Are we pathologizing 'normal' behaviour and character traits?

[Community Advocate]

http://personalitydisorders.suite101.com/a...tional_disorder : For discussion

FMI:

http://lakemarypsychiatric.com/index.php?id=5,6,0,0,1,0

http://lakemarypsychiatric.com/index.php?id=5,6,0,0,1,0

http://www.thespec.com/printArticle/262009

I keep getting this feeling that we are still over-pathologizing our kids because their behaviours don't meet our expectations. Then, once we have the labels of diagnoses for them, we look to medications to solve the 'problem' behaviours. Often we miss the diagnoses of learning disabilities in the process of looking for the cause of the behaviours.

I heard from a psychologist over five years go that there were motives to delete this Oppositional Definance Disorder from the DSMV.

It seems it's still being used, and more than ever lately, in our schools and from younger and younger ages, parents of preschoolers are now looking for labels for their 'abnormal' children because teachers are recommending it.

Thoughts?

[Rue]

http://personalitydisorders.suite101.com/a...tional_disorder : For discussion

FMI:

http://lakemarypsychiatric.com/index.php?id=5,6,0,0,1,0

http://lakemarypsychiatric.com/index.php?id=5,6,0,0,1,0

http://www.thespec.com/printArticle/262009

I keep getting this feeling that we are still over-pathologizing our kids because their behaviours don't meet our expectations. Then, once we have the labels of diagnoses for them, we look to medications to solve the 'problem' behaviours. Often we miss the diagnoses of learning disabilities in the process of looking for the cause of the behaviours.

I heard from a psychologist over five years go that there were motives to delete this Oppositional Definance Disorder from the DSMV.

It seems it's still being used, and more than ever lately, in our schools and from younger and younger ages, parents of preschoolers are now looking for labels for their 'abnormal' children because teachers are recommending it.

Thoughts?

I think many times what is defined as an authority problem is in fact adhd, a learning disability, poor diet causing fluctuating sugar levels and vitamin defficiencies which of course affects mood and impair cognitive processes. I would also speculate the toxic chemicals in the air and water and mould in the schools have something to do with certain behaviours. I have no doubt that children brought up by t.v.'s and computers, and who do not learn to read and write or add and substract or to use their minds without a computer, lose a limited window of opportunity between say 2 and about 6 to develop parts of the brain that will be needed in later life if they are to engage in abstract thinking one would need to call on to be able to see more then black and white and therefore be less likely to argue over.

The effect of computer technology, diet, chemicals in our environment all are creating contributing factors to this alleged "bad" or "out of control" behaviour we are seeing.

However I would also suspect some of what we see is the phenomena of every generation thinking the next one is bad and out of control and worse then when they were that age.

I think as well sexual violence and sexuality have definitely evolved to a point where because children are sexualized so quickly part of the problems we see that we think are behavioural are in fact reactions to the sexualization processing being imposed on children who are not ready and feel overhwelmed by it but can not say so.

I also think part of what we see are the phenomena of single homes with only one parent or where there are two parents, both working and so much of parenthood has been delegated to pre and after school programs or giving children a key and having the computer and t.v. baby sit them.

So I think it's a whole combination of factors and if you asked me to summarize it to 10 then I would say;

1-poor diet

2-lack of sleep

3-lack of physical exercise

4-lack of recreational and after school programs

5-absence of music, arts education and programs that teach children to create and work with their hands

6-no positive role models

7-over exposure to tv's and computers and the need to teach children to read, write and think abstractly and without computers

8-inappropriate delegation of or abandoning of parenting roles

9-too many children having children

10-this notion that schools should magically neutralize the negative side effects of 1-9.

[Melanie_]

I agree with much of what you have said, Rue, but I'll just add a few thoughts. Alcohol and cigarette consumption during pregnancy can contribute to the issues raised in the opening post - the effects of alcohol are well documented, but the effects of smoking are less well known. Slowly, research is showing a connection between smoking during pregnancy and attention deficiencies in childhood, and behaviour problems.

Tobacco Consumption During Pregnancy and its Impact on Psychosocial Child Development

Tobacco Consumption During Pregnancy and Its Impact on Child Development

Investigators have also reported associations between prenatal tobacco exposure and increased activity, inattention and impulsivity in subjects ranging from 4 to 16 years of age.16 Their reports have also shown an apparent link between in utero cigarette exposure and behavioural and psychological problems: in toddlers, who were identified as being more likely to display oppositional and aggressive behaviour,17, 18 in school-aged children, who exhibited behavioural problems,19 and in adolescents, who presented adolescent conduct disorder, substance use and depression.

These findings are often lost in the more immediate impact of smoking during pregnancy (low birth weight, increased risk for SIDS, prematurity, respiratory difficulties). Also, because attention and behaviour issues show up so many years later, the connections are not as apparent.

The quality of parenting and the quality of non parental care can definitely have an impact as well. They can support each other, or offset each other, but simply having non parental care isn't necessarily a bad thing, which I think you were implying. Its all about the quality of the care - is it sensitive, caring, fair, and supportive of learning? If so, non parental care can enhance children's development.

[Community Advocate]

Thank you both for your insights. I agree with all that myself.

[Frankie]

Yah, that sounds about right. Sounds like typical over exaggerating parents. Pretty soon, people are gonna start diagnosing babies with ODD for not eating their pureed carrot and peas. It's the same thing with allergies. People say allergy cases have grown rapidly the past 20 years or something, but are there really more kids with serious allergies nowadays? Or is it just misdiagnoses? Like a baby gets a rash after having milk! Allergic!! Even though it's for some other reason. Not to mention the parents demands on docters to give their young kids and BABIES allergy test when a lot of times they're not that accurate in the first place. Ahhh, I'm too tired ot write anyways. Goodnight.

[Oleg Bach]

Yah, that sounds about right. Sounds like typical over exaggerating parents. Pretty soon, people are gonna start diagnosing babies with ODD for not eating their pureed carrot and peas. It's the same thing with allergies. People say allergy cases have grown rapidly the past 20 years or something, but are there really more kids with serious allergies nowadays? Or is it just misdiagnoses? Like a baby gets a rash after having milk! Allergic!! Even though it's for some other reason. Not to mention the parents demands on docters to give their young kids and BABIES allergy test when a lot of times they're not that accurate in the first place. Ahhh, I'm too tired ot write anyways. Goodnight.

Things are inverted these days. Crimminals are heros and real heros are persecuted. I guess that's what happens in the numbers game. If you have a million ants that are deviate and destructive, they would be considered normal...where as the one good ant that was constructive and creative and benevolent would be considered evil...so that's what is happening these days - the creeps outnumber the good folks so the good guys suffer...I see it every day. People that would have been respected for their good traits are now persecuted for them - 30 years ago - no way in hell would a former prime minister sit and be question and refere to a crimminal act as a common "mistake" - so if THAT'S normal then the trickledown effect into society would surely make things rotten every where. Also take that stupid patholigist that put innocent people away..Thing of the dumb judges that actually listened to the guy - they should be brought up on the carpet for lacking good judgement...People fail to realize that this patholigist was not some whimpy guy that made mistakes - he was an evil little man - no one has mentioned that fact.

[margrace]

ONe thing I have observed and I think a few teachers would agree with me is that one of the main culprints is sugar. For years the strong sugar lobby stopped any critism of its use. Now that lobby seems to have lost some of its power, but I still cringe at, for instance, the Nuttella add that touts how great that is for childrens breakfast. They never mention that the second ingredient is sugar.

The same as the orange drink, I think its Sunny delight, in a recent add it shows parents driving down the road witht two children. They both have head phones and are listening to different music and singing along. Then they are given the drink and they are sitting there spaced right out,with glazed eyes. I couldn't believe any parent would not see the significance of this. It is my belief that this shows the outright disregard by these companies of any responsibility for the health of our children.

[margrace]

Interesting that when a subject such as this comes up, one that can affect all our futures and those of future generations of Canadian that there is little interest in it. Seems as if posters would rather look at subjects such as Witches in Africa

[Drea]

I wanted to join the topic margrace. But the post about the cigarette smoking...

IF this were the case then their would have been much more behaviour issues in previous generations as many more people smoked.

Everything gets blamed on the smoker.

Well there are very few of us left so the blame should lie elsewhere.

Parenting styles perhaps?

Of course little Johnhy is going to act up for his teachers as he has never had a day of punishment for bad behaviour at home in his life.

Parents simply don't know how to be parents and they blame everything around them instead of looking at how they are raising their kids.

We are raising a generation that will never grow up. They simply aren't being taught to take responsiblity for themselves.

..wait... the generation that is currently having babies is the generation that we didn't allow to grow up. I feel sorry for them. Responsibility of self needs to be taught from babyhood. It starts with "If you touch grandma's plants you are getting punished", not just "removed" from the vicinty of the plants. Children have not been taught how to control themselves -- their well-meaning parents think they are doing the right thing by removing the child from the temptation rather than teaching them to ignore the temptation.

and that's my 2 cents.

Edited February 2, 2008 by Drea

[margrace]

Hi Drea good post and I agree with you. Smoking has never been my problem but I grew up on a family where everyone smoked and I have problems with my sinuses. I tend to blame the smoking but that has never been proven either.

I know how hard it is to quit having family members continually wrestling with it. But that aside I would like to investigate some of the additives to foods that children are given. Diabetes is on the rise and so is Asthma. In our families these two appear to be inherited and we do not have a higher incident of it so far.

But overweight, combines with lack of exercise are making our children very unhealthy. My daughter is an assistant professor at a univercity, her field is teaching nurses and her specialty is alternative healing.

She has one son with ADD and learning disabilities. She has fought the establishment all his school life when they tried to drug him. The bottom line is that the public school system would have nothing to do with him. He is a wonderful kid but there are times. He has no parimeters and that is the problem.

I now am able to identify adults who never were part of the drug times and survived with ADD and are very good productive citizens. I met one of them, the CEO of a promonate Air lines, he could not sit still even on his plane but ended up helping the stewardesses. These people often seem to have great personalities, at least that has been my experience. If you want to get a good fast haircut you should meet my hairdresser. She appears to be ADD and has a great business, you wouldn't want a nicer person. Just my two cents worth.

[Drea]

I'd like to see a study done on rural kids vs city kids -- their behaviour.

As a kid I was outside most of the time and we didn't come in until Mom forced us to. Of course I was raised rurally.

I am raising my son in the city and he simply does not get enough "outside" imo. But what can you do? Tell him to go ride his bike up and down the driveway? Walk around the block? How boring is that? As kids we had tree forts and tarzan swings and "secret gardens". I wish I could have raised my son the way I was raised. Lots of sunshine, lots of outdoor activity, lots of imagination. All three things are sadly lacking for city kids and I don't have 2 million dollars to buy a little patch of "outside". Waaahhh

[margrace]

My kids, all five of them were raised on the farm. Of their children only three had that opportunity. One is the ADD on who worked on the huge dairy farm they had from the time he was 12. Sometimes it would take 2 hours just to feed the calfs. The others two's grandparents owned a farm garden with 30 greenhouses, They too learned a good work ethic but they also had time to play and build things etc.

My husbands grandneices and nephews mostly all are on farms or small acearages. They don't have time to get into trouble. Only one family lives in town.

The town ones are fully involved in hockey and other sports. These kids don't have time to get into trouble.

[Community Advocate]

Interesting that when a subject such as this comes up, one that can affect all our futures and those of future generations of Canadian that there is little interest in it. Seems as if posters would rather look at subjects such as Witches in Africa

Thanks for that. I was wondering myself. I also wonder how the post by Oleg is at all related to this issue?/

[Community Advocate]

uoting this poster inside quote box

She has one son with ADD and learning disabilities. She has fought the establishment all his school life when they tried to drug him. The bottom line is that the public school system would have nothing to do with him. He is a wonderful kid but there are times. He has no parimeters and that is the problem.

My reply:In our case, the diagnoses was ADHD, TS, and ODD, early signs of Conduct Disorder. Again, a wonderful kid, inventive, happy go lucky, personable, but very active and bored in school (plus seven years of being bullied). I now think all these diagnoses could come under one heading of 'anxiety disorder'. The kid was always so anxious about going to school, it almost destroyed him. Made it to grade 9 though, even though the school officials told us that we were rendering him "unteachable" because he was not medicated with ritalin, dexedrine, concerta, adderal.....

quote from post in quote box

I now am able to identify adults who never were part of the drug times and survived with ADD and are very good productive citizens. I met one of them, the CEO of a promonate Air lines, he could not sit still even on his plane but ended up helping the stewardesses. These people often seem to have great personalities, at least that has been my experience. If you want to get a good fast haircut you should meet my hairdresser. She appears to be ADD and has a great business, you wouldn't want a nicer person. Just my two cents worth.

my reply:

I'm one of those. ADHD undiagnosed, selfdiagnosed. We are known as the 'movers and shakers' vs. followers. Public schools are not set up for these 'square pegs' that don't fit in the round holes. Fortunately, many are entrepreneurial spirits who do quite well in life, once they are relieved from the public school system

Unfortunately, others will go down the self-medicaton route for anxiety, depression, inability to hold a meaningless job for income, etc.

It's somewhat of a crap shoot, I think, as far as which way they go, but in my experience the more human resource support provided to them while young, the better they fare. Pharmaceuticals present a real problem for dual diagnoses.

btw; clicking on minus quote does not remove the quote from reply box.

Edited February 2, 2008 by Community Advocate

[Drea]

CA...yah gotta learn how to use the quote feature!

It drives me crazy trying to determine what part of the post is your response and what part is the quote...

[Community Advocate]

CA...yah gotta learn how to use the quote feature!

It drives me crazy trying to determine what part of the post is your response and what part is the quote...

The part in the quote boxes is you

the part outside the quote boxes is me.

I'll go back to colourize my text if it helps.

[Community Advocate]

My kids, all five of them were raised on the farm. Of their children only three had that opportunity. One is the ADD on who worked on the huge dairy farm they had from the time he was 12. Sometimes it would take 2 hours just to feed the calfs. The others two's grandparents owned a farm garden with 30 greenhouses, They too learned a good work ethic but they also had time to play and build things etc.

My husbands grandneices and nephews mostly all are on farms or small acearages. They don't have time to get into trouble. Only one family lives in town.

The town ones are fully involved in hockey and other sports. These kids don't have time to get into trouble.

A few years back in our turmoil, a friend of mine said something I will never forget. She told me that if we lived on a farm, and ds was doing all this that you mention - he would be so much happier, and in effect, a different person. You've confirmed that for me. Can't go back now, but if I could, that's what I would do, I think.

[margrace]

I can't remember names, been too long on this old planet but there is a lady in Toronto who set up a system for ADD kids. I believe the Catholic School Board uses it. There is also a wonderful school in Wolfville, NS that takes these kids, costs a lot though. My Grandson landed right when he was admitted to a Seventh Day Adventist School in BC. they were really good with him but he spent most of his learning years in non public schools, public schools would not even try to understand him.

Edited February 2, 2008 by margrace

[Rue]

I agree with much of what you have said, Rue, but I'll just add a few thoughts. Alcohol and cigarette consumption during pregnancy can contribute to the issues raised in the opening post...

Absolutely! I mean the most blatant example with alcohol is fetal alcohol syndrome, but yes you can have much more subtle problems other then fetal alcohol syndrome and holy cow Melanie if people knew just how pervasive nicotine is as a chemical and how it can devestate the development of an embryo at any stage of development-they would never smoke.

Also this thing about sugar. Refined sugar, i.e., bleached sugar, salt, msg, many other additives we put in food including food colouring, steroids, etc., of course they are all toxic and directly effect mood and behaviour.

I have read some very clear well researched effects on how poor diet during pregnancy and during the first 5 years of a child's life does permanent brain damage that can not be repaired let alone in later life lead to heart disease, diabetes, etc.

You know this talk of allergies? Why does it seem so prevalent? I would suspect much of what we call allergies are in fact immune defficiencies caused from compromise to the immunity system by these chemicals and pollutants as well as the shrinking ozone shield in the atomosphere.

I mean do you need to be a genius to figure out children with asthma are more likely to be found in industrialized cities?

Remember lead paint? There were specific studies that showed how lead from peeling paint was damaging children.

This brings us back to what many modern psychiatrists will say. Contrary to what many think, they do not always suspect its a bad mother or father. Modern psychiatry is working much more closely with neurology and genetic medicine because so much of what we see today manifested as a psychiatric or psychological problem may be in fact directly related to a genetic one or one acquired from the environment and causing physical damage to the brain.

I also read an interesting stufy that caffeine is another drug we take for granted that has major implications in regards to the development of the brain and should not be consumed by pregnant mothers.

I also spent much time studying the effects of child neglect during a baby's first 6 months to 3 years of existence.

You may have heard from what happened with Romanian babies being taken from state orphanages, but babies who are not held, talked to, sung to, interacted with and are left alone with no stimulation miss a very narrow window of opportunity to develop certain parts of the brain that will be needed to govern emotions, social interaction. At first psychiatrists thought this simply was emotional damage but through mri's and cat scans they found actual physical development of the brain did not occur and you can't get that back years later so many of these abandon or neglected children have a forum of autism like behaviour.

As for autism, while some studies have been pretty much able to suggest one kind is a mutated gene, it does not explain the huge increase in the last twenty years suggesting its environmentally linked and I would suspect is as a result of the embryo during a particular stage of development having a certain growth component of its brain being compromised from something the mother is being exposed to.

Man whatever happened to cherishing the sanctity of life, i.e., the woman's body? What chance to children have if our women's bodies are exposed to so much crap.

I mean as we speak how many pregnant ladies do you know sitting in front of computers?

Edited February 2, 2008 by Rue

[Melanie_]

You know this talk of allergies? Why does it seem so prevalent? I would suspect much of what we call allergies are in fact immune defficiencies caused from compromise to the immunity system by these chemicals and pollutants as well as the shrinking ozone shield in the atomosphere.

Another possibility that has been discussed a fair bit is the prevelence of vaccinations, particularly now that they are being administered to the second and third generation. I haven’t read any conclusive evidence, but there are those who believe that, while vaccinations are a godsend to prevent so many diseases, they also contribute to compromising the immunity system in other ways, leading to higher incidences of asthma and allergies. The benefits seem to outweigh the risks so far.

I’ve also studied child neglect a fair bit, and teach child development at the college level. The babies at the Romanian orphanages are heartbreaking – I show a video regularly that still brings me to tears each time. These orphans are at an extreme, but they show us the long term impact of children being denied sensitive, loving, consistent caregiving. More and more I see that the first few years of a child’s life are the real window of opportunity for him/her to lay the groundwork for healthy psychological development.

I totally agree with what you have said about brain development. Babies are born with all the neurons they will ever have, but they aren’t connected yet. The connecting happens through the experiences they have, which is why each of us understands the world slightly differently. Lise Elliot, author of “What’s going on in there? How the mind and brain develop in the first five years of life”* describes the brain as being equivelent to every person on earth having a phone, but no one being hooked up to the system yet. The neurons becomes “hooked up” as the child interacts with his/her environment, and neural pathways are created. The more often those pathways are reinforced, the more ingrained they become, so that each person’s brain is physically structured differently than anyone elses’ (the “phone lines” are connected in unique ways). As Drea points out, parenting has a great deal to do with this – parents need to teach kids appropriate behaviour and provide the security of firm limits in a loving environment.

Drea, I know you are unconvinced about the impact of smoking on the developing fetus, particularly because your son does just fine. I’m not saying there is a direct, causal relationship, because there are always interacting factors. But we do know that a higher proportion of kids whose mothers smoked during pregnancy have long term repercussions. The immediate repercussions (low birth weight, respiratory problems, prematurity, etc) are more noticable, but other repercussions can show up later. Not every child whose mother smoked will show these impacts, and not every child who shows these impacts will have a mother who smoked. There are so many variables, but each time we identify a variable we have an opportunity to reduce the risk.

*A book that I think all new parents should read!

[margrace]

Smoking is a really addictive situation and people seem to need it. I neve smoked and so cannot judge what it is like to do so but I do know that my granddaughter whose mother and father smoked heavily developed ear problems and would go into really frightening convulsions because of it. She had to have ear shunts for the first years of her life.

Another woryy not brought up on here is genetically engineering food. They have now made a type of beautiful petunia that will not reproduce from its own seed. They are also doing that with wheat. So what does this do to humans when they eat it, will we eventually be unable to reproduce ourselves and what is this doing in other ways to our children.

Poor science led to Mad Cow disease, the feeding of sheep parts to cattle, sheep who evidently had a disease call Scrappy I think. It is time we took a good look at what we are eating, and what we are putting into our and our childrens bodies.

There is already a prediction that the children of the boomers will not live as long as their parents, doesn't this give us cause for investigation?

[kuzadd]

Did anyone see the Frontline show

The medicated child

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/medicatedchild/

You can watch the show on-line, I watched most of it on telly land, but HAD to shut it off, as I felt the urge to throttle both the parents and some of the doctors!

If anyone is so inclined it is defintely worth the watch.

[kuzadd]

name='Community Advocate' post='287838' date='Jan 21 2008, 11:38

I keep getting this feeling that we are still over-pathologizing our kids because their behaviours don't meet our expectations. Then, once we have the labels of diagnoses for them, we look to medications to solve the 'problem' behaviours. Often we miss the diagnoses of learning disabilities in the process of looking for the cause of the behaviours.

Thoughts?

to answer the question I do think we are pathologizing normal behaviours.

The labelling of everything as a "disorder" makes it easier for the drug companies to make a little magic pill to make it all better.

Then in turn makes it easier for parents to "feel better" about Jonny's behaviour, it's a "condition", rather then diet, discipline, etc.,

Edited February 4, 2008 by kuzadd

[margrace]

Besides being an Alternative Health nurse my daughters specialty in Univercity was Pychiatric nursing. She eventually went to work with a pychiatrist. When they advised that her ADD son be given medicine she was very vigerous objections, in fact she told them where to put their medicines. She does not have a very good feeling about pychiatrists or public schools in general. A lot of the religious schools are just as bad. in her opinion.

[bush_cheney2004]

...The labelling of everything as a "disorder" makes it easier for the drug companies to make a little magic pill to make it all better.

Then in turn makes it easier for parents to "feel better" about Jonny's behaviour, it's a "condition", rather then diet, discipline, etc.,

Of course....except when reminded that pregnancy itself has been declared a disorder to be "cured" by pharms and/or abortions. There now...made it all better!