Saturday, July 25, 2015

Childhood is Not a Mental Disorder

I hope you'll take a couple of minutes to watch this amazing video. Based on my 30 years of working with "troubled youth," there is a lot of truth to it.

Many times I thought the labeling of children had more to do with adults who were "troubled" at the fact that some children are not docile and obedient enough. I could tell you lots of stories about that. But this video pretty much says it all.

2 comments:

  1. Growing up in the SF Bat Area in the eighties and nineties I had a front row seat when and where it first became fashionable to use the mental health system to solve all of life's little problems. This coupled with Boomer generation narcissism swiftly turned into a toxic mix. Anything and everything was labelled as being the result of mental illness. Quite often it was actually the desire of the parent to have their kid conform to an impossible ideal or having the gall to grow up and start wanting to make their own choices.

    It's long past time there was push back against that.

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  2. This video made me cry. My older child was labeled as a youngster as ADD--easily distracted. fidgety, etc. Not knowing any better, I spent years on tutors, classes, even Ritalin for a little while. You know what? He's fine. When his math homework was so behind that he was ready to just fall apart, I started playing poker with him using pennies and it became a fun game and a race to get more math problems done. He was and is so smart that regular stuff just bores him. He is 35 now with two kids and has been married for 15 years and is still just about the smartest person I've ever known.

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