Well, as crappy as I feel, I really wanted to respond to Dan's blog. You can find his post on the right hand side bar of my blog under "According to Dan"
This is a subject very near and dear to me as I have an eleven year old daughter who, back when she was about six, was diagnosed with several "disorders"
1. Social Anxiety Disorder
A fear of social situations in which the patient is forced to be the center of attention.
2. Seperation Anxiety Disorder
An unnatural fear of losing someone close to you.
3. Obssessive Compulsive Disorder
This is hard to sum up in one sentence because it can manifest itself many different ways, but, it is a disorder that causes people to obssess over specific actions, or thoughts. Ie. Labeling everything in a very specific order, washing hands over and over for fear of germs, eleborate bedtime rituals, ect. . .
4. ADHD, or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
This was pretty much the same thing that Dan described in his blog. It is the inability to pay attention to things.
After she was diagnosed, we had a serious go around with the school she attented. They wanted us to medicate her, we did not want to.
So, we did our homework, we researched, we read everything we could get our hands on. Each diagnosis had a medicine that could cure it, but, they would make the other conditions worse. This only reinforced our belief that she should not be medicated.
We ended up taking her to one of the leading specialist in our reigon for this kind of thing in children. He did an extensive exam on her and came up with the same conclusions that we did. She didn't need to be medicated.
There were several reasons I was opposed to medicating her. One was because I worked as a preschool teacher and far too many times, I had "problem" children in my class room. These kids were good kids, hyper yes, but, not to the point that they disrupted the class. Of course, in listning to the parents, these kids were horrible, so, the doctor put them on medication.
I saw first hand what the medication did to them. They slept through class, which, was a half day class to start with. They were groggy and sleepy when they were awake, they didn't want to eat anything. They were tiny little zombies and each day I saw this I was furious at the parents who didn't want to parent.
For me, this is what it boiled down to. What is easier to handle? A child who is flamboyant and full of energy or one that will sit in front of the television and do nothing all day long?
Of course, the answer is the second, but, as most of us know, it doesn't make it the >right<>if< they managed to find a medication that would help ALL of her symptoms without causing others (which was highly unlikely to start with) all we were doing was teaching her to rely on medication to solve her problems.
For us, medication is a very short term solution and our daughter has long term problems. We wanted to find a way to help her learn how to gain control over herself and be successful in her life. Drugs, even legal ones, should not be used to cope with emotional problems. In my opinion, they are not a stand alone fix.
We found that diet, proper amount of sleep, and tight rigid schedules, were very helpful in keeping our daughter focused.
I have tried to teach my sons that it is their responsibility to be respectful of women, but, it is also their responsibility to take care of the women in their life.
I agree with you Dan that alot of women do not know what they want and they somehow magically expect their mates to know what it is they want/need. I know I am guilty of it. It is very hard for me to express myself to him in a way that I feel he understands me. I refuse to use sex as a weapon though. I've blogged about that before so I won't go into it again.
I think that too many of our boys do not have good male role models in their lives. That is not to say that it is always the father's fault. I know alot of women who use thier children to get back at ex's. If they could just get the fuck over themselves and let the father's be father's, maybe things would be easier on our boys. In addition to that though, we need these father's too speak up and demand their rights. Make their children feel as if they are worth fighting for.
Thanks again Dan for a very thought provoking post. I agreed with nearly everything you said, though this is the first time I had thought about it in those terms.
3 comments:
Nikki, what a thoughtful piece! For the record, "they" wanted to put our son Ray on meds too, when he was around 9 or so. They really worked on us about it, said we were doing a terrible thing to his chances of being successful in life if we didn't.
We tried Ritalin for one week and I saw how it drugged him out. I asked him if he could feel it, and he said yes. I asked him if he liked the way it felt and he said no. So we threw the pills away.
Despite this, Ray *has* become successful. He turns 23 this year. No, he didn't go to college because Ray never did care for school. He might someday. In fact, he has been talking about it lately, but in the meantime, he is carving out quite the good life for himself. He has a job installing electronic equipment he loves that makes good money. He has his own place, a great girlfriend. They are even talking about getting married. And he's one of the smartest people I've ever known. Even Dan backs me up on that, it's not just a proud mom talking.
Most important, he is enjoying his life.
The problem is the criteria people use for "success". If success means having perfect grades in high school, going to a high-status college and entering a corporate or professional field afterwards in order to create a certain image the rest of the world might expect of you, then, no, then Ray wasn't going to be "successful".
But if success is living life on your own terms and being really happy while doing it, hell, he's one of the most successful people in the world! :-)
Good luck with your daughter. :-)
Amber, thank you for your story, I am inspired as always, congradulations on raising such a wonderful son.
I suppose I should have mentioned that although my daughter is only 11 she too is one of the smartest kids I've seen for her age. She is currently learning a second language, she is at a college level in both reading and mathmatics. Her test scores show she is in the 99th percentile for her age group.
She can play both the violin and the clarinet.
She is articulate to a fault, and in front of other people she has the manners of a saint. Strangers often comment to us on it.
As far as "successfull", I have to agree with you. If they can afford the lifestyle they live, they are happy, and they find(or don't) a mate of their choosing, then we as parents haven't done too bad.
Thanks for the validation, maybe that was what I needed. :)
Nikki, you stick to your guns and whatever you do, don't medicate. Your daughter will grow up fine.
Having said that .. I posted a comment on your previous post (I think it was) about EFT. EFT is a very good help to children. Try this link and read some of the stories. There are articles there on Separation Anxiety, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, ADHD (Use the site's search engine for this, many cases).
My wife and I have both studied the technique and my wife uses it frequently. I attribute the fact that I am now alive to its use. If you have questions, we should be glad to answer them, though we live half a world away from you and might not be able to get closer than Instant Messaging or email. Even that might be useful.
Post a Comment