It was not surprising to read news reports of a survey which found that preschool-aged children were being given Ritalin in huge numbers. Why was it not surprising? Because children so often bear the brunt of their parent(s)'s lack of skill, understanding and, most of all, patience.
National Public Radio ran an interview with a pediatrician who was getting two to three "cold calls" a week from parents whose children were not in his regular care. These parents asked him to write a Ritalin prescription for the child so that the child could be readmitted to preschool.
The pediatrician further described how these parents were not interested in getting at the causes of the high-energy disruptive behavior of their child, however. The doctor explained to these parents the necessity of exploring the food and behavioral habits and family history of the child and of the surrounding family. But parents were more interested in simply getting their child into childcare, regardless of the cost to the child's health.
Notably, the drugs that are being prescribed for ADHD have never been tested for young children. In fact, the NPR report interviewed a person associated with drug testing who said that it would be practically impossible to devise a protocol for testing such drugs on children. There is enormous difference between young people of an age that can understand the nature of experimental testing and small children who have no comprehension and whose parents make that decision for them. Particularly since ADHD is a non-life-threatening event.
It almost seems like parent-child relationships are regressing to pre-twentieth century times, when children were deemed best seen but not heard – and then not seen much either, at least in what was deemed upper-class society.
My gut feeling when I first read the news report was that parents overlook the first and obvious action to take: turn off the television set. And here's why I say that. I recently sat with my granddaughter as she watched the cartoon network (ugly cartoon characters at that). The cartoon characters moved frenetically, the scenes changed rapidly, and worst of all, the advertisements were atrocious montages of split second changes of images. I have no idea how many different images flashed through a 30-second ad, but it felt like about 500. And like most four-five year olds, she doesn't look away during the ads.
I know that the advice to turn off the television is not new, but I believe that this past decade has seen a tremendous increase in the number of split-second images that run in a 30-second advertisement…and consider that each advertising break has seven to ten different products being promoted.
Since children are exposed to television from a very young age, it is not surprising to me that hyperactivity has risen. And I bet that if one measured the rise in the rapidity and number of image changes in advertisements and animated shows, one just might find a correlation with the rise in perceived (as opposed to medically actual) ADHD in children. It just seems like common sense that if a child has difficulty focusing on a task and has difficulty being quiet, that one should assess what kinds and how much rapid-movement, visual stimulation the child experiences every day. And television is the biggest purveyor of such stimulation.
This is but one of the many ways by which American culture demonstrates its carelessness of the well-being of its children. These run the gamut from squeezing welfare families into sub-wage jobs with little child-care support which puts more children into the vast pool of people with no medical insurance, to those (that can afford it) pushing their children at very young ages into organized team sports whose main emphasis is on winning – at all costs. (And then the state governments have the gall!!! to hold the federal block grant monies in fund accounts, while there are many, many children going hungry, being shucked around from school to school because parent(s) move to find other low-paying jobs or find themselves homeless, and having no regular medical care.)
What kind of a culture are we that puts children in actuality at the bottom of the pool while we speak, everlastingly but without much truth, of how much we care for our children?
The American Society of Pediatrics' recently recommended that, in youth hockey, no body checking be allowed with children 15 and younger because of the high rate of injuries occurring in bodies which are not skeletally and muscularly mature. Injuries are happening which physically impair children for the rest of their lives. And what are the coaches saying? What would be the point of playing hockey without body checking. (For those who don't know what body checking is, it is basically using one's body as a ram against another's, preferably into the "boards," the sides of the rink. Good way to receive a concussion.)
Indeed, the point would be skillful skating and teamwork focused on the handling the puck, not on the use of brute force to stop opponents. But…that's not what people really go to a hockey game to see, even in the youth and high school leagues, is it? We do like our brutality toward each other, in nearly every sport that involves fast-moving team playing.
We expect children to be miniature adults by the time they are five. Perhaps that is a bit of an exaggeration, but certainly no older than seven. And that is a shame.
I will quote from Neale Donald Walsch's latest book, Friendship with God (1999, G. P. Putnam & Sons):
God says: Is there any matter more spiritual than how to stop your children from killing each other? Do you need many more Columbine high schools to get you to understand that you've got a real problem here?Neale: We know we've got a problem, we just don't know how to solve it.
God: You do know how to solve it. You simply have not gathered the will to do so.
First, spend more time with your children. Stop acting as if they're on their own from age eleven. Get involved, and stay involved, in their lives. Talk to their teachers. Make friends with their friends. Exert an influence. Have a real presence in their lives. Don't let them slip away from you.
Second, take an active stand against violence, and role models of violence, in their lives. Images do teach. Indeed, imagery teaches faster, and imprints deeper, than words.
Insist that those in charge of retelling your cultural story (moviemakers, TV producers, video gram manufacturers, and other purveyors of imagery, from comic books to trading cards) create a new cultural story, with a new ethic—an ethic of non-violence.
Third, do what it takes to make sure that instruments of violence and tools of violence are unavailable to your children and your teenagers. Prevent easy access and effortless acquisition.
Most important, eliminate violence from your life. You are the greatest model for your children. If they see you using violence, they will use violence.
Neale: Does that mean we shouldn't spank our children?
God: Can you think of no other way to teach those that you say you deeply love? Is startling them, scaring them, or hurting them the only way you can think of to instruct them?
Yours is a culture that has long used physical pain as a punishment for unwanted behavior not only in children, but in adults. You actually kill people to get people to stop killing people.
It is insanity to use the energy that created a problem to seek to solve the problem.
It is insanity to model behaviors all over your society that you say you do not want your offspring to copy.
And the highest insanity is pretending that none of this is happening, then wondering why your children are acting insane.
Common sense, wouldn't you say?
There are so many people out there who believe that inflicting pain is the only way to teach. There is another way. It is loving respectfulness. Let us choose to use it at all times with our children and with all the other people with whom we interact.
Peace be within you and around you,
Cherie
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