The Beech Group

ATTENTION V DRUGS
Louis Theroux recently visited a number of families in the US in order to investigate reports that some parents were giving their children anti-depressants to curb unruly behaviour.
Then we have the BBC talking about giving ADHD children rewards instead of drugs whatever is going on when parents need to give their children drugs or rewards for being normal.
I would not for one moment suggest that all children diagnosed with ADHD are not suffering from a mental disorder, but I do think that a number of them are ignored and ill disciplined, and I would contend that a number of them would benefit from the little word “no” together with “no means no”.
Children need discipline and love in equal measure, one without the other makes for very unhappy children. Why is it that parents seem unable or unwilling to say no to their children? Is it laziness? Fear that their children will not love them any more? If it were possible to answer this question we might actually be getting somewhere. At the same time they want their parents’ attention, they want to be listened to and spoken to.
Alongside my Psychotherapy Practice, until recently, I undertook publicly funded mediations and was dismayed at the number of parents who tried to buy the love of their children by indulging their every whim and then trying to outdo each other so that their offspring would want to be with them rather than the other parent. However, the children quickly learnt the trick and began to play one off against the other becoming more and more badly behaved in the process. They couldn’t possibly say “no” for fear of being accused of not wanting them.
I think it is criminal giving children drugs when they can be avoided. We have enough of a problem in this country, and in the US, with teenagers getting involved with drugs. Parents throwing their hands up and shouting for the authorities to do more to prevent children getting hold of drugs and then these same parents supply drugs in order to suppress, what is often, normal behaviour.
“normal behaviour?” yes I do mean normal behaviour all children are mischievous and test the boundaries. They are testing the world and their place in it and they need us, so called, adults to teach them about right and wrong and where the boundaries are.