Teen Screen: Normal Kids Labeled Mentally Ill

[Anonymous]

I hate John Stossel, just wanted to get that out of the way.
I wonder if he has set foot at a school lately? It's like a lockdown prison, they have plain clothes police officers, drug dogs, metal detectors, motion cameras, kids aren't allowed to leave at lunch anymore. School is nothing more than a prison now, conditioning the sheep for the herd. John Stossel... man I would love to punch him in the face.

[Anonymous]

Competition inspires people to do what we didn't think we could do. If people got to choose their kids' school, education options would be endless. There could soon be technology schools, science schools, virtual schools where you learn at home on your computer, sports schools, music schools, schools that go all year, schools with uniforms, schools that open early and keep kids later, and, who knows what else. If there were competition, all kinds of new ideas would bloom.

There could also be:

Jesus Schools
KKK Schools
Druggie Schools
Black Schools
Mexican Schools
White Schools
ESL Schools
Retard Schools

We already know there are tens of thousands of ignorant parents out there willing to send their children to known and notorious child abusers and murderes, how hard do you think it would be to get parents to send their kid to my new schools?

[Nihilanthic]

Competition inspires people to do what we didn't think we could do. If people got to choose their kids' school, education options would be endless. There could soon be technology schools, science schools, virtual schools where you learn at home on your computer, sports schools, music schools, schools that go all year, schools with uniforms, schools that open early and keep kids later, and, who knows what else. If there were competition, all kinds of new ideas would bloom.

There could also be:

Jesus Schools
KKK Schools
Druggie Schools
Black Schools
Mexican Schools
White Schools
ESL Schools
Retard Schools

We already know there are tens of thousands of ignorant parents out there willing to send their children to known and notorious child abusers and murderes, how hard do you think it would be to get parents to send their kid to my new schools?

Make school VOLUNTARY and like college, and I'd bet you that a lot of the problems with school would automagically? fix themselves.

The biggest problem I had in school was with the kids who didnt want to be there nor had any business there. I was so un-fucking-beliveably miserable becuase of those little shits.  :roll:

[Anonymous]

My family is not socioeconomically challenged, so the "drug the poor kid" label doesn't fit.  When my 12 year old was in 1st and 2nd grade, the teachers and counselors pushed us to get him on Ritalin, or an analogue.  We vociferously fought against it.  His grades were in the low Cs and D, with an occasional F.  He wasn't happy, had no friends, wasn't sleeping, and had impulse control problems.  We tried play therapy, and other counseling, but to no avail.  In third grade, I brought it up with the pediatrician who had known him for several years, and she told us that she never recommended ADHD drugs unless the parents suggested it first.  We put him on Concerta.  I got a constant raft of crap from well meaning friends who thought I was an awful parent for drugging my kid.  However, he made the honor roll, started to sleep at night, and became more confident and made friends.  He's now in 7th grade, and we are probably going to reduce his dose and see what happens.  He still makes the honor roll, and is significantly happier.  Say what you will, blame the drug industry, whatever you like, all I know is it worked for us.  One interesting aspect is realizing that I also had/have ADHD (I'm 45), as I was very similar to my son when I was a child.  I got horrible grades, was socially awkward, and also had insomnia.  My doctor has recommended that I try Adderol, but I feel that I've managed to work around it.  Now I'm happily hyper, but I often wonder how life would have been different had I been diagnosed at an earlier age and not written off as a waste of space in school.

[TimeBomb]

How about giving kids the option of attending school at later hours? Some people are just biologically nocturnal, and there is actually a genetic basis for this. It's been labeled as a "circadian disorder", but the fact is, it's not a disorder at all. Society needs people that can be awake and alert when others are sleeping. Funny how those people are also written off as social deviants, and nobody seems to notice that the world doesn't shut down after dark.

People often mistake this for insomnia, but a lot of them have never even tried a night schedule. The effects of chronic sleep deprivation can look very much like ADD, and can make a person nearly nonfunctional and absolutely miserable.

Personally, I'd rather eat broken glass than to have go to school at 7 or 8 every morning.

[Deborah]

Hey Hey, good point. There are a lot of square pegs out there that don't fit in round holes no matter how hard you push, file, hammer. We all just weren't made from the same mold.

There are so many cases where kids have been drugged for genuine medical problems. Allergies, bad vision or hearing, malnutrition, learning differences, neurological problems..... and then we have the parent induced anxiety- parent speaking to their kid in cheerleader tone, normal is boring, exposing them to scarey movies at an early age (Disney included), real emotional distress, and of course, unrealistic expections on the part of parent/school.

No one says the drugs aren't "effective" in some cases, just as effective as a daily dose of cocaine or marijuana, depending on where one sits on the bell curve- and the latter being far less harmful than the former. The questions- have all other potential medical/emotional factors been ruled out and are the risks worth it?

There is no Ritalin/Adderall/Concerta (cocaine/amphetimine) deficiency from which these kids suffer and for which the drugs are a cure. If you speed up a hyper person with any amphetimine, they're going to be pushed over the bell curve and appear more calm. They may also experience an enlarged heart, shrunken brain, decreased appeitite/weight loss, etc.  But hey, the drug masked all the indicators of a real problem and therefore, the kid made the honor roll. And that's what's important boys and girls.

[Anonymous]

Thats a fantastic idea.

My biggest problem as a student was having to wake up and function in school at such early hours.  Many times, I just did not even go.

For certain, if school had started at noon, I would have had no problems going and doing my work.  

I have always been a "night person", ever since I was an infant.  When I was in junior high and high school, and didn't want to wake up early, my parents would tell me that I would end up as a "loser" if I did not learn to wake up early.  They also told (any therapist who would listen) that I was "not functioning" well with my family, that I was "not trying",  because I slept until noon on the weekends.  It was like this huge deal.

Ha-ha.  I now work as a nurse, where not only can I work night hours, I also get paid extra for it.

[Nihilanthic]

Damn, seems fornits should set up a night club for insomniacs  

BTW, Ive spent the past few days basically alone while my folks are down in Jacksonville looking for a job... I prolly shoulda announced this when they first left  :rofl:

They should be back sometime today. Jax got much of a night life? HERE everything fucking closes at 10 pm!!!!

[Deborah]

George Carlin puts a humorous spin on Education, American Dream
"They call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea ... =935607276

[Deborah]

Ernest Ryan wrote on September 20, 2006 10:13 PM:"Here is an example of what Indiana families can expect to see happen if they do not take immediate action to repeal SEA 529. This bill mandates universal mental health testing for Indiana children. As a result of this, all school children will take some form of invasive mental health survey such as the TeenScreen survey that was recently run on a pilot group of 71 Mansfield, Ohio area ninth-graders. Based on the results of that screening "39 students required a follow-up interview with a clinician." That's 55% of what would otherwise be considered normal students now needing to see a mental health clinician based on answers they gave to the TeenScreen survey. That's quite a few kids that might end up spending years taking drugs like Prozac, Strattera, Cymbalta or Zyprexa. These are all expensive and often violence and suicide-inducing psychiatric drugs made by Eli Lilly. The fact that Gov. Mitch Daniels was the former President of Eli Lilly is one big reason SEA 529 got signed into law. I wonder how much the Indiana Commission on Mental Health had to do with designing this ground-breaking mental health plan for Indiana school children. Just when the light of public outrage started shining on mandated mental health screening in Indiana, Robert Postlethwait, a member of that commission, quietly resigned. He was also a 30-year employee of Eli Lilly and an advisor to TeenScreen which figures prominently in surveying children for mental illness in many American schools and funneling them to psychiatrists who put them on psychiatric medications in almost every case. It seems to me that Robert Postlethwait should become a person of interest. With Eli Lilly being centered in Indianapolis, is it any wonder why Indiana school children are being set up to be prescribed the profitable psychiatric drugs that they make? With the help of TeenScreen, the Madison Center in South Bend, Indiana, is now treating over 500 kids per day for trumped up mental illnesses and they recently broke ground on an expansion building so they can treat many more kids. This was all reported in the South Bend Tribune in September, 2005. People need to question how SEA 529 came about and investigate the connections and backgrounds of everyone connected to bringing that law into existence. Then repeal SEA 529 and prosecute those found promoting the interests of Eli Lilly and other drug companies at the expense of Indiana's children and families. This whole issue is not about the welfare of children at all. It is about ruthless greed, money and hooking kids on profitable psychiatric drugs and nothing else. "

http://www.kpcnews.com/online_features/ ... mments.txt

[Anonymous]

There already is a late-start provision that gets included as a modification in some IEPs for bipolar children.

The school sends a van or somesuch to pick the kid up an hour or two later than the normal start time for school.

Parents usually only pick this if the kid is extremely drowsy in the mornings after everything else has been tried, because it results in a loss of instructional time for a kid who may already be struggling academically.

Sometimes, there's no choice---you can park the kid in a chair, but he's still going to be snoring.  Better he should be snoring in his bed.

They do it for some bipolars because it can be a symptom of the disorder.  Meds, bedtime, amount of time in bed---for some, none of it matters and there's nothing you can do.  Their circadian rhythms are just wired that for certain times in the morning, they're gonna be asleep.

Where the population is dense enough to support it, flextime for schools is a great idea.  For parents of bipolars, if something your kid needs is on your menu of options anyway, it helps protect the kid from being stigmatized.

Julie

[Anonymous]

Someone mentioned the existence of Program Parents is a reason school choice can be a bad idea---parents that send their children to known child abusers.  Parents who are either oblivious or so far in denial that the flood waters are bashing them against the pyramids.

I think it's important to remember that the single most significantly bad feature about the Programs is the incarceration.

Even in Ginger's Straight days, the system was still incarceration---a bizarre form of house arrest in some fool of a lunatic's house, but incarceration nonetheless.

Without physical incarceration of its victims, the Programs' ability to function as a punitive system for breaking individuals into abject compliance is crippled.  Not necessarily eliminated, but crippled.

Julie

[Oz girl]

Without physical incarceration of its victims, the Programs' ability to function as a punitive system for breaking individuals into abject compliance is crippled. Not necessarily eliminated, but crippled.


I agree. For some parents (not all) the attraction is incarceration though. It is a whole lot easier to tell yuorself that your kids is getting help than it is to recognise that it is easier to have a difficult kid out of the house, or worse that in the battle between stepmom and the kid the kid is gonna loose.

[Troubled Turd]

I've said it before and I'll say it again; kids don't deserve no goddamn rights, cuz they ain't no better than a bunch of fuckin NIGGERS! If mine ever try to "assert their rights" I'm gonna drag 'em out to the woodshed and tear up their uppity little asses!

[Anonymous]

You forgot to log out thsi time