Jerry's Blog
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Imagine that -- the Mommy Track might be a good thing.
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Sometimes, we are led to believe that everyone's opinion holds the same value as everyone else's. At Cedarbrook, we believe that every person is equal regarding their humanity and all are deserving of dignity, respect, and rights. We respect and admire both surgeons and dentists. But when it comes to a decision about a heart transplant, we'll go with the surgeon's opinion.
How did it get to be that Professional Positions are considered biased?
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." is "one of the best-known sentences in the English language" and is an important statement on human rights.
All people are equal in essence and equally deserving of dignity, respect, and "certain unalienable Rights." But does that mean everyone's opinion is equal? If my opinion is not the same as yours, am I biased? Or are you? Or is it all of the above?
Let me share some thoughts about what is a bias and what is a professional position.
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Here is more in-depth information from the blog post: ADHD Medication Makes Things Worse
The US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) funded the Multimodal Treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (MTA). It was designed to evaluate the leading treatments for ADHD,
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When Sandy and I got married, we knew that we would have children someday. Whether natural or adopted, we wanted to raise children and experience that aspect of life and giving/loving.
We also knew that we wanted to share the experience of being stay-at-home parents. We feel that it is important to spend time with your children and that the attachments formed in those first years are critical for relationships and development. But is it possible?
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Pain (emotional or physical) is the body's way of saying something is wrong. Pain pills cover up the problem and can lead to addiction - adding one more problem on top of the original problem.
Don't cover up your problems, get to the root of them.
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October is ADHD Awareness Month.
Horror 5: Watch and cry.
Kids deserve better treatment.
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I've been asked, “Which Anti-bullying program should we use?” You might not like my answer because there is no quick fix to dealing with bullying.
Summarizing my previous articles:
- Bullying continues because school atmosphere encourages it.
- Each school takes on the personality of adult leaders.
- If even mild bullying goes unchallenged among staff members, it is unlikely that any program will stop student bullying.
- To stop bullying, we need to realize that shaping student attitudes is part of a teacher's job.
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There are many interventions that are proven to help attention ADHD symptoms. Here is a list of evidence-based child and adolescent psychosocial interventions published in 2010 by the American Academy of Pediatrics.There are many more effective interventions -- all supported by research -- which I'll share in a future article.
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Every now and then I come across an article I wish I had written. This one is The Business of ADHD by Child Psychiatrist Winston Chung, MD. If I had written it, I would have titled it ADHD and Greed.
Three highlights are:
* The American Psychiatric Association is considering lowering the number of symptoms needed for an ADHD diagnosis from 6 to 4. This is alarming because we already medicate 57% of children who don't meet the current criterion. Lowering the number of symptoms needed will surely increase the number of children wrongfully receiving unneeded medication. Woops, I forgot. It's about profits.
* Researchers promise pharmaceutical companies results that would benefit the drug company -- before they conduct the study!
* Allen Frances, MD, Chair of the Task Force that created the current diagnostic criteria for ADHD (and other disorders) laments that his group "inadvertently contributed to three false 'epidemics' - attention deficit disorder, autism and childhood bipolar disorder. Clearly, our net was cast too wide and captured many 'patients' who might have been far better off never entering the mental health system."
For years I have been critical of these three "epidemics" which I call "diagnosis du jour".
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