This book exposes the skyrocketing rate of antipsychotic drug prescriptions for children, identifies grave dangers when children's mental health care is driven by market forces, describes effective therapeutic care for children typically prescribed antipsychotics, and explains how to navigate a drug-fueled mental health system. Since 2001, there has been a dramatic increase in the use of antipsychotics to treat children for an ever-expanding list of symptoms. The prescription rate for toddlers, preschoolers, and middle-class children has doubled, while the prescribing rate for low-income children covered by Medicaid has quadrupled. In a majority of cases, these drugs are neither FDA-approved nor justified by research for the children's conditions. This book examines the reasons behind the explosion of antipsychotic drug prescriptions for children, spotlighting the historical and cultural factors as well as the role of the pharmaceutical industry in this trend; and discusses the ethical and legal responsibilities and ramifications for non-MDs—psychologists in particular—who work with children treated with antipsychotics. Contributors explain how the pharmaceutical industry has inserted itself into every step of medical education, rendering objectivity in the scientific understanding, use, and approvals of such drugs impossible. The text describes the relentless marketing behind the drug sales, even going as far as to provide coloring and picture books for children related to the drug at issue. Valuable information about legal recourse that families and therapists can take when their children or patients have been harmed by antipsychotic drugs and alternative approaches to working with children with emotional and behavioral challenges is also provided.

The time has come for Debunking ADHD and exposing how this invented disorder created to drug children does not exist. Despite unanimous agreement that no test exists to identify ADHD, 6.4 million American children are labeled ADHD. To make matters worse, approximately two-thirds of those children diagnosed ADHD are prescribed drugs with many dangerous side effects, which include developing more serious mental disorders and death. After six decades of marketing stimulants and scaring parents into thinking something is seriously wrong with their highly creative, energetic, and communicative children, ADHD drug manufacturers still claim they have no idea what ADHD drugs actually do to children's brains. They make such claims when research shows ADHD drugs cause permanent brain damage in lab animals. How can children reach their full potential, if they are drugged? How can they dream about achieving greatness and release their imagination and creativity when they are drugged every day, year after year, to do the opposite? This book provides you evidence to say no to ADHD and gives 10 Reasons to Stop Drugging Kids for Acting Like Kids!

There is a lot of crucial information that parents and the general public do not know about the diagnosis of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and the unwanted effects of the drugs used to "treat" it. You should read this book if your child is taking an ADHD drug, or if you are being told to have your child diagnosed and drugged for ADHD. You should read this book if you are concerned about the growing numbers of children in your local schools who are being given ADHD diagnoses and drugs. You should read this book if you are concerned about the continually rising numbers of children being drugged for ADHD in our society and where this is taking your country. The information in this book will empower you to reach an informed conclusion.

In a nation where an estimated 25 percent of high-school seniors use illegal substances on a monthly basis, parents are wise to be concerned about setting their children on a drug-free course. While much advice handed out these days focuses on teen behavior and on what to do once drugs have become a problem in the home, Raising Drug-Free Kids takes an innovative approach and focuses instead on preventative measures that can be followed early on in a child's life. Developmental psychologist and parent educator Aletha Solter provides parents with simple, easy-to use tools to build a solid foundation for children to say "no" to drugs. Organized by age group, from preschool through young adulthood, the handy 100 tips will show parents how to help their children to: Feel good about themselves without an artificial high. Cope with stress so they won't turn to drugs to relax. Respect their bodies so they will reject harmful substances. Have close family connections so they won't feel desperate to belong to a group. Take healthy risks (like outdoor adventures) so they won't need to take dangerous ones.

This book exposes the skyrocketing rate of antipsychotic drug prescriptions for children, identifies grave dangers when children's mental health care is driven by market forces, describes effective therapeutic care for children typically prescribed antipsychotics, and explains how to navigate a drug-fueled mental health system.

In this clear and compassionate guide, an expert counselor offers help for parents dealing with the misbehavior of good kids. Here are step-by-step solutions for handling just about every explosive situation, plus advice on how parents can preserve their sanity.

Updated with bonus material, including a new foreword and afterword with new research, this New York Times bestseller is essential reading for a time when mental health is constantly in the news. In this astonishing and startling book, award-winning science and history writer Robert Whitaker investigates a medical mystery: Why has the number of disabled mentally ill in the United States tripled over the past two decades? Interwoven with Whitaker’s groundbreaking analysis of the merits of psychiatric medications are the personal stories of children and adults swept up in this epidemic. As Anatomy of an Epidemic reveals, other societies have begun to alter their use of psychiatric medications and are now reporting much improved outcomes . . . so why can’t such change happen here in the United States? Why have the results from these long-term studies—all of which point to the same startling conclusion—been kept from the public? Our nation has been hit by an epidemic of disabling mental illness, and yet, as Anatomy of an Epidemic reveals, the medical blueprints for curbing that epidemic have already been drawn up. Praise for Anatomy of an Epidemic “The timing of Robert Whitaker’s Anatomy of an Epidemic, a comprehensive and highly readable history of psychiatry in the United States, couldn’t be better.”—Salon “Anatomy of an Epidemic offers some answers, charting controversial ground with mystery-novel pacing.”—TIME “Lucid, pointed and important, Anatomy of an Epidemic should be required reading for anyone considering extended use of psychiatric medicine. Whitaker is at the height of his powers.” —Greg Critser, author of Generation Rx

A stellar group of authors from across disciplines explains the alarming increase in the use of psychotropic medications, questions the causes, and presents disturbing thoughts regarding this phenomenon and the risks it creates for children. They take an in-depth look at the conditions that have led to drugging our children, and stress how emotional, social, cultural, and physical environments can both damage and heal young minds. And they challenge the model that maintains that psychological disturbance is genetic and thus requires medication. This is riveting reading for all who care about the youngest members of society. Over the past 15 years, there has been a 300 percent increase in the use of psychotropic medications with girls and boys under the age of 20, and prescriptions for preschoolers have skyrocketed. A stellar group of authors from across disciplines explains this increase, questions the causes, and presents disturbing thoughts regarding this phenomenon as they describe the risks it creates for children. While there are certainly extreme cases where drugs are the only option, medication rather than psychotherapy and counseling has become the first choice for treatment rather than a last resort. The experts who joined forces for this book take an in-depth look at the conditions that have led to drugging our children, and stress how emotional, social, cultural, and physical environments can both damage and heal young minds. The so-called medical model, one maintaining that psychological disturbance is genetic and thus requires medication, is challenged in this volume. Contributors range from a pediatrician who has testified before Congress and been featured in a Time magazine cover story, to a top child psychiatrist who is an official for the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, along with a well-known child psychiatrist, psychologists, environmentalists, and a public policy consultant. This is riveting reading for all who care about the youngest members of society. Among other issues, this work looks at controversy over whether psychiatric medications are safe or effective for children—and what little we know about their effect on still-developing brains—as well as the role of corporate interests in the increased use of psychotropics for children. Chapters address the role of environment in both causing and curing disorders more and more often diagnosed in our youngsters: from ADHD, depression, and anxiety to eating disorders. The core questions addressed by this sage group of contributors are these: Why are so many children being diagnosed with psychiatric disturbances and given drugs? Why have drugs become the first treatment of choice to deal with those disorders?

In a book as provocative and newsworthy as Listening to Prozac and Driven to Distraction, a physician speaks out on America's epidemic level of diagnoses for attention deficit disorder, and on the drug that has become almost a symbol of our times: Ritalin. In 1997 alone, nearly five million people in the United States were prescribed Ritalin--most of them young children diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. Use of this drug, which is a stimulant related to amphetamine, has increased by 700 percent since 1990. And this phenomenon appears to be uniquely American: 90 percent of the world's Ritalin is used here. Is this a cause for alarm--or simply the case of an effective treatment meeting a newly discovered need? Important medical advance--or drug of abuse, as some critics claim? Lawrence Diller has written the definitive book about this crucial debate--evenhanded, wide-ranging, and intimate in its knowledge of families, schools, and the pressures of our speeded-up society. As a pediatrician and family therapist, he has evaluated hundreds of children, adolescents, and adults for ADD, and he offers crucial information and treatment options for anyone struggling with this problem. Running on Ritalin also throws a spotlight on some of our most fundamental values and goals. What does Ritalin say about the old conundrums of nature vs. nurture, free will vs. responsibility? Is ADD a disability that entitles us to special treatment? If our best is not good enough, can we find motivation and success in a pill? Is there still a place for childhood in the performance-driven America of the late nineties?