YOUTH & MENTAL HEALTH
About 16.5% of school-aged children had been diagnosed with a mental health disorder in the United States in 2016. CDC report (1 in 6 kids)
It’s well expected that these numbers have only climbed during the pandemic.
Why? Why do you think this is?
Seriously, WHY?!
Let me know in the comments below!
The most common mental health disorders among children include 1) attention-deficit / hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), 2) anxiety, and 3) behavioral disorders.
- reported by CDC
Let me ask you this… are these “disorders” static or dynamic?
Meaning, can they change or are they forever diagnosis? Are these kids doomed with a diagnosis that should loom over their heads for the rest of their lives and shapes the way they think and feel about themselves in the great big world around them?
3.5 million American children are now taking Ritalin and similar medications for ADHD, up from only 150,000 or so in the late 1970s. That comes to about one out of every 23 children from four to 17 years old.
And personally, I’ve seen estimates that are much higher than that, suggesting 1 in 6 boys are given mental health / mental illness diagnosis along the lines of ADHD or behavioral disorders by the time they reach adulthood.
Sadly, our reality continues…
American children consume three times as many ADHD medications as the rest of the world's children combined. One study cited by Whitaker, which was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, concluded that long-term drug treatment of ADHD was associated with increased rather than decreased symptoms. - Scientific American
Hmmm… so when we track over the long-term of things… the pros don’t always outweigh the immediate cons? So you mean our modern-day instant-gratification duped and doped society probably isn’t making the best decision for our kids?
I mean, I understand where parents and teachers are coming from, I really do.
If these situations are caught early, they can definitely help serve as warning signs for families and schools and the individual children themselves that SOMETHING NEEDS TO CHANGE to make sure the child has a beautiful opportunity to develop and thrive into a wonderful adult citizen, right?
Students in Los Angeles Unified School District are still suffering from mask tyranny while tens of thousands of adults in California have a free pass from the corporate media and other Covid-crazed critics to party it up in honor of the Super Bowl because it is politically convenient for Democrats.
While hundreds of unmasked, left-wing celebrities cheered on the Los Angeles Rams to victory during Super Bowl LVI at SoFi stadium in L.A. on Sunday night, students as young as 2 years old were forced by hypocritical politicians, health bureaucrats, and power-hungry teachers unions in the same city to wear face coverings for hours on end at local daycares and schools the next morning.
Are we that dehumanized? Are we really that politicized?
Are we really that domesticated, truncated, and placated?
What have we become as a society to allow such degradation and ironic policies which give rise for open air for the top 1% while children in schools across the country continue to suffer from dangerously rigid, reduced, restrained, restrictive regulations for their own chance to breathe fresh air without plastic and chemical laden masks hindering their natural human development potential.
What are your thoughts about masking in schools for children’s health?
Cognitive Development in Early childhood by age 5
Are we that negligent and short sited to remain blind to our destructive ways?
Are we that ridiculous as to not envision what their futures may hold after YEARS of unnatural human development.
Again, children are CERTAINLY NOT robots, my friends. They are soon to be students, future leaders, and next-gen visionaries. May we not forget to hold to our favorable standards to love them and cherish their opportunities lest we leave them with a treacherously distorted view of the world that’s been confusingly contorted to fit the lens of current political ideologies.
Children deserve better leadership.
The science says we’re the healthiest population group and have the least level of risks associated with Covid, so why are we wearing masks from morning, day and night?
WARNING SIGNS
The thing is, when the caution light comes on with any concern when it comes to our kids mental health, most adults just want to “fix it” immediately, as fast as possible so we don’t have to worry about our kids, because if we’re honest with ourselves, that deep-veined worry about our children is torturous. Nobody wants to be worried or to question the access for health and happiness for any kid.
But, I will also stand in defense of the kids themselves, that are asked to perform in a disastrously misaligned system that has struggled to keep them afloat, and quite frankly has sparked much more controversy and concern, more worry than warranted once we see the downstream effects.
Children were not best designed to sit still for 8 hours a day. - sorry if they fidget and struggle to stay in their seat
Children’s digestive systems were not designed to consume cups of sugar every morning in cereal and juice, donuts and pastries. - sorry if they get angry, sad, depressed and tired within just a couple hours
Children are humans, not robots. Children’s mental health has not been adequately prepared for intensive time blocks facing screens, playing digital games, separated from their fellow students but connected to their device, zoned out from the world around them while honed in on the virtual world in front of them. - sorry if they tend to be a little stressed out, anxious, or even show subtle signs of irritability
Children learn through lived-experience, through immersive-learning, experiential moments of education with multi-sensory development living life with their other human peers. - sorry if some of our teens and young adults lack real-world experience and live life waned
Children need to move, they need to run, they need to laugh, love, make mistakes, be challenged and strive even further than what they thought they ever could - sorry if they grow polarized into apathy or perfectionism as they strive towards the light of positive reinforcement
"" Finally, the prescribing of psychiatric medications to children and adolescents took off during this period (1987 to 2007), and as this medical practice took hold, the number of youth in America receiving a [gov.] disability check because of a mental illness leapt from 16,200 in 1987 to 561,569 in 2007 (35-fold increase.)""
Would we not suspect increasing rates of anxiety, depression, symptoms of ADHD and other mental health, pyschiatric, and behavioral concerns?
If you restrict a child from their natural human needs, what else would we expect?
I firmly suspect we will notice many negative downstream effects from our current times of controvery and genuine childhood neglect, shirking our responsibilities to care for our young ones.
If you’re not part of the solution, you’re silently standing in the way.
If you’re not part of the solution, you might just be part of the problem.
So what part do you plan to play?
We may very well be trying to take the easy way out - and with our fickle minds focused on instant gratification… I have reason to believe we must push forward to promote children’s health improvements in all capacities.
If we allow our kids to be enslaved by a misaligned system that diagnoses every “ill” to solely push a pill … I think we may very well be doing our kids a disservice. May pills have their place in a robust and comprehensive care plan…? Perhaps! BUT, they cannot be the only option provided.
Writing a prescription to treat a mental health disorder is easy, but it may not always be the safest or most effective route for patients, according to some recent studies and a growing chorus of voices concerned about the rapid rise in the prescription of psychotropic drugs. - American Psychological Association
Let us look at complementary and alternative integrative therapies such as nature play, meditation and breath work, optimizing sleep and optimizing nutrient intake and check up on potential environmental stressors on the body like mold, air pollution, allergies, artificial fragrances, perfumes, agitative soaps and solvents, qualified chiropractic adjustment strategies, yoga, fascia work, deep tissue massage, talk therapy, looking at gut bugs and neurotransmitters, exploring potential early traumas, presence of internal toxins, heavy metals, and more.
We tend to forget what ancient therapeutic options that have been relevant and cherished from cultures around the world long before today’s patent-pending pills and pharmaceuticals. We would never willingly give up on our children, so we must willingly look elsewhere, ask questions, ask for second, third, and fourth opinions. I believe every family deserves to know what breadth of options we actually do have that are available to try in our holistic health journeys.
Given that socioeconomic status is an important social determinant of mental health, the COVID-19-induced recession—as well as economic uncertainty and job loss at all income levels—is likely to exacerbate or trigger new incidences of psychiatric disability. - AmericanProgress.org
In a country, culture, and current times of living where money speaks while many people are silenced with their more natural and empathetic ideas…
I think it is sad to think that perhaps the only reason why people in power (health, policy, legislation, medicine, science, research, healthcare, insurance, education etc) who hold power in their capable decision-making leadership positions may end up waking up to these concerns is due to risks of financial concerns and our fiscal futures as a society.
Again, education leads us towards understanding, empathy, and empowerment to lead us forward. The more we learn to know, the more we have the chance to grow. The better we know, the better we can care about the right issues and the right people and the more we care, the better we can decide how to live & lead our lives.
Sharing these insights and ideas with others is much more important than what we give ourselves credit for. Before change can occur, education and understanding must be present.
I for one… sincerely… genuinely… appreciate your presence, your determination, and your willingness to learn and grow and endeavor to explore ways in which we can improve our own lives, the lives of others and positively impact our communities and our overall culture.
Please, do what you can to like, comment, share and foster these deeper-level ideas more and more, lest we get stuck in fickle-minded instant gratification without weighing any honest concerns for risks and benefits, pros and cons, acknowledging long-term cause and effects.
The fate of our tomorrow lays in the hands of the decisions we make today.
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