Pubdate: Mon, 21 Aug 2000
Source: Tampa Tribune (FL)
Copyright: 2000, The Tribune Co.
Contact:  http://www.tampatrib.com/
Forum: http://tampabayonline.net/interact/welcome.htm
Author: Thomas Sowell, Creators Syndicate, Inc.

WHY LET GOVERNMENT DRUG YOUR CHILDREN?

Now The Law Is Threatening To Come Down Hard On Parents Who Refuse To 
Be Sheep   

One of the scariest stories in the news is receiving very, little 
attention. According to USA Today, parents are being put under pressure 
by schools and by courts to have their children drugged with Ritalin. 
Some parents have been threatened with charges of child neglect or 
abuse - and having the child taken away by the authorities -- if they 
do not give their children Ritalin.   

All it takes to have Ritalin prescribed is a label of "attention 
deficit hyperactivity disorder." And there are lots of little tin gods 
in the schools who are ready to put this label on children who are 
bored and fretful at the uninteresting and unchallenging material 
presented to them. Very bright children are particularly likely to be 
frustrated and acting out.   

Some parents have seen almost miraculous improvements in their 
children's interest and behavior just by finding a more interesting 
teacher or a more interesting school. But now that judges are willing 
to threaten to take children away unless parents knuckle under to 
school shrinks and social workers who want the child drugged, that 
option may not be available in time.   

It is hard to imagine a stupider or more dangerous way of making 
decisions than putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay 
no price for being wrong, Know-it-alls in the school system do not lose 
one dime or one hour's sleep if their bright ideas turn out to be all 
wrong or even disastrous for the child. It is parents and children who 
pay the price.   

There is not even a record kept as to how often the education 
bureaucrats have been wrong. How often are the schools' diagnoses of 
various conditions wrong? I could rattle off a dozen examples just from 
casual observation. There are kids who were put into classes for 
retarded children who later turned out to have lQs way above the 
national average.   

A professor of neurosciences at the University of Massachusetts has 
examined numerous diagnoses of children for numerous conditions. She 
says that three-quarters of the case histories she has seen have at 
least one diagnosis that is "completely off the mark."   

What is even scarier than the error rate and the recklessness with 
diagnoses made in the school system - often by people with neither an 
M.D. nor a Ph.D. - is the sheeplike parents who simply go along with 
whatever. the "experts" say. Now the law is threatening to come down 
hard on parents who refuse to be sheep.   

This is not just an isolated problem. It is part of a widespread 
erosion of parents' rights to raise their own children. Moreover, there 
is a whole ideology favoring government takeovers of parents' role. 
This ideology has been promoted for decades by people like Hillary 
Rodham Clinton and organizations like the so-called Children's Defense 
Fund.   

Schools have already taken over the decision as to when and in what 
manner your child will be introduced to sex. Some schools are teaching 
various techniques of homosexual acts, and some have gay activists 
visiting the schools, passing out cards giving the addresses of local 
homosexual hangouts.   

The question is not whether the decisions made by the schools are wise 
decisions. The more fundamental question is why they have a right to 
take over such decisions from parents in the first place. Still more 
basic is the question: Why do we let them get away with it?   

This is still a democracy, after all. If parents started voting against 
politicians and judges who have been taking away their rights as 
parents, it would have to stop. If legislatures started impeaching 
judges who punish parents for refusing to drug their children, that 
would come to a halt as well.   

There is no great mystery as to why people want more power over other 
people. There have always been despots, large and small, throughout 
thousands of years of recorded history. For at least the past two 
centuries, there have also been ideologies that argued for government 
takeovers of parents' role in the raising of children. There is nothing 
original in Hillary Clinton's notion that "it takes a village to raise 
a child" - whether the parents want their child raised by a village or 
not.   

Claims that "studies prove" the need for Ritalin are far less 
convincing when you realize how often studies have "proved" one thing, 
only to have later studies prove the opposite. Parents and voters need 
to wake up to the dangerous extension of government despotism into the 
family.   
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