The Schools Are Pathological, Not The Kids

I read this article today, and it claims that 1 in 10 boys at age 10 are taking prescription meds for ADHD.  I was appalled, and yet sadly unsurprised.  My opinion might not be popular, but I do not believe that many children have a disorder, any disorder so severe that they need to be drugged.  Of course, doctors who want financial kickbacks from the drugs they shove on everyone and teachers who want obedient little zombies will tell you that the drugs will bring out the best in your child and make your and your child's life better. 

Photo credit: stoptherobbery.com

Now, I get that some people do have focus problems, and among them there is a subset who struggle so severely that they do, for a period of time or in certain circumstances, require intervention.  Drugs, though, should be an absolute last resort after all other options have been completely exhausted - and I'm not just talking about the patience of parents and teachers, which I believe is frequently the case.

I'm not necessarily blaming the parents and teachers; the Every Kid Gets a Trophy generation is grown up, and things have only gotten worse as they start having children of their own.  Generation Y has been raised on Ritalin and happy pills, while the real problems that exist in families and classrooms are not properly addressed.  Unhappy?  Here's a pill, because you must have depression.  Stressed out?  Here's another pill, because you must have anxiety disorder.  Having trouble concentrating in school?  Obviously you have ADHD, because there's no way it has anything to do with the mundane, repetitive, unfulfilling experience you shuffle through day in and day out with little to no reward for your efforts beyond what all those standardized tests say.

The larger problem is the structure of our society, particularly traditional education and the increasing demands on children with the concurrent deterioration of the real work of childhood, namely play.  Children need free time to grow and develop, but when are they getting it?  Childhood has been pathologized like a disease, while at the same time, schools are removing recess, shortening lunch and free periods, and burdening kids with huge homework loads so that they have no free time to develop who they are as people.  I guarantee that more free time, play time, recess time, and/or physical activity would do a child far more good than any prescription drug.  Big Pharma would disagree, as would the people who want that child's time to be their own.  I guess it works for the system, doesn't it?  Make sure kids' time is always accounted for, keep pouring information that they care little or nothing about into their heads like empty containers, structure their lives to the point they have no say or will, and medicate them into submission when they appear restless, frustrated, bored (termed ADHD, oppositional/defiant, and autistic by allopaths and drug companies).

Parents largely turn to doctors and drugs to help them with their children because the direction of our society.  When I grew up, my dad worked and my mother stayed at home.  Mother was a fast food junkie, but when she wanted to cook and we sat down for family dinners, it was great.  It was close and I felt like part of a family.  The painful regimentation of children's schedules, testing for the sake of scores to bring money into school districts, the degeneration of the family unit, the mountains of homework which effectively obliterates any potential family time and adds stress to the household, the epidemic of bullying, not to even mention the poison in our food, courtesy of Monsanto, are all contributing factors to the problems our children (as a societal whole) face today.

Even as a child, I realized the flaws in education.  Of course, at the time, I was simply a child who was annoyed with school and early mornings.  People do not generally listen to children.  That, in my opinion, is a mistake.  To maintain my sanity, I would ask multiple times per day to go to the restroom because I was so painfully bored in class.  The days were, in my opinion, far too long.  It felt wrong, and I often compared it to a 13-year prison sentence, having to be forced out of bed, day after day, into a place I didn't want to be with my perfectly age-matched peers.  Why were children treated so poorly, I wondered.  I used to look around at my classmates, wondering how they managed to sit there, still and at least feigning the appearance of attention, for that duration.  That was not how I learned.  I suspect, if I were that child in school now, people would recommend Ritalin or some mind-numbing drug to shove me into submission.  I was simply bored, and I don't comprehend how people can't grasp the concept that many children probably are.  That's not a disorder; it's the way the education system is set up that is pathological.

I consider traditional public schools to be brainwashing centers and prisons for children which slowly but surely detach them from their families and drain their will, individuality, and curiosity from them.  Education is not about learning, it's about test scores and money.  Children are miserable, then they get drugged, and then a portion of them do crazy things and people wonder why.  Healthcare has become sick care, where doctors no longer treat the disease, but prescribe pills to mask symptoms and to deal with normal feelings and emotions.  Childhood has become a disease with a number of diagnoses.  People are no longer eccentric, daydreamers, creative, or strong-willed; now they are autistic, ADHD, defiant, and need to be medicated.

The public education system needs serious overhauling.  Will it actually happen?  Not soon enough, if ever.  The trajectory doesn't look good, and I have little hope.

This is why I homeschool.

Recommended reading: Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling by John Taylor Gatto, Thomas Moore