Originally posted by Liberator
It is a drug given to people, primarily children, who are considered Hyper and need help focusing in school. A large portion of the prescribees are young boys between the ages of 5 and 12, because they can't sit still in class(most likely because they are bored because they aren't being challenged). Also, 100% of the perps in recent school shootings have been on Ritalin. I'm not saying it doesn't have a use, but drugging a child because he's more intelligent or more advanced than his peers is ridiculous, dangerous and worst of all, lazy on the part of all who are responsible for seeing after the well-being of the child.
*edit*
It's also worth noting that boys of that age are physiologically predisposed to bounce off the walls.
Ritalin is/should be only prescribed as a treatment for Atention-Defecit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD); ADHD is a recognised neurological disorder (i.e. down to brain differences rather than parenting or social factors), albeit there is no current standard test for it AFAIK. It's the latter that possibly leads it to being considered as a 'quick fix' drug; i think also some doctors compound the error by going simply upon descriptions of symptons (the symptoms of ADHD are similar to that of a gifted childs behaviour when he/she is 'ahead' of the rest of the class).
So you're right in the sense of over-prescription, but it's a symptom of shoddy diagnosis techniques primarily, IMO, and as such I think it's important to remember it is considered a treatment for a known disorder and thus still has an application within the classroom, with the right diagnosis.
Incidentally, I don't believe Jeff Weise (the last high profile 'school shooter') was on Ritalin (at least not so far as any websearch has shown) - he was on anti-depressants AFAIK. One of the Coumbine shooters was on an anti-depressant as well, I've not seen anything to indicate either or both were taking Ritalin; IMO the 100% claim you make is totally off-base (and would irrellevant if true; there are a morass of factors that figure in these shootings - access to weapons, social ostracisation, mental illness such as depression, etc - you could blame any number of these, but it still wouldn't explain the millions or so in similar situations who don't go out, steal their dads gun, and shoot up a cafeteria).
Originally posted by Rictor
Well, that's simple then. No doctors, no studies, no media hype. Just a simple solution: when your kid starts acting like a little bastard, smack him good. There seems to be an aversion to discipline over here in Canada (and I would venture a guess also in the US and UK). But all my friends who grew up in Europe, Asia, Africa or wherever, they all agree that a big reason why they turned out fine is cause over there when you screw up, you're yelled at and given five across the eye. It's not cruel or anything, kids just don't know any better. And it's not going to screw up their life (unless you're a nutjob, and actually abuse your kids instead of disciplining them), rather quite the opposite.
What I support is people growing up with a basic respect for those around them, and not acting like pricks when they're ten years old. Later, when you're old enough to make a consciece decision about your stance towards authority - fine, go ahead. But for kids, and those just growing up, discipline keeps them from being a major nuisance.
I think that physical discipline - violence per se - is more adept at breeding fear & loathing than understanding & respect of 'the rules'. It's applying the principle of 'award, punish' you use for dogs to children, and I'm not sure that's a viable method.
There's 2 main arguements against this, IIRC.
The first is that physical discipline is normally used in times of frustration - this, especially for young children, gives them an impression that violence is a suitable response to frustration. It also potentionally reinforces an acceptance of violence as a solution because not only is violence used as the 'correct' response to a bad thing (i.e. as the converse punishment, it is regarded as 'good'), and also because the person using violence is usually the parent, i.e. they associate love with violence.
EDIT; connected to this is the general societal acceptance that it's wrong to hit another adult as punishment for some slight; why apply the inverse to children, especially to teach them a 'life lesson'?
(NB: violence being used as it's shorter than 'physical discipline' or soforth).
The second arguement centres over the parents and the aforementioned abuse situation; IIRc the most frequent form of child abuse is beatings of children. From what i understand, in many cases this is the result of progression - for whatever reason - from the use of 'mild' physical discipline. I believe Swedens ban on physical punishment of children (in 1979) was found to lead to a decrease in child mortality due to this type of abuse. Whilst mild to abusive violence may not seem a morally logical progression, it is a physically logical progression.
