4 year old OD's on meds, dies

[Scout]

link removed

 

Parents now charged with murder, accused of keeping 4 year old daughter overmedicated to "stay out of their hair." I had no idea a child that young could be "diagnosed" with hyperactivity and prescribed drugs for it. I assumed all young kids were hyperactive!

 

The article raises some questions that definitely need to be asked:

 

Can children as young as Rebecca be accurately diagnosed with mental illnesses?

 

Are rambunctious youngsters being medicated for their parents’ convenience?

 

And should children so young be prescribed powerful psychotropic drugs meant for adults?

[chickidee23]

That makes my heart hurt...

 

My brother was diagnosed with ADHD when he was younger. He had to take three pills a day- this was after my parent's nasty divorce but no one seemed to take THAT into consideration.

[Honey Pumpkin]

I work on a children's panel (legal system involving kids) on a volunteer basis, and no end of very young children are diagnosed with ADHD and are put on ritalin/medication. I think sometimes there is a tendency to over diagnose this condition, to be honest.

 

What a terrible story. That's just heartbreaking.

[Scotcha]

How dreadful.

 

I think way too many kids are diagnosed with ADHD. In fact, I was told two years ago (when my son was 3) that he had ADHD and was just too young to get officially diagnosed but when he turned 7 I would be able to put him on medication for it.. It won't happen. I agree with Scout.. That children are hyperactive because they are children.

[annie24]

I saw that article and almost became sick. It doesn't even sound like she had ADHD. It sounds like her parents were criminally negligent and just didn't want to deal with her so they drugged her up all the time.

 

I think that some kids are genuinely ADHD, but it is probably overdiagnosed. The rest are just really energetic kids.

 

I was wondering that too.... after 4 years of life, can you really have mental illness? I guess so, but it didn't seem reading this article that that was rebecca's case.

[kmartin85]

doctors and parents alike are ignorant these days, because a kid is hyper active they automatically have add or adhd, i think the issue is parents need to have a better handle on their children and doctors need to have the guts to say this instead of prescribing meds

[Kalika]

Wow. What a heartbreaking article. I think the saddest thing about this is that other people sat there and watched this happen. They didn't really go after the parents like they should have. Someone should have intervened.

[annie24]

Apparently social services was supposed to visit a few days after she died.