Salon.com > Karen Shoemaker http://www.salon.com Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Giving in to Ritalin http://www.salon.com/1999/11/30/ritalin/ http://www.salon.com/1999/11/30/ritalin/#comments Tue, 30 Nov 1999 17:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/1999/11/30/ritalin Recent headlines say everything about the epidemic of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: "Ritalin: A cure for brattiness?" and "Johnny Get Your Pills." Then there are the buzz words: "drugged children," "overworked parents," "frequently absent parents." The insinuation in all of this is that ADHD is a figment of our national imagination. These kids are simply unruly and their parents so career-oriented that they'd rather their kids pop pills than spend time with them. One teacher suggests that these children are unruly because "they don't have anything inside. They are so used to being entertained."

Then there is the specter of a Brave New World in which children are subjected to "cosmetic psychopharmacology," for no other reason than to simply "narrow the gap between I.Q. and performance." These parents want to give their children an edge and are willing to give the kids drugs so they get higher scores on their spelling tests.

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