When my 8-year-old son went to second grade last year, his teachers and school counselors were very quick to inform me of his “attention problem”. It wasn’t even the second week of school when they advised me to take my son to his pediatrician to see if he might possibly have Attention Deficit Disorder. Believing that they had my child’s best interest in mind, I immediately made an appointment. My son’s doctor told me that he would need to see a pediatric neurologist to get a firm diagnosis of ADD, but that their waiting lists were at least 3 months long. In the meantime however, he told me, I could start giving my son stimulant medications like Ritalin or Adderall, and maybe that would help boost his attention span. Naively, I filled the prescription for Adderall XR, not questioning why there could be no over-the-phon
Not surprisingly, when I finally decided that enough was enough and took my son off this drug, his teachers noticed no difference in his behavior or ability to concentrate at school. They would frequently stop me in the hall when I dropped him off for school and sing the praises of the almighty Adderall, telling me how much better he was doing since being on it. They had no idea that I had taken him off of it almost a month before. What they did know, and what I eventually learned while researching these drugs, is that public schools receive extra money for every child on their roster who is “disabled”, and ADD is considered to be a “disability”. When a child takes medication for ADD that is considered to be confirmation that the child actually suffers from the disorder. The more students with “disabilities”, the mo
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