. The affect that these stimulant drugs have on children in the end are more harmful than beneficial. Not only creating dependence but also later introducing other medical problems.

People are continuously learning and developing with the world around them, but the most critical time for mental development is childhood. Children develop basic things like their sense of right and wrong when they are young as well and their learning habits. While it is easy to write off a child’s problems as disorders and remedy them with stimulant drugs, prescriptions should be taken more seriously and analyzed for their long term affects. Once these drugs are used for prolonged periods of time children may benefit from them immediately in their classes, yet while this is occurring they are becoming dependent on the drug. When the child isn’t taking the medication their symptoms could become more severe. Also when students learn skills on the medication they aren’t recalled upon as easily off of the medication. There have been many studies of college students using the aid of study drugs while working on their majors such as medicine or political science. But would you want your doctor preforming surgery on you if they didn’t have the same recollection of the surgery as they did when they were in school studying it on the drug? This can be thought of in the same way for children. When a child is learning key concepts that are the foundation of their education should they really be getting assistance from a drug that they may supposedly outgrow? Therefore, they would not be able to recall upon these concepts in same way while learning other subject later in their education.  And if they don’t outgrow the need for the prescription, the dosage increases due to the tolerance built over time. The point of prescription medication is to hopefully cure the diagnosis and come off of the drug, but that’s not how stimulant drugs are treated. Even if stimulant drugs such as Adderall and Ritalin are used as solutions to a short term problem of attention disorder in children, the drugs still have negative long term affects. Stimulant drugs are considered drugs that speed up the central nervous system. Yolanda Williams, teacher of Psychology and Ethics with a doctorate of philosophy in counselor education and supervision, informs us that, “…each stimulant has unique effects, all stimulants increase your heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature.” (Yolanda Williams, 0:48-0:53) These side effects aren’t naturally in the nature of healthy children, but when the child is exposed to stimulant drugs they may suffer. These side effects are often times treated themselves with other psychiatric drugs. In the end these drugs are much more harmful to children especially when you consider the development of their cognitive skills. In David Freeman’s article in CBS News “Adderall safe for ADHD kids? Study says yes, but some experts disagree” a study was analyzed looking at the safety of the drugs used to treat ADHD. The cardiovascular risk is the main subject in this study and the results show that there was no increased risk. Yet many doctors still disagree. The study accounted to be too small to prove any actual safety for the drugs. The fact that doctors even after the study was conducted continued to question the safety of ADHD drugs shows that there is more to analyze before giving them to your child. 

If we begin with the basic process that a doctor goes through to diagnose ADHD we would find that everything considered is based off of observation and comparison. According to Webmd.com the steps taken to diagnose ADHD are as followed. The doctor takes the symptoms that the child is experiencing of hyperactivity and inattentiveness then decides if it is normal or abnormal compared to a child of the same age. If the symptoms are considered abnormal and have occurred for more than six months in more than one location than the patient is diagnosed with some type of ADHD. The guidelines for diagnosing these disorders are subjective. The problem with this lies in the fact that only observations are being made, no tests and no consideration of other factors that could be causing a child to have the same symptoms. When speaking of diagnosing disease Dr. John Breeding Ph. D. Psychologist states that, “you cannot diagnose disease based on children’s behavior, it just can’t happen, properly, scientifically, medically.” (Dr. John Breeding, 7:08-7:18). If we continue with this in mind treating a behavior with medication isn’t considered treating, its masking. The point of medication is to cure or improve the diagnosis being treated. Then to leave the drugs behind. Stimulants used for ADHD only increase in strength as time goes on. There is no intention for an end. The longer the drugs are used the more tolerance and dependency is built. Dr. John Breeding makes this obvious when he comments on how stimulant drugs show their long term affects. Analyzing that the stimulant drugs will increase in dosage after a certain period of time to remain working, then with this comes increased blood pressure since stimulants affect the human heart and body temperature. With this comes prescriptions to reverse the side effects such as sleeping pills to counteract the “upper” drugs. In the end stimulant drugs for ADHD create long term problems for short term situations. 

When you think of the word disability pictures that come to mind might be wheelchairs or handicapped stickers. Did the picture of a child in elementary school ever come to mind? This is the label that students with ADHD take on. Mentally handicapped. A crutch that students blame their problems on. A label that gives other students reason to believe they are superior. The label of being a child with disability creates a social downfall early on in a child’s life. Believing you have an attention disorder can be reason for children to feel inferior and sorry for themselves, therefore changing a child’s emotional development early on. Receiving a drug for the disability only further proves to the child that they need something to be normal that they can’t do without. Growing up in my family the only excuse for poor performance in school was an ill work ethic. My parents understood that my brother and I had trouble paying attention in class and they worked with us and our school’s to make things easier for us. For example, I took a class with 5 other students that worked with me on my study habits. I was able to take tests in quiet places and work with teachers one on one. Now both my brother and I have grown out of our disruptive patterns without drugs. Whereas many children grow up and begin to do poorly in school and believe that they have a disability. They blame their grades on a diagnosis that is too easy to obtain and then begin to receive prescriptions to help them focus. Students accept their “disability” as an incurable disease. Not to discredit all people that struggle with attention disorders, but too often are these labels handed out with no reason for medication. 

Today it is so easy to go on google and type in symptoms you have and from the little unguided research done determine that you are going to die from cancer in two months. Self-diagnosis is common and understandable for many situations. There may be something seriously wrong with your body and your worried. But many take the nature of their symptoms too seriously. This is even more difficult when someone tries to diagnose mental problems by themselves. Results from a study posted to Journal of Child & Adolescent Substance Abuse called “Nonmedical Prescription Drug use among Midwestern Rural Adolescents” by Nicholas Park helps us to further analyze self-diagnosis in children. The study leads us to believe that there is a correlation between the nonmedical use of stimulant drugs and a child’s involvement in their family and school. The study further states that there is a 1.26-unit increase in the likelihood to use nonmedical prescription drugs as age increases by one year. Basically as a child is less involved in their school and family the more they resort to stimulant drugs. Another point of this study showed that “girls will be more likely to engage in nonmedical prescription drug use than boys” (Nicholas Park’s. 1), and that girls tend to self-medicate their symptoms more than boys. With self-diagnosis then comes self-medication. This study suggests that students, mostly girls, go into their classes and feel that their grades are reflections of attention disorders they may or may not have, or that their work could be better with the aid of study drugs. Self-medication of stimulant drugs exhibit many of the same risks that doctor prescribed stimulants do. The only difference being the age at which the risks begin. Self-diagnosis while very easy to do only leads to unneeded dependencies and legal risk for holding stimulant drugs without a prescription.

The casual nature in which ADHD and ADD stimulant drugs are handled with young children correlate to problems in college. When young students are diagnoses with ADD or ADHD they receive stimulant drugs to help them focus in school. The drugs aren’t outgrown and follow students to college campuses. The dependency for the drug is evident. Kids who have prescriptions for Adderall feel they cannot perform without it. The placebo affects their peers as well. Other students who have not been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD feel like the pill gives them an advantage when doing school work when it is in fact harming their brain. The economic advantage to selling Adderall entices students even more to give their fellow classmates pills to which they are not prescribed. Students who do have a prescription can sell the drug for up to and over a hundred percent profit. This along with the increased work load and weight of responsibility comes the problems of nonprescription stimulant drug use on college campuses. In Kent Kerley’s (etc) article posted to Deviant Behavior called “Middle-Class Motives for Non-Medical Prescription Stimulant Use among College Students” the moral aspect of taking stimulant drugs without prescriptions are interpreted. While the article does identify other uses for stimulant drugs the interesting fact to take away is the thought processes of college students taking the drugs without prescriptions. First keep in mind that Adderall and Ritalin are considered schedule II controlled substances. A schedule II controlled substance is considered to, “have a high potential for abuse which may lead to severe psychological or physical dependence” (MedShadow Foundation). The incriminating charges for drug possession go up as the schedule number of the controlled substance comes closer to one. Even so, there are countless college students on campuses all over the country using and selling stimulants they don’t have prescriptions for. This displays how the negative effects of stimulant medications affect more than just the students with prescriptions and cause more harm for all of today’s youth than good. This all stems from the psychiatric history of how ADD and ADHD came about and the economic gain of drug companies. 

Considering the fact that ADHD is a mental disorder to analyze its history and legitimacy we refer back to the American Psychiatric Association. From Dr. John Breeding’s comments in “ADHD Drugs: Medication of Poison? Truth About Psych Drugs for Kids Mental Health” we learn that before the 1980’s there was no such thing as ADD. The motion to put a name to attention disorders was put to a vote in the past half-decade. This in turn allowed for psychiatrist to give out labels for common behaviors to children, entering them into the world of medication at a record age. Before this people that were entering the world of psychiatric drugs tended to be at ages where adulthood stress began and older patience. Yet this ability to put children on stimulant addictive drugs at a young age hooked them into the pharmaceutical world for a longer period of time. Therefore, creating more dependency and need for other drugs to treat side effects. The manual used to diagnose ADHD was written by the American Psychiatric Association but continues to ignore the fact that it is not legitimate to diagnose disease based off of only observation. Giving out the label “disabled” to children that show the same behaviors that are expected when being put in new environments. These are the same behaviors that are used to determine if a child should be drugged during their formative years. The economic gain of drugging children is a brutal factor to consider when considering why it is so easy for children to be labeled with ADHD. 

The fact that stimulant drugs are used by so many Americans and prescribed to countless children stands to go against the argument that stimulant drugs cause more harm than good. There are many accounts of patience’s experiencing benefits while on stimulant drugs. In the article “Real Stories of ADHD Triumph” posted to ADDitude Magazine author Zoe Kessler shows firsthand accounts of success stories and Adderall. A specific story told was of a famous songwriter, Beth Nielsen Chapman, and her experience using Adderall to aid her ADHD. Beth uses Adderall when critiquing songs and states that, “ADD is a gift and a challenge. Sharing that I have the condition with others had been essential to my happiness”. This account proves the claim that Adderall can be effective when used in small doses. There are cases of Adderall being helpful such as the one stated above, but the real problem with the stimulant is that when Adderall is used constantly over time dependency occurs. And in children this is harmful to development. The good does not out weight the bad in this case. The positives which may come with the introduction of these medications are insignificant and will fade as tolerance increases along with inattention. This is not a solution by definition and cannot be continued as such.

It is the responsibility of all parents to be informed before giving their children potentially harmful drugs. The responsibility of having a child is to have their best interest in mind. With this being said, as we raise the next generation, keeping in mind the negative effects of stimulant drugs are crucial. Although the main intention for ADHD medication is to help mask symptoms, the long term negative effects including dependency and other health risks aren’t worth the short term fix. 
