Toddler Control

Toddler Control

In a recent New York Times article, Alan Schwarz reviews an alarming trend: American children between the ages of 2 and 3 medicated for attention deficit disorders. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that over 10,000 of those being medicated are indeed toddlers. Long term effects of medications on toddlers have not been explored. The purpose of using medication in at least a portion of those children may have been to dampen or to prevent behaviors that are developmentally appropriate. As parents and doctors jump to control a child’s symptoms with stimulants, they do so despite some known risks (e.g., growth suppression, insomnia, and even, in limited instances, tics and hallucinations). An obvious question presents itself, if not medication then what? Non-pharmacological treatments, such as parent and day care worker training can provide more structured environments for children, but such measures are often ignored, suggested Schwarz. For many parents, the risks, and the unknown side-effects on developing bodies and brains of children, may be outweighed by the need to control undesirable behavior. However, as a result, American’s appear to have launched an unintended, and uncontrolled, study on the effectiveness of psycho-stimulants on some of its youngest minds. Stay tuned to find out the results.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/17/us/among-experts-scrutiny-of-attention-disorder-diagnoses-in-2-and-3-year-olds.html?_r=0