I've tried for 30 years to try and slow this train. I've had some success on an individual basis, providing parents with information that varies from the official storyline so they can make up their own minds. When one of our children was an active toddler in preschool, the campaign to start a ritalin regimen started and continued throughout K-12, one time in his middle school years being called in for a parent-teacher conference only to be ambushed by about 10 staff in a conference room, being pressured to get him diagnosed with ADHD and put on meds so he would comply more and his grades could be better. I preferred his drug-free grades all over the map, including some terrible ones. His only interests were electronics and computers, and he did not care about anything else. Your article reminded me of an interaction with his moron of a 7th grade English teacher who said he refused to do a book report on a novel. I suggested he do a book report on a technical electronics book and she refused and told me he was going to get an F, as if I cared. I'm his mother and while I'm no genius, I consider my best quality the rock-solid ability to withstand peer pressure when the herd is heading off a cliff or threatening my child. He started work part-time in 11th grade and made it most of the way through the 12th grade but finally just took his GED. He's a computer nerd now in the USAF and has previously worked for Microsoft. He still does not read novels, and I still don't care.
My son (July baby) was voted "most energetic" by his third-grade class. We all know what that's code for. Now in 7th grade, he plays football, basketball, lacrosse, and is in honors algebra, English, and Latin. Let boys grow out of their "wiggles" and they'll be fine!
This is an incredible article and articulates what iI have felt as my three kids navigate school and a medical system that does more harm to healthy children than good. I became skeptical of our pediatrician during their well child visits, she could never remember my kids names but would always make sure we were buying fat free milk. (My kids were always around the 25 percentile on the growth charts so I found that a curious focus). Eventually I stopped trusting her advice on every topic, but still had to admit when my son broke his arm I didn’t think twice before taking him to the urgent care. This article helps explain what I could not explain myself- the medical system is good at treating broken arms, but should be kept far away from healthy people.
Past time to transform the way we teach kids, especially boys. I would 💯 homeschool if I had littles these days. My 24 yo son is diagnosed with ADHD, no he’s got ASD which is nowhere on his chart after seeing a new psychiatrist 1.5 years ago despite being diagnosed at age 16. He uses the drug to stay awake. I have zero respect for the psychiatric field, they’re just a bunch of pill pushers.
I am so excited to share that I literally unenrolled my 12 year old son 5 minutes ago from public school, and will be homeschooling him again the way we have the last 4-5 years since the "PLANNEDemic".
Living in Texas, I feel extremely blessed. I also feel very vindicated in the fact that my son was bored out of his mind in public school after homeschooling catapulted him ahead of his average classmates.
The only thing he learned in the last 10 weeks was that the kids in his classes watch way too much Tik Tok/YouTube, and he learned what "Six seven" was all about. That's about it.
There are too many amazing homeschool curriculums out there in so many different mediums. The world is your oyster when you choose homeschooling.
So so sorry to hear about your son. He at least knows you've got his back.
Thank you Dr Gaty for these valuable insights into pediatrics, school systems, the ACP and the current state of pediatrics. Honor the humanity of children and do no harm! Your findings reinforce what I experienced with my kids and I resisted all drug interventions as well as the confusing notion of gender fluidity (she was 11). The kids are all successful adults now and will soon have to deal with a cascade of interventions...
The gender bending is of the CHAIN, especially in the schools, but I suspect my previous pediatrician was trending that direction in what she was possibly willing to push, because she became an overnight MARKETEER of the poison shot. She used to be vax-friendly (choice-wise) before that. At Walsh, in my son's math class, is a groomers poster advertising the "alphabet mathematician" community of ADULT alphabet mathematicians, reaching out and providing a way for kids to connect with them...... as if the alphabet community "MATHS" differently. SICK. It's a full time job, resisting and identifying those who WANT to do harm. It's exhausting. This article is JUST what I needed to read. Thanks, Dr. Gaty.
Fantastic article! Thank you for such a great job articulating the problem. I homeschooled my four children through high school, so I never had to experience what you're talking about, but some of my homeschooling friends did. One mom told me that her son went on Ritalin and started having nightmares and suicidal thoughts. She brought him home to homeschool him, and though he "might swing on the chandeliers," she was happy she made the change. My daughter is now a paraprofessional in a local public school and is working with an-11-year-old boy who sounds like one of your case studies. He comes from a dysfunctional home and prefers to play video games to doing math. (Crazy kid, right?) So at school he often refuses to do his work, sometimes becoming violent. I found out he's already on three psychoactive drugs, one being a mood stabilizer. Three drugs by the age of 11! I'm trying to explain to my daughter that maybe the drugs are causing him problems, but the school feels they can't deal with him without drugs. Yet on drugs, he just was suspended twice in one week for aggressive behavior.
The doctor advised me to put my 7 year old on Ritalin. I just couldn’t do it. He never did well in school but he did graduate high school and has a successful career. We started his younger brothers a year late in school and they were stellar students. I highly recommend holding off a year for very active boys.
Video games are addictive; the kids are set up early on. Nothing to do with ADHD only sinister companies cashing in on childhood vulnerability and parents' stress. If gaming was limited by law to teens, and even then, with a cap of two hours a day, everything would change.
Ironically, I was just bragging about you yesterday to a friend of mine who also is not in favor of drugging her children. I likewise feel quite the same, understanding that modern technology itself is a drug that actually physically changes the brain and the chemicals within the brain. This is why my 12-year-old has never had his own handheld device, has no access to any type of social media, does not play online games, and - if lucky, and after doing copious amounts of homework to earn time to do so, gets to play only the 80s Atari games on the retro gaming system we bought for him a couple of Christmases ago. Spoiler alert: he's also not allowed to sit down at the video game console. I told him if he is sitting and is too comfortable, he would be apt to engage in too much video game playing. Not that that would happen, because I have strict time limits on that type of activity, which is roughly 30 minutes. If he wants to play more, he has to do more homework to earn that time. Needless to say, there aren't a lot of arguments about that in my household, and I have a 12-year-old who's fully functional, extremely conversational, has a very long attention span, and amazing imagination, and is a boy who Daydreams and then puts his dreams on paper. He has the rest of his life to choose to get addicted to the screen, television, video games, handheld devices, social media, or what not, but it's not going to happen on my watch. Limited exposure only, and the result is a perfectly appropriate attention span for a boy his age. I see parents handing their cell phones over to their toddlers as young as 2 years of age at the dinner tables in restaurants, at the grocery store, or pretty much anywhere a child should be running and playing such as at parks and such. Breaks my heart, especially when it's at the screaming and shouting demand of the 2-year-old. Addiction is rough. It's even more difficult for children to understand it. When my kiddo acts the fool on occasion, I chalk it up as him just being the non-toxic boy that he is, and I soak up every single minute of it. The boys are not broken, and they don't need to be medicated. They need eye contact, conversation, and most importantly, they absolutely 100% need to learn how to be bored. Thank you for always standing up against the common narratives and against the pill pushing with which I'm most familiar from your other colleagues. We are glad we found you!
Well, thank you. But it really helps so much that he has some excellent Little Friends who are always ready to expend their energy with him! Boys just being boys!
No, didn’t know about it, just looked it up, Dr Ladapo is coming, looks super cool! I’m a big time homebody so won’t be there but thanks for letting me know about it!
I've tried for 30 years to try and slow this train. I've had some success on an individual basis, providing parents with information that varies from the official storyline so they can make up their own minds. When one of our children was an active toddler in preschool, the campaign to start a ritalin regimen started and continued throughout K-12, one time in his middle school years being called in for a parent-teacher conference only to be ambushed by about 10 staff in a conference room, being pressured to get him diagnosed with ADHD and put on meds so he would comply more and his grades could be better. I preferred his drug-free grades all over the map, including some terrible ones. His only interests were electronics and computers, and he did not care about anything else. Your article reminded me of an interaction with his moron of a 7th grade English teacher who said he refused to do a book report on a novel. I suggested he do a book report on a technical electronics book and she refused and told me he was going to get an F, as if I cared. I'm his mother and while I'm no genius, I consider my best quality the rock-solid ability to withstand peer pressure when the herd is heading off a cliff or threatening my child. He started work part-time in 11th grade and made it most of the way through the 12th grade but finally just took his GED. He's a computer nerd now in the USAF and has previously worked for Microsoft. He still does not read novels, and I still don't care.
That’s amazing!! Way to stand up to the crowd, I know how hard that can be.
My son (July baby) was voted "most energetic" by his third-grade class. We all know what that's code for. Now in 7th grade, he plays football, basketball, lacrosse, and is in honors algebra, English, and Latin. Let boys grow out of their "wiggles" and they'll be fine!
Yes. Being a boy is not a fatal disease. 😁
This is an incredible article and articulates what iI have felt as my three kids navigate school and a medical system that does more harm to healthy children than good. I became skeptical of our pediatrician during their well child visits, she could never remember my kids names but would always make sure we were buying fat free milk. (My kids were always around the 25 percentile on the growth charts so I found that a curious focus). Eventually I stopped trusting her advice on every topic, but still had to admit when my son broke his arm I didn’t think twice before taking him to the urgent care. This article helps explain what I could not explain myself- the medical system is good at treating broken arms, but should be kept far away from healthy people.
Past time to transform the way we teach kids, especially boys. I would 💯 homeschool if I had littles these days. My 24 yo son is diagnosed with ADHD, no he’s got ASD which is nowhere on his chart after seeing a new psychiatrist 1.5 years ago despite being diagnosed at age 16. He uses the drug to stay awake. I have zero respect for the psychiatric field, they’re just a bunch of pill pushers.
I am so excited to share that I literally unenrolled my 12 year old son 5 minutes ago from public school, and will be homeschooling him again the way we have the last 4-5 years since the "PLANNEDemic".
Living in Texas, I feel extremely blessed. I also feel very vindicated in the fact that my son was bored out of his mind in public school after homeschooling catapulted him ahead of his average classmates.
The only thing he learned in the last 10 weeks was that the kids in his classes watch way too much Tik Tok/YouTube, and he learned what "Six seven" was all about. That's about it.
There are too many amazing homeschool curriculums out there in so many different mediums. The world is your oyster when you choose homeschooling.
So so sorry to hear about your son. He at least knows you've got his back.
Heather….you just made my day. Screw those who think homeschool kids are “weird.” No, they are the future. 😘🥰🙂
MOST homeschooled kids get through the day without even ONCE referencing “Six SEVENNNNN”. So there's always THAT! 🤪 Thank you, my friend!!
Thank you Dr Gaty for these valuable insights into pediatrics, school systems, the ACP and the current state of pediatrics. Honor the humanity of children and do no harm! Your findings reinforce what I experienced with my kids and I resisted all drug interventions as well as the confusing notion of gender fluidity (she was 11). The kids are all successful adults now and will soon have to deal with a cascade of interventions...
The gender bending is of the CHAIN, especially in the schools, but I suspect my previous pediatrician was trending that direction in what she was possibly willing to push, because she became an overnight MARKETEER of the poison shot. She used to be vax-friendly (choice-wise) before that. At Walsh, in my son's math class, is a groomers poster advertising the "alphabet mathematician" community of ADULT alphabet mathematicians, reaching out and providing a way for kids to connect with them...... as if the alphabet community "MATHS" differently. SICK. It's a full time job, resisting and identifying those who WANT to do harm. It's exhausting. This article is JUST what I needed to read. Thanks, Dr. Gaty.
Fantastic article! Thank you for such a great job articulating the problem. I homeschooled my four children through high school, so I never had to experience what you're talking about, but some of my homeschooling friends did. One mom told me that her son went on Ritalin and started having nightmares and suicidal thoughts. She brought him home to homeschool him, and though he "might swing on the chandeliers," she was happy she made the change. My daughter is now a paraprofessional in a local public school and is working with an-11-year-old boy who sounds like one of your case studies. He comes from a dysfunctional home and prefers to play video games to doing math. (Crazy kid, right?) So at school he often refuses to do his work, sometimes becoming violent. I found out he's already on three psychoactive drugs, one being a mood stabilizer. Three drugs by the age of 11! I'm trying to explain to my daughter that maybe the drugs are causing him problems, but the school feels they can't deal with him without drugs. Yet on drugs, he just was suspended twice in one week for aggressive behavior.
The doctor advised me to put my 7 year old on Ritalin. I just couldn’t do it. He never did well in school but he did graduate high school and has a successful career. We started his younger brothers a year late in school and they were stellar students. I highly recommend holding off a year for very active boys.
Absolutely!
Let them play!
Video games are addictive; the kids are set up early on. Nothing to do with ADHD only sinister companies cashing in on childhood vulnerability and parents' stress. If gaming was limited by law to teens, and even then, with a cap of two hours a day, everything would change.
Ironically, I was just bragging about you yesterday to a friend of mine who also is not in favor of drugging her children. I likewise feel quite the same, understanding that modern technology itself is a drug that actually physically changes the brain and the chemicals within the brain. This is why my 12-year-old has never had his own handheld device, has no access to any type of social media, does not play online games, and - if lucky, and after doing copious amounts of homework to earn time to do so, gets to play only the 80s Atari games on the retro gaming system we bought for him a couple of Christmases ago. Spoiler alert: he's also not allowed to sit down at the video game console. I told him if he is sitting and is too comfortable, he would be apt to engage in too much video game playing. Not that that would happen, because I have strict time limits on that type of activity, which is roughly 30 minutes. If he wants to play more, he has to do more homework to earn that time. Needless to say, there aren't a lot of arguments about that in my household, and I have a 12-year-old who's fully functional, extremely conversational, has a very long attention span, and amazing imagination, and is a boy who Daydreams and then puts his dreams on paper. He has the rest of his life to choose to get addicted to the screen, television, video games, handheld devices, social media, or what not, but it's not going to happen on my watch. Limited exposure only, and the result is a perfectly appropriate attention span for a boy his age. I see parents handing their cell phones over to their toddlers as young as 2 years of age at the dinner tables in restaurants, at the grocery store, or pretty much anywhere a child should be running and playing such as at parks and such. Breaks my heart, especially when it's at the screaming and shouting demand of the 2-year-old. Addiction is rough. It's even more difficult for children to understand it. When my kiddo acts the fool on occasion, I chalk it up as him just being the non-toxic boy that he is, and I soak up every single minute of it. The boys are not broken, and they don't need to be medicated. They need eye contact, conversation, and most importantly, they absolutely 100% need to learn how to be bored. Thank you for always standing up against the common narratives and against the pill pushing with which I'm most familiar from your other colleagues. We are glad we found you!
He’s very lucky to have you!
Well, thank you. But it really helps so much that he has some excellent Little Friends who are always ready to expend their energy with him! Boys just being boys!
AG—are you possibly attending the CDF mega conference in Austin in Nov?
No, didn’t know about it, just looked it up, Dr Ladapo is coming, looks super cool! I’m a big time homebody so won’t be there but thanks for letting me know about it!