Just watched the programme I recorded last week BBC1 Wednesday 9pm.
Dr Chris Van Tulleken who has made programmes and dropped medication when possible . It was a programme about children with ADHD. It was extraordinary what was achieved for these children using mindfulness. Also it showed up the part that Pharmaceuticals play in putting these children on such medicine. Forget the name but I have heard it commonly used when reading about these young people. Worth a catch up .
This Wednesday he is investigating why so many teenagers are being diagnosed and out on antidepressants. Preview looks worth watching again.
Very balanced delivery of whats happening, in my view.
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Gcart
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It was a very good programme worth seeing on BBC iPlayer. What stuck me was how much Calpol was given to these kids - and how it had increased from the 1970s - which had levels of childhood medication that we never dreamed of in the late 50s early 60s. Also, interesting (not really the word) to see how the ADHD kids recovered on mindfulness but the parents seemed to be addicted to giving the kids medication.
Asa mother of a child with adhd I’m all for trying the mindfulness but in reality, in the heat of a total meltdown over the wrong snack, or why he has to leave the park, the mindfulness just won’t cut it.
More importantly the real reason my son has medication is so that he can actually focus enough to put pencil to paper in class. We tried everything before meds but where his classmates would write half a page given 20 mins or so, he couldn’t even copy the date down. Mindfulness doesn’t help activate a part of the brain that doesn’t receive signals.
I hate giving my son tablets everyday, twice a day, but it the proof is in the pudding - and the satisfaction that he now has at competing his work in the same timeframe as his peers.
Thanks. I don’t disagree either, it has its place and whilst I’m not a pharma fan (and I used to work in pharma!) the drugs definitely work for my son 😊
I have known quite a few parents who say the drugs are very helpful and the important thing is the happiness of the child and sanity of the family. It is understandable that parents who have seen something work so well are reluctant to to stop using.Mind fullness is however a very strange, beutifull thing and seems to meet all sorts of needs in unexpected ways. I think it could really affect brain function and development and it is very good at helping with impulsive behavior. Like all medication that affects the mind though It would need to be if appropriate reduced very slowly and carefully, somebody working with mindfullness should understand that.
IIt is also I school issue I think.Children are expected to sit for such long periods during the day now.It is not fair on them and I think boys especially like to move physically when learning. I find it really distressing. Back in the day there was a choice of schools for children some of which like the one I went to were based on a montissori model and we only ever sat down if we felt like it.I was on the move all day.I might have had adhd but it was not a problem becuase the adults did not have unrealsitic expecations of me in school.My child was really impulsive a couple of years back and a real handfull in all sorts of ways, even set fire to our house. He was comming home exhausted and yet still with the need to move having been confined all day. The meltdowns were huge. I took him out of school and he is so much better and easyier to live with. There are occasional blips like him using up all my shower gel in the bath yet again but hes fine now on the whole and able to learn at his own pace and in his own way.
Children are being labeeled on mass rather than schools providing a more diverse education. It is the same with autism.Academcially minded children who are well behaved and like to stick to the rules were highly valued by schools at one time and these children highly valued thier education. It seems that now in school the tendancy to punish for mistakes and very slight mistermeaners has really affected this group of kids. They hate to be told off or punished and there really is no need as normally the best behaved kids around but systems like 'ready to learn' which is being rolled out every where in academys are all about punishment for often petty mistakes and it has made the schools inaccessable to so many kids whose parents then have to get them labelled autistic to get them a special education. I have just been through this one with my eldest.he is academcically the hardest working kid you could ever meet and has a superior IQ but went to pieces when given lots of detensions for losing things and getting lost. Typical scatty professor type. I have him at home for now untill he starts a new school but it is trajic. A child who should really be loving his education and possibly spending his whole life in the academic world is now frightened of school and will probably have to got to a school that will not meet his academic needs.
I find the whole approach to children alarmingly damaging in so many ways. Just the tendancy to label children as having something like adhd or autism or mental health issues rather than services like schools ajusting to meet individual needs. What a start in life a mental illness label at the age of 10 and the whole biological marker business with the perceived need to keep taking blood from children. Both my children have a needle phobia now and it is a phobia unlike any other with a huge mortality rate. I never had one blood test as a child but my children have had at least ten each. I had asprin as a child in 1970s but very rarely but I remmber myself and on the whole my peers being a healthy happy bunch. We had a lot more freedom so walked miles. There was no such thing as school phobia and very few obese kids. I wish there was some mindfullness available for my children locally. I learnt it as a child from my mother who had buddist leanings and it has been very useful over the years. rickketts was considerred a Victorian blight but since someone decided sun lotion could make a good profit if sold along side a health scare I have seen about four children with it.We have reduced the risk of skin cancer to increase the risk of breast cancer, dementia, MS, psychotic illnesses and alsorts with vit d deficiency in our kids. This country is also very controlling re children and health. Why we are not allowed to see a specialist from another country for our children baffles me.It is profoundly racist toassume onlly bristish doctors are safe with children yet it is a very unsafe thing to do if you want to keep your children in this country. All very weird.
I do tendto forget that my poor mother had it much harder bring up me that I do with my children. Wewere all being quite horribly abused and as often happened to women back then who tried to get help or spoke out about abuse she ended up in a loony bin untill it was clear that she would keep her mouth shut. The schools were better then but there were even worse problems in society and however much I rant about state services they dont lock me up without a trial and force valium down my throat. I think life is alway hard for parents and imagine it has been trough out history. In one of the James Heriott books a farmer says to him 'You have to have nerves of steel tobe a parent' just after Herriotts six year old fell of the roof. I think that just about sums it up. It is a very very tough job.
I came across this organisation, Relax Kids, that looks very good. Its about teaching kids mindfulness, and there are CDs of age appropriate guided meditations (samples I heard were in the format of a fairy tale, that included affirmations and relaxation sections), maybe some books, too.
If you're lucky enough to have a branch in your area they do classes, as well. I couldn't get the main website to load, but this is a branch one: thecalmwithin.co.uk/relaxkids/
When I put Relax Kids into my search engine I saw a lot of YouTube clips, too, and places to buy the CDs.
I very much appreciate some children require medication and truthfully I'm very much into taking medication that is effective. I noticed in the program there were parents who were reluctant to try a small reduction even though their children have responded very well. They seemed to be frightened to try, in part I think due to pharmaceutical companies behaviour.
I was also impressed that these children had tackled such a difficult problem so well and didn't really get credit fir their achievements.
Yes I agree , I do try to spread the word to friends. Some are resistant to hear and think our diet must be good enough. Plus, docs and drugs the only remedy for their ills. I realise they have to come to their own conclusion , but..........
I have had so much help and improvement from this forum I certainly believe. 🙂
The media is terribly down on vitamins, and you hear all the time that they're just sugar pills and food is enough I've had friends say this to me while shovelling awful junk food into their mouths!
I know of a lady in the Birmingham region whose company CHEW Initiatives is doing great work with children, parents and educators in the field of children's emotional and mental health and wellbeing. Really worth looking into and taking her advice.
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I've had friends say this to me while shovelling awful junk food into their mouths! 
off topic, before my thyroid got sick
Off topic - please help, awful neighbours
