The first 5 steps you can take towards health without pills

Guest post by Heather Jones DeGeorge

Editor’s note: I’m often disheartened to find that in many cases educators and parents are quick to unquestioningly trust pharma industry influenced doctors about best treatments for children’s mental and health issues without considering or researching other options. Before going toward medicine first, it is helpful to get insights from health and wellness experts like Heather Jones DeGeorge who have had great success with helping families find health and wellness naturally.  I asked DeGeorge to share the top five things families can do to get started on a road to better mental and physical health without medicating. Here they are. 

In today’s fast-paced, quick-fix life, sometimes it can be hard step back, slow down, and take a moment to best assess what we can do for ourselves and our loved ones to live a healthy life. While it may be easier in the short term to live this way, the long-term results can be detrimental.  Instead of eating, and treating our bodies, right, we often look for the quick fix for medical conditions that could be alleviated by incorporating healthy practices into our lives.  And even for people who are not the “quick fix” type, they generally are unaware of options that are outside of their doctors limited expertise.  We have been trained to believe that our doctors would know about any reliably good alternative, but in fact, doctors have a pretty limited knowledge-base and they have a hard enough time keeping up with the research on that!  

I see this all too often with the growing number of school-age children who are being diagnosed with conditions like ADHD / ADD, diabetes, child obesity, bi-polar disorder, depression, asthma, and more.  Unfortunately, American medicine is all too happy to suggest the right synthetic pill to address the condition. The short term gains in addressing the symptoms, not only can have negative, long-term ramifications, but they also are not nearly as effective as getting to the underlying issues and treating our bodies to a healthy lifestyle.  

Specific conditions react to different types of changes.  Depending on the issue at hand there are a number of simple health and lifestyle changes that can be undertaken to address the condition without medication.  But in terms of overall health and just trying to initially get on track, here are the five that I have come across most often in supporting my health coaching clients in their drive towards better health.

1. Only consume ingredients your great-grandmother would recognize -
   If you’re eating foods with a label, strive to eat only those with ingredients your great-grandmother would recognize.  It’s no small task, but it’s worthwhile.  If your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize it, your body isn’t likely to, either.  That means it’s going to treat that ingredient like an intruder—overstimulating your immune system.  This can lead to allergies, intolerances, autoimmune disorders (like rheumatoid arthritis—there are dozens of these types of disorders) and other problems.  Once you get down to foods with ingredients that your great-grandmother would recognize, strive towards foods that don’t have a label (fresh produce and meats).
2. Drink more water (don’t skip reading this summary!)  - I know, “Duh!”, right?  Well, no--not really.  I mean real water.  Not coffee, tea, VitaminWater, or other things that you consider water-based.  It really ISN’T the same.  Can’t stand the taste? Then try adding just a TINY bit of honey or lemon to it to help you adjust, but the end goal is water.  Think your kids won’t drink it?  Try.  Start watering stuff down.  You may need to go slow if you have a supersensitive kid, but you are absolutely NOT giving them anything that is more important than water--not milk, not juice, not anything.  The number of issues related to being underhydrated boggles the mind.  And forget the old standards.  Take your weight in pounds, divide by 2 and drink that many ounces.  Yeah, really.
3. Remove white foods from your diet -
   All of them.  White rice, white potatoes, white bread, white sugar… if it’s white, get rid of it.  How our body reacts to these foods is a spike in insulin.  That roller coaster has set our country on a fast road to diabetes and heart disease--which is more significantly affected by sugars and insulin activity through ingesting insulin-spiking foods than by ingesting the fat that you’ve been told to avoid.  In fact, removing that fat has made the problem worse.  Doctors are not trained in nutrition and are spewing out sound bites similar to the snippets that the media takes and runs with.  But new data is uncovered all the time and it’s wise to do RESEARCH.  Remove white foods.
4. Take a multivitamin.  It’s a start.  We are so nutrient deficient that many of our common issues--even severe ones like excruciating migraines--are often resolved with corrective megadosing of the deficient nutrient and then maintaining that nutrient in our body.  Magnesium is a big one, but there are many.  Even people that eat fresh foods need to be wary (see this article from my newsletter that explains the problem).
5. Take an Omega-3 supplement - It pains me to be at number 5 and picking one last thing when my mind is saying “What about this?  You can’t leave out that!” but alas, here I am and I cannot end without recommending an Omega-3 supplement.  The American diet is overloaded with Omega-6s and people think that’s wonderful.  But when they are out of balance with Omega-3s, it is actually harmful.  The research on supplementing with Omega-3s is astounding.  It is also used intensively to help with cardiovascular disease, ADD/ADHD, and in children with apraxia with excellent results. In fact, one study showed that giving two sets of pigs a diet of Krispy Kreme donuts but one set additionally supplemented with an Omega-3 supplement showed that both yielded the same cholesterol levels; but when they autopsied the pigs, those on the Omega-3 supplement had nice, open, unclogged arteries where the alternate group were nearly completely blocked.  Flax seeds and walnuts are high in Omega-3 for their size; but shrimp, sardines, halibut and salmon are a great source of Omega-3s if you can get over your doctor’s insistence that we need to be fat-free (which has resulted in an epidemic of diabetes and--yes, it’s true--heart disease).  Depending on your personal health and eating plan, you may need to take a supplement (either correctively or routinely) before trying to rely soley on incorporating these foods into your diet.

It is never too late to start with these five.  Once you have these down, there are many more small things you could be doing to better your health.  Actually, if you’re not addressing common behavior and medical issues, the bullet list would differ slightly.  Most of my health coaching clients are surprised how attainable good health can be when they step outside of what “everyone says” and get real guidance—including guiding themselves by re-learning to listen to their own body and value their mind and feelings.  With it comes the discovery that the people we relied on didn’t always have the best answers for us.

Most importantly, be sure to know how to evaluate your information.  Where is it coming from? Who is sponsoring that source?  Check any research they cite to be sure it is not backed by those who will profit on their recommendations, and check that they didn’t just “skim and spew” without getting the full context of the information (which has led to ENDLESS misinforming of the masses).  When you start by following these five ways to address behavioral and medical issues, you’ll be well on your way to acquiring the help and support you need for success on the road to a healthy lifestyle.

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Heather DeGeorge is a holistic health & wellness coach.  In addition to general health and weight loss, she specializes in dietary intervention for behavior and development problems of children; and helping people adjust to specialized or restricted diets based on medical diagnoses like diabetes or gluten intolerance with the end-goal of being able to heal the body and eat a healthy, less restrictive diet.  For more information, see her website at http://www.heatherdegeorge.com and follow her on Twitter at @DeGeorgeHealth

You have read this article ADHD Cure / health with the title ADHD Cure. You can bookmark this page URL http://benncam.blogspot.com/2012/03/the-first-5-steps-you-can-take-towards.html. Thanks!

ARE ADHD DRUGS HELPING OR HURTING YOUR KIDS?

Are ADHD medications putting your children in danger? Readers of this blog know my feelings on the subject and those who don't can click here to find out. In short medication should be a last resort after many other options have been examined.  

I’m so excited that Anderson Cooper is tackling the controversial issue of medicating children for attention deficit disorder in his show Anderson. In a heated debate, he has invited two moms to face off on the appropriate ways to treat children with ADHD. One of his guests Laurie A. Couture is a frequent contributor to this blog. Laurie is an unschooling, alternative education and attachment parenting coach and consultant. She is the author of Instead of Medicating and Punishing: Healing the Causes of Our Children’s Acting-Out Behavior by Parenting and Educating the Way Nature Intended which was chosen as a finalist in the ForeWord Magazine Book-of- the-Year Awards in 2009. She appears as an expert in the documentary film, The War On Kids (2009) and is the host of The Free and Joyful Childhood Radio Show. Laurie was a recipient of the 2010 Manchester Union Leader’s Forty Under 40 honors.  Visit her website at http://www.laurieacouture.com.  

The pharma companies spend billions to get society to drug their kids. Laurie will tell us the many healthier alternatives. I can’t wait to hear Laurie advocate for children on this show. Here is a preview.

If you have a child diagnosed with ADD / ADHD this show is for you. Check it out and decide what's right for your kids.


To find out when it is on in your area, click this link and enter your zip code in the WHEN IT'S ON box.
Here is when it is on here in New York.
Debuts Thursday, March 08, 2012
Channel PIX11 M-F 4:00 PM

While you'll have to watch the actual show via your service provider, you can see what happened after the show below. 

To find out  Laurie's reaction to the show here. 

You have read this article ADD / ADD cure / ADHD / ADHD Cure / ADHD Treatment with the title ADHD Cure. You can bookmark this page URL http://benncam.blogspot.com/2012/03/are-adhd-drugs-helping-or-hurting-your.html. Thanks!

The Gifted/ADHD Connection

Guest post by Dori Staehle | Cross posted at Next Stage Educational Consulting

It reads like something from a science fiction novel: Millions of schoolchildren lining up everyday for the medication that will make them sit still, pay attention – and behave! Orwell’s1984 or Kurt Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron perhaps?

This is life imitating art. We’ve become so convinced that children need to be medicated in order to learn that we’ve completely ignored what’s really causing their inattention and hyperactivity in the first place.

As an educational consultant and private tutor, I’ve seen children medicated needlessly. I’ve seen the prevalent side effects, I’ve heard from frantic Moms after their sons were rushed to the emergency room. The sad fact is that the majority of children who are diagnosed as ADD or ADHD (often by their teachers!), are actually highly gifted, talented, and creative kids. The problem is: No one was looking for that.

Like they say, if all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail. Since most teacher training programs and even graduate programs don’t cover this, let me explain what giftedness is. Giftedness is a complex phenomenon which encompasses high IQ and creativity, along with heightened sensitivities, and uneven development (combined definition from Dr. Linda Silverman, The Columbus Group, and this writer).

At many of my workshops, I outline the symptoms of ADD/ADHD taken from the psychologist’s “bible”, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV).  Then, I add to the right side of the screen the traits of giftedness, as per The Gifted Development Center in Denver. Yes folks, both lists are exactly the same (you can seen this chart here).People who are super-talented, creative, or bright tend to be hyper. They space out when they’re bored or when they’re trying to figure something out. They tend to hyper-focus on areas of interest.

In addition, there are literally hundreds of medical conditions that can produce hyperactivity and inattentiveness (The Hyperactivity Hoax, Dr. Sydney Walker, http://amzn.to/z1djaQ).  Within my student population, 100% were right-brained, 95% were gifted, 90% were highly gifted with IQ’s in the 150-200 range (average IQ is 100), and all of them had allergies, asthma, hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), food sensitivities, or a combination of all four.

In 2000, I spoke at a gifted education conference and posited that a huge percentage of students that are being labeled as ADD/ADHD are actually right-brained gifted, talented, and/or creative students. We are, in fact, medicating brilliance. We are also ignoring the underlying medical conditions and not accounting for the biggest trigger: stress.

Schools are left-brained institutions taught by predominantly left-brained individuals (Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World: Unlocking the Potential of Your ADD Child, Jeff Freed). They don’t understand those of us who are right-brained and creative, who think in pictures and tend to be random, not sequential. So, they medicate what they don’t like or don’t understand. Surely, there must be something wrong with these kids’ brains! In fact, ADD used to be known as a brain disorder – even though most of these kids have high IQ’s! You can almost call it a “left-brained conspiracy”. No wonder these kids are stressed out – they’re not allowed to be themselves!

Therefore, it is no surprise that there is a huge incidence of gifted, talented, and creative kids within the homeschooling population (www.hoagiesgifted.org). They can learn in ways that work for them and be with others like them. They can spend a great deal of time on their passions and take breaks or blow off steam when needed. This is their version of normal. Maybe it’s time to accept that and not try to change it.

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Dori Staehle has close to 20 years of tutoring and consulting experience and has worked with public, private, and homeschooled students and their families.  She holds a BA in French and German from Wagner College in NY, and an MBA in finance from Fairleigh Dickinson University in NJ. In addition, she has done both graduate and post-graduate work in gifted education and gifted psychology while in CO.

Dori has written and published several articles on gifted education and homeschooling and developed the theory known as The Gifted/ADHD Connection. She is currently writing a book which is tentatively titled Hearing the Music: Why We Chose Homeschooling Instead of Ritalin.

You have read this article ADD / ADD cure / ADHD / ADHD Cure / ADHD Treatment with the title ADHD Cure. You can bookmark this page URL http://benncam.blogspot.com/2012/01/the-giftedadhd-connection.html. Thanks!

How Ritalin ruined my childhood

Guest post from Peter Jung @peter_d_jung | Cross posted at EduPeter.

I like Adderall. I don't take it often at all, but I have a prescription that I can get filled whenever. When I need to write a 20 page paper in a few days, I take a pill, drink a caffeine drink, and turn into a robot for a while. Normally, I don't need to take pills to succeed in a class- I pay attention well enough, keep up on the reading, and take decent notes. If I lapse in any of these things, it's not something that can be attributed to any deficits in my ability to pay attention, but another source, such as frustration with the teacher's lecturing style, exhaustion from sleep deprivation, or something of the sort.

I don't have ADD, at least not in a way that impedes my learning in any real way. So, then, why can I get Adderall?

When I was 6, ADHD was a big thing. Everybody's kid had it, which explained any number of frustrating behaviors that their kids would engage in. I was a kid that engaged in frustrating behaviors, who also had a bit of neurological damage thrown in there. The neurological damage caused a speech impediment and gross motor dysfunction, which led to me going through physical and speech therapy for many years, but caused no apparent cognitive deficits.

What my parents and first grade teacher saw was a kid who would wander off, get frustrated easily, cry when faced with math homework, and had a hard time paying attention, preferring to draw constantly instead. My parents and teacher had a lot of frustrations with me concerning math homework around this time, and finally decided they needed to see a doctor about me. After taking a test that involved me staring at a computer monitor, trying to determine which orientation a blip of light was facing, I was diagnosed with ADD.

From my perspective, first grade was a really hard time for me. I loved to read and draw, but didn't really get along with any of the other kids. They were often mean to me, and I found I preferred to be alone with my drawings. My teacher would force the entire class to do these idiotic 'two minute timings' that involved 200 basic math problems, and a two minute time limit.

Of course, most kids blew through these. I looked at the seemingly endless pile of problems, and the two minute time limit, and had the first grade equivalent of a mental breakdown. I mean, two minutes? Who can do two HUNDRED problems in TWO MINUTES?! Two minutes is not a lot of time! 200 is a VERY LARGE NUMBER. NOBODY IN THEIR RIGHT MIND SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO THIS. I DON'T LIKE THIS SCHOOL PLACE ANYMORE.

So, while such thoughts flew around my head, the unfinished two minute timings piled up, and my teacher decided that I needed to stay in during lunch and recess every day to finish them. I would just stare at them, occasionally attempt to finish one and get discouraged, then just draw. So, I missed recess for a good chunk of my first grade year, which led to me spending every recess inside with the teacher after that. Part of it was I liked to draw more than I liked being outside, but another part of it was that I was very shy, and didn't really like how the other kids treated me. Having missed that year made me feel like an outsider, and I was too introverted to try to make friends.

Of course, that led to me going to the emotional counseling support group with all the junior sociopaths in the school. I would just talk about my collection of toy robots, or stay quiet.

Anyway, Ritalin happened around the beginning of second grade. I was given a time release pill that I was supposed to swallow so it would dissolve slowly over the day. Well, that didn't happen, as I had a gag reflex. I chewed it, and got a day's worth of Ritalin in a very short period of time.

I really don't remember much else from that point on. I have pretty vivid memories of my childhood up until taking Ritalin, and then... nothing. I have seen reports of my behavior that are pretty disturbing, and found artifacts from that time period that seem to imply some degree of massive depression, although my memories are a haze. What I do remember is being a complete loner who was content to sit in the back and draw or read all day. I also remember being able to see the logical circuits for traffic lights, and other patterns.

In 5th grade, my mom became so tired of hearing all these problems with me, and had the district give me an IQ test. The next day I was placed in the highly capable program, although I still tended to prefer to disengage and draw, as I was still pretty introverted.

Somehow, I managed to skate through elementary school, but in 6th grade, by month three, I was doing terribly. I was failing one class, and doing badly in all the rest. I didn't know what was going on, but I started to get scared, as no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't do well. They apparently made an IEP for me that involved me sitting at the front of the classroom so I would pay attention better, and the teacher could keep track of me. It was all very frustrating for everyone involved.

Finally, a math teacher asked me if I could see what she was writing.

I told her I could, and then she asked me what she was writing. I told her the wrong answer.

Within weeks, I had glasses and my grades went from Fs to Bs. I was still on Ritalin, which made me very socially awkward and led to a lot of bullying, which made my entire middle school experience a horrible mess of bruises and cuts.

By 8th grade, my parents took me off the Ritalin, and I began making actual friends with the nerdy kids. I'm still friends with some of them today, and hang out with one on a weekly basis. I slowly learned how to socialize, and became more like a normal person that wasn't stoned out of their mind.

By 12th grade, I was pretty much normal. I had been in the IB program for the first two years of high school, then switched over to Running Start, which allowed me to take a few classes at the community college to knock out high school credits, and get free college credit. I still took a few classes at the high school, but they were all classes I was interested in- Calculus, Advanced Biology, Weight Training, Art, etc. I had a good group of geeky friends, and could make friends easily. I was really awkward around girls, but not in an unusual way. I was a pretty stereotypical nerd.

One day, I got pulled out of class to talk with the school psychologist. He asks me to sit down and tells me I have an IEP. I ask what that is, and he tells me that it's something that has to do with my mental health issues. At that point, I had begun conversing with the ceiling about how this man was not to be trusted, and the psychologist just laughed. So, I asked what this was all about, and he describes the IEP to me- I am to sit in front of the class and the teacher is to make sure I'm paying attention. Now, I had forgotten about this IEP thing, and generally sat in the front of the class because I was a teacher's pet, but I was rather shocked. He told me I had Static Encephalopathy, which explained why I needed physical therapy and speech therapy, but didn't really explain why I had to sit in front.

I ask him when this IEP was made. He tells me, beginning of 6th grade. I take off my glasses and gesture with them, "I got these a few months into 6th grade."

He chuckles, and shreds the document.

I think most of my problems with Ritalin could have been avoided with two simple things. If the teacher had just sat down with me and really talked with me about the two minute timings, and offered to let me do 10 problems instead of 200, I could have shown her I was competent. Also, if someone had given me a vision test earlier, I would have avoided being consistently high and losing so much of my childhood.

Even so, I think I did okay. I am largely self educated, having read the entire time-life science series of books my dad found at a garage sale in a summer, and spending so much time in the corner reading. I have no difficulty with math, social skills, or academic ability. I just think it is very important that a kid is consulted when dealing with medication, as often, kids know exactly what's up. Sometimes, yes, medications are necessary, but the application of them is so often done as a blunt weapon rather than a precise tool. With me, the problems were easily solvable, not based on any neurological deficit. As such, I feel that the psychologist's diagnosis was most certainly wrong.

Although, I must say, it is nice being able to get Adderall legally. And I use it honestly, only when I need to really cram or finish a project. Still, the feeling I have while on it is incredibly potent, and the idea that I was on this stuff for years frightens me greatly, just from the possibility that it might have impeded my brain's development. Thus far, I think I've developed normally, but I can't really tell.

In any case, I just thought I'd throw that out there, as a story of someone who went through elementary and middle school in a drugged out haze because he needed glasses.

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Peter Jung is a graduate student interested in information technology and DIY Education. http://www.linkedin.com/pub/peter-jung/13/6/5a6

You have read this article ADD / ADD cure / ADHD / ADHD Cure / ADHD Treatment with the title ADHD Cure. You can bookmark this page URL http://benncam.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-ritalin-ruined-my-childhood.html. Thanks!

What the doctors and teachers may not tell you when recommending medicating your ADD / ADHD child

I'm pissed off! I am pissed off because parents and educators are hurting children and they may not even realize it. This post is written to change that.  


If you are a parent or educator who is allowing a child you know to be drugged because they have an ADD / ADHD "disorder" you could be responsible for receiving short-term gains in exchange for long-term detrimental effects.  


Drugging children has well-known risks which I share below, but now there's another to add to list as a parent / friend just informed me. Schools had convinced her to drug her son providing all sorts of evidence from doctors and others that this was best for her child. The risks were not presented. Fortunately, she eventually realized something was very wrong with the path down which schools were leading her child and she pulled him out of school so he could own his learning and have a happy and successful life.



Unfortunately, the damage may already have been done.

I was not given a list of this as a side effect and I may have condemned him to an adulthood of trials and pain. Doctors play down rare side effects just as well as educators. Children are statistics not people.

This mother shared what she just learned.

Did you know that a study last year indicated that there is a possible correlation between stimulant use (including ritalin and adderal) and parkinson's disease. Why is this important? My barely 20 year old son was given a tentative diagnosis yesterday of early onset Parkinson's disease (onset under 50). His only known risk factor having been prescribed Ritalin and risperdal before the age of 10. We will look for an early onset doctor and PUSH for more research to save other children from this debilitating disease. My focus changed yesterday!

Fortunately, there is at least one group that is trying to get information to parents. It is the responsibility of parents and teachers to deeply research this decision. Once they do it will be crystal clear that if you allow children to be drugged without standing up and sharing the numerous alternatives that can pursued instead, you may very well be condemning that child to serious long term effects which not only include Parkinsons but also include:



Effect on the developing brain — Some researchers are concerned that the use of drugs such as Ritalin in children and teens interferes with normal brain development.



Psychiatric problems — Stimulants for ADD/ADHD can trigger or exacerbate symptoms of hostility, aggression, anxiety, depression, and paranoia. People with a personal or family history of suicide, depression, or bipolar disorder are at a particularly high risk, and should be carefully monitored when taking stimulants.



Potential for abuse — Stimulant abuse is a growing problem, particularly among teens and young adults. College students take them for a boost when cramming for exams or pulling all-nighters. Others abuse stimulant meds for their weight-loss properties. If your child is taking stimulants, make sure he or she isn’t sharing the pills or selling them.



Heart-related problems — ADD/ADHD stimulant medications have been found to cause sudden death in children and adults with heart conditions. The American Heart Association recommends that all individuals, including children, have a cardiac evaluation prior to starting a stimulant. An electrocardiogram is recommended if the person has a history of heart problems. Unfortunately that didn’t happen in the case of this child:

The day after Christmas 2010, a grandfather discovered his 8 year old grandson dead in bed. The child was on Adderall, the prescribing physician missed an underlying heart murmur, the parents and grandparents under informed on proper use, the school and classroom teacher pushed for the child to remain on drugs after the father's resistance, when he became the primary caregiver. Evidence indicates that children on Medicaid are more likely to be prescribed than otherwise. This was also the case.

Parents or educators who do not intervene are responsible for hurting children if they are not trying options that don’t involve medicating first.  Pediatrician Lawrence Diller says that non-drug interventions value engagement with the child; they require more time, more involvement by adults and initially cost more money. Medical and educational systems value efficiency. Parents generally value engagement but if the treating systems only offer pills, parents will surely take them over no treatment.



Parents and teachers if your not sure what you can do instead of drugging children, here are some ideas.

• There are health and wellness coaches like Heather Jones DeGeorge that can help guide families to find the food and lifestyle choices that best support them.
• There are parenting coaches like Laurie A Couture who help children live drug-free lives and empowers them with healthy alternatives.
• There are guides like “Fix the School, Not the Child,” and books like “Instead of Medicating and Punishing” that offer numerous alternatives to drugs for children.
• If school is causing your child’s ADD / ADHD you can remove him or her.  
• If you are misinformed to believe ADD / ADHD is real, you can read information from these doctors, educators, and parents who disagree. They don’t disagree that children have behavior associated with ADD / ADHD they disagree that this is a disorder that should be medicated out of children.

As with most things in America, money factors rule. But a society that chooses to cope by using drugs, in the long term, does so at its own peril. -Lawrence Diller, M.D., Behavioral and Developmental Pediatrician, Author, UCSF Clinical Faculty

If you know a child who is being drugged, they and their parents should know the risks. If you don't want to tell them, just give them this article and save a child.

If you want to join the conversation you can do so here on my Facebook page or here on my page for parents, educators, and students interested in discussing innovative learning opportunities that provide a brand new type of learning environment outside of traditional school options.

You have read this article ADD / ADD cure / ADHD / ADHD Cure / ADHD Treatment with the title ADHD Cure. You can bookmark this page URL http://benncam.blogspot.com/2012/01/what-doctors-and-teachers-may-not-tell.html. Thanks!

If School Was Causing Your Child’s ADD / ADHD Would You Remove Him?

During a recent conversation with friends and family, the topic of ADHD / ADD came up and I shared my belief that this is not a disease that should result in people being drugged, but instead a personality type (like mine!) that should be honored.  My friends and family looked at me stunned.  They wondered how an educator like me didn’t know better as this new epidemic was clearly documented as a disease.  I then found out that a few of those among us had been drugged or had been responsible for drugging their children.  They were offended by my words! Fortunately, I'm used to this.  

Like most who are victims of the immoral pharma marketing campaigns, the school and doctor-approved drugs were the treatment of choice.  Of course, since my partner is a pharma rep, I know the “doctor-approved” scam.  These docs get paid a bundle by the pharma companies to promote their drugs to schools.  I also know the the school view.  When kids are drugged, the school’s job is easier.  Of course they want that.  I asked if they had tried any of the 20 things I shared in my Fix the Schools, Not the Child guide before resorting to drugs. Nope!  Why bother? Drugging the kid was working.  

When I dug a little deeper into my own family member's story I learned some interesting things.  For instance, he didn’t like how the drugs made him feel at all.  He admitted that if he hadn’t been forced to sit and listen all day he likely wouldn’t have needed drugs. This was evidenced by that fact that once he graduated, miraculously, he no longer needed the drugs. Once he was able to have ownership of his days, time, thinking, creating, he never felt a need for the drugs. He explained their importance in the unnatural world of school where there are worksheets, and reading boring things for hours to take tests for schools falsely purporting to prepare him for a world that ironically never actually required you to sit and cram to take tests.    

I asked my family, what if you knew that removing yourself/your child from the traditional school setting would eliminate their need to be on drugs?  Would you consider that?  I’m kind of the black sheep in my family, and they shook their heads looking at me as though I had lost my mind and was proposing something ridiculous.  I shared that I had actually written a guide for teens to opt out of school and find success, and that this could have been a better alternative for my drugged family members. This just didn’t seem to be something they could get their heads around or take seriously, so I let the conversation drop and their opinions of me as the black sheep who always promoted alternative life options remained.  I do think some agreed with me and wanted to know more, but didn't have my thick skin necessary to endure the attacks that resulted from my ideas.

If you are like those members of my family and can’t (or are afraid to) consider alternatives to school over drugging your ADHD-diagnosed child, then the rest of this article is not for you.  If you are interested, however, in learning what parents found when they sought out alternatives to school and drugs for their children, you’ll appreciate the rest of this post.

Dr. Peter Gray explains that what I witnessed with my family was to be expected.  He shares that as a culture we are so used to thinking of school as the normative environment for children that we rarely even think about the possibility of children learning and developing well outside of that environment. Because the thought is foreign to many, it is not surprising that Dr. Peter Gray did the first known study concerning ADHD-diagnosed children's abilities to learn, and to cope without drugs, outside of the conventional school environment.  

His findings should be shared with any parent who is considering the option of drugging their child.  

Conclusion 1: Most children who had been medicated for ADHD while in conventional schooling were taken off of the drugs when removed from conventional schooling, and those who were never in conventional schooling were never medicated.

Conclusion 2: The children's behavior, moods, and learning generally improved when they stopped conventional schooling, not because their ADHD characteristics vanished but because they were now in a situation where they could learn to deal with those characteristics.

Conclusion 3: Many of these children seem to have a very high need for self-direction in education, and many "hyper focus" on tasks that interest them.

If parents and educators knew that a change in environment could greatly reduce a child’s need to be medicated, would they choose this option despite the fact that it was less convenient?  I’ve written and talked about this issue extensively, and have found that in most cases drugs are choice #1 and rather than discuss a change in environment adults choose to defend their choice to drug their children. They insist that I should understand that they are right because what they are doing works. They have doctors and teachers telling them they are doing what is right and so they have found their excuse to do what is most convenient.  But what are they really doing?  They are drugging their child so they can endure a difficult environment that does not honor who they are to make things easier for everyone rather than adapting to the child's needs and at the same time stunting his potential.  That said, there are some who have let down their defenses and listened to and considered alternative options.  I applaud these parents who at least try and consider alternatives.  

I have heard few adults today speak out against the drugs they were forced to take.  They were embarrassed and they don’t want to put down parents who were trying to do their best.  However, parents, if you don’t consider options, you might have your child grow up with thoughts like the ones below. I am sharing and paraphrasing sentiments from a member of my PLN who I think many parents can learn from. I wish MY parents had been wise about dangers of ADHD meds.  Maybe if they had, I wouldn't have had all the problems that followed from the meds! :(

Maybe if I had been lucky enough to be cared for by someone who understood me for who I was, I would not have been put on Ritalin (and eventually the dozen other drugs) and gone through all the problems including NUMEROUS suicide attempts & self-mutilation (cutting) episodes and losing most of high school as a result, and my life today might have been RADICALLY DIFFERENT, and better!

If alternatives had been considered for me, maybe I wouldn't have/have had so many problems, and become an adult living on disability income.................. :(

Parents and teachers, please think twice about taking the easy way out and drugging children. If you consider the alternatives, you may be the one that saves the children of our future from a life’s worth of pain and suffering mentioned in the tiny print that those pharma companies don’t spend much time telling you about. 

You have read this article ADHD Cure / education reform with the title ADHD Cure. You can bookmark this page URL http://benncam.blogspot.com/2011/09/if-school-was-causing-your-childs-add.html. Thanks!