Behavioral Problems in Children
Children’s behavior has been the subject of much discussion in the last few years. Via News articles, Television reports, psychological analyses, medical journals, etcetera, there are a lot of discussions that have been underway regarding what is wrong with our children of today.
Like many other subjects, this one is open to a lot of opinion and conjecture. Parents are left to sort out for themselves, the fact from the fiction.
One of the most important concepts to retain, when reviewing data on behavioral problems in children, is what or who is the source of the information? What vested or non-vested interests lay behind the author of what the parent is reading?
It is a large task to undertake, as a parent, to raise a child successfully in our current culture of video games, cell phones, internet, facebook, YouTube and all that comes along with the electronic age. It is not a wonder that a child’s behavior is the topic of so many different professions.
One profession, in particular, that warrants examination, is the field of mental and behavioral health.
U.S. Senator Grassley wrote a bill and got it passed into law, The Sunshine Act, that requires the pharmaceutical industries to collect information on their payments to physicians beginning in 2012 and submit it to the Department of Health and Human Services by March 2013 and annually thereafter. This helps to shed light, for the public, on which mental health practitioners are receiving financial incentives from pharmaceutical companies. Thus, which mental health practitioners have vested interests!
Facts speak much clearer when based upon evidence and based upon science. in 2006, the Associated Press reported on the evidence surrounding the heaviest Food and Drug Administration warning for the mental health drugs. In their report, titled “FDA Mulls Stronger Warnings for ADHD Drugs”, they state that “Reports of psychosis or mania in children were associated with all of the increasingly popular drugs used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, federal health officials say in documents released as an advisory panel prepares to consider stronger warning labels.
‘The predominance in young children of hallucinations, both visual and tactile, involving insects, snakes and worms is striking, and deserves further evaluation,’ FDA officials said in a March 3 memorandum included in the briefing documents.
The FDA's pediatric advisory committee meets Wednesday to examine whether the labels of the drugs should be revised to further warn not only of potential psychiatric problems but cardiovascular issues — like heart attack, stroke and hypertension — as well.
In February, the FDA's Drug Safety and Risk Management advisory committee voted to recommend adding so-called ‘black-box warnings’ to stimulants used to treat ADHD. A black-box is the most serious type of warning label a prescription drug can carry. In this case, it would alert doctors, patients and parents of the uncertainty regarding the risk that most of the drugs may pose to the cardiovascular system.”
These Black Box warnings remain on quite a number of these drugs to-date. In 2005 - In a landmark report, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, the world's premier children's rights body, has issued a strong warning against falsely labeling youth with the psychiatric diagnosis of "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)" and administering powerful ADHD-drugs.
Behavioral problems in school, were, decades ago, handled by educators working hard to help educate the child, and when that was interrupted by misbehavior, detention class or a parent-teacher conference, would typically resolve the matter. Those are still parental and child rights, the right to a fair education and the right to demand that fair education with the help of the school personnel.
Like many other subjects, this one is open to a lot of opinion and conjecture. Parents are left to sort out for themselves, the fact from the fiction.
One of the most important concepts to retain, when reviewing data on behavioral problems in children, is what or who is the source of the information? What vested or non-vested interests lay behind the author of what the parent is reading?
It is a large task to undertake, as a parent, to raise a child successfully in our current culture of video games, cell phones, internet, facebook, YouTube and all that comes along with the electronic age. It is not a wonder that a child’s behavior is the topic of so many different professions.
One profession, in particular, that warrants examination, is the field of mental and behavioral health.
U.S. Senator Grassley wrote a bill and got it passed into law, The Sunshine Act, that requires the pharmaceutical industries to collect information on their payments to physicians beginning in 2012 and submit it to the Department of Health and Human Services by March 2013 and annually thereafter. This helps to shed light, for the public, on which mental health practitioners are receiving financial incentives from pharmaceutical companies. Thus, which mental health practitioners have vested interests!
Facts speak much clearer when based upon evidence and based upon science. in 2006, the Associated Press reported on the evidence surrounding the heaviest Food and Drug Administration warning for the mental health drugs. In their report, titled “FDA Mulls Stronger Warnings for ADHD Drugs”, they state that “Reports of psychosis or mania in children were associated with all of the increasingly popular drugs used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, federal health officials say in documents released as an advisory panel prepares to consider stronger warning labels.
‘The predominance in young children of hallucinations, both visual and tactile, involving insects, snakes and worms is striking, and deserves further evaluation,’ FDA officials said in a March 3 memorandum included in the briefing documents.
The FDA's pediatric advisory committee meets Wednesday to examine whether the labels of the drugs should be revised to further warn not only of potential psychiatric problems but cardiovascular issues — like heart attack, stroke and hypertension — as well.
In February, the FDA's Drug Safety and Risk Management advisory committee voted to recommend adding so-called ‘black-box warnings’ to stimulants used to treat ADHD. A black-box is the most serious type of warning label a prescription drug can carry. In this case, it would alert doctors, patients and parents of the uncertainty regarding the risk that most of the drugs may pose to the cardiovascular system.”
These Black Box warnings remain on quite a number of these drugs to-date. In 2005 - In a landmark report, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, the world's premier children's rights body, has issued a strong warning against falsely labeling youth with the psychiatric diagnosis of "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)" and administering powerful ADHD-drugs.
Behavioral problems in school, were, decades ago, handled by educators working hard to help educate the child, and when that was interrupted by misbehavior, detention class or a parent-teacher conference, would typically resolve the matter. Those are still parental and child rights, the right to a fair education and the right to demand that fair education with the help of the school personnel.