It's My Blog and I'll Rant if I Want To: The Taboo of Behavioral Medication

“Parents give their kids pills to make them easier to deal with these days.”
“Parents jump too quickly into medicating their kids.”
“Doctors push pills.”
“Schools force parents to medicate their children.”

Have you heard these lines? Are they true? I don’t know if they are. I haven’t done research to find out. But then, as far as I can tell, neither have the people who say them. If you are a parent who has gone the route of medicating a child with ADHD, OCD, Aspergers, or any other such behavioral disorder, I would be willing to bet that you’ve had such things said to you or around you and felt bad, like maybe you let your child down, gave in too easily, etc. That’s horrible. As a parent of a child who is deaf and also has been diagnosed with ADHD and OCD, for which he takes medication, I want to let it be known that I have yet to come across a parent who took medicating their child lightly. If anything, I’ve come across parents who are so afraid of falling into those stereotypes outlined above that they don’t medicate a child that could likely benefit greatly from it.

I was part of a social skills parent group for a while and in that group were about a dozen parents with children similar to mine (except that mine was also deaf, which these people didn’t feel bad for me about on its own, but because they knew it was just one more thing to deal with and they couldn’t imagine having MORE to deal with). In the group, children on medication were the minority. What? No way! A group with kids who had some of the most extreme behavior problems--so bad they were attending groups set up by their insurance company—and not all of the parents were jumping up and down with their hands in the air waiting to get a prescription? That’s right. In fact one of the moms in the group had a child with such severe problems that even my son was astounded by him. She had spent thousands of dollars on those institutes you hear advertised on the radio that are suppose to turn your child around in 30 days with a few magic words and what not; she was attending this parent group while her son attended the children’s group; and she was fighting with her school district to keep her son in class. The one thing she was not doing, because she didn’t want to label her child or turn him into a zombie, was giving him medication. I had to admire her for sticking to her guns, but I also felt sad that society had made medication for behavior problems so taboo that this woman wouldn’t even give it a chance. Maybe her son would respond in a way that could lift half of their worries off of their shoulders. They would never know.

I too was wary of the label and the possible changes in personality that medication could bring on. It took several years of knowing my son had “issues” and trying everything I could to deal with them without medicine before I finally went that route. I can tell you now that putting your child on medication such as Concerta or Ritalin is not a one stop answer to all of your problems. It’s a fluid process. But it also does not cause your child to walk around in a zombielike state or change their personality. If it’s right for your child (and if you are prescribed medication and try it, you will know within days if it’s right or not) it does help relieve some of the stress in your lives and can help your child’s self esteem, since they spend less of their time being chastised for their behavior. While I can’t say what is right for your child, neither can anyone else say what is right for mine. Well, apparently they “can,” but they shouldn’t.

Neal, down: An Introduction

I guess I should have known from the start that things were going to be different with this kid. He did give us a sign after all. After being induced for labor, Neal came out fairly quickly. As he was being delivered there was mention that he was large, and his shoulders got stuck for a few seconds (he ended up being 10 pounds 6 ounces and having to wear a t-shirt for 6 month olds in the nursery), but I was good at pushing and he soon made his way out. As I looked down past my sheet covered legs at the doctor who held my new baby boy, I heard, "Oh," and then, "He just pooped on my foot."

I couldn't help but giggle a little on the inside. Little did I know though that Neal's introduction into the world could be taken as a theme of things to come, and that having a sense of humor about it would be necessary at times. Yes, I loved him then, and yes, I love him now, but that little guy has taken a lot of moments in life that should be joyful and found a way to poop on them. He's taught me things I didn't know I needed to learn. He's opened my eyes to parts of the world and life that I didn't know existed. He's made my heart hurt and my head spin. He's made me proud beyond belief and sad beyond comparison. One thing after another I have gone through with him, and what I've been left with is a curious, energetic, handsome, intelligent little boy, who also happens to be profoundly deaf and have ADHD and OCD. He is a boy who has pooped on a lot of feet in his 9 years of life, but who is loved by all who truly get to know him and admired by all who realize what he works through every day of his life.

These days my son has bilateral cochlear implants. He relies on them to access the sounds of our world, and they have made it possible for him to have speech and language on level with his peers. He also takes medication for his impulsiveness and his obsessions/compulsions. His medicine makes it possible for him to continue his education where he belongs academically (with other kids his age instead of having to be placed in a class for kids with behavior issues). I'm sure there are both proponents and opponents to these choices, but to each his/her own. This is what has worked for us. My kid runs on batteries and pills. It's not what I signed up for; it's not what I would have ordered if given a choice; but it's life, and it's working so far.