We live in the age of labels, and they crop up early on. Your child has the potential to be diagnosed with any one of an array of mental disorders, and it’s scary. The link between mental illness and addiction has been proven, and the idea of our children being mentally ill at a young age brings this fact into frightening focus. But are these diagnosis, are these labels, correct? A nationwide call for safer pediatric drugs is bringing with it some surprising revelations about labeling.
Being a Kid vs. a Mental Illness
Some parents worry about the behavior their child exhibits. Something about it just doesn’t seem right, and when they seek a medical opinion one of two outcome ensues. Either they’re told it’s perfectly normal and given some parenting advice or they follow a path of testing to determine whether or not a mental illness is present. It sounds reasonable, right?
Other parents are blind sighted by on the fly and often unqualified diagnosis. They hear things like:
- “Your child isn’t exhibiting leadership skills. They have oppositional defiance disorder.”
- “Your child isn’t passionate. They have an anxiety disorder.”
- “Your child isn’t normal. They have ADHD.”
The idea of a child being stricken with a mental illness, explaining every last one of their hard to handle quirks has become the societal norm. And it’s scary because, in thousands of cases, there’s nothing really wrong. It’s a cop out, a means of medicating away the hard work involved in parenting, and sometimes honest parents don’t even realize their child is the victim of a misdiagnosis. While some children do legitimately have a mental illness, thousands are misdiagnosed every year:
The Danger of Our Mental Illness Obsession
It seems like every day it’s growing harder and harder for a kid to be a kid. The pediatrician prescribes medication, and the parents expect it to be both safe and correct. But this isn’t always the case. Today’s mental illness obsession puts our children at risk of prescription drug misuse, especially in cases where they are incorrectly diagnosed. In truth, anyone who uses prescription drugs regularly occupies a category with a higher risk of drug dependency and misuse. But pediatric drugs are a little scarier than most.
According to Scientific American, only half of the medications actively prescribed by doctors to patients age 18 and younger have not been through the same rigorous testing and trials as those prescribed for adults. The other 50 percent are given “off-label,” which means they are prescribed in circumstances for which they were never properly vetted. As a result, pediatric prescriptions put children at a higher risk of side effects, long-term health problems, and overdose. For newborns, the fraction rises from half to a startling 90 percent.
If a prescription designed to treat a mental illness is incorrectly prescribed, it can drastically alter a child’s brain chemistry. The long-term mental and health results can be disastrous, which is why proper and fact backed diagnosis is imperative.
The Good News in Pediatric Prescriptions
Thankfully, there is good news. In July of 2012, the U.S. Congress granted the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) new authority to compel companies producing prescription drugs to test their products for children rigorously. No longer is the statistic of children making up a small fraction of the world’s prescription drug recipients a viable reason for companies to neglect their youngest customers.
The issue of dangerous drugs being prescribed to minors has been ongoing since Congress began to address it in 1997. In the legislation known as the FDA Safety and Innovation Act, the law requires pediatric studies for certain drugs and actively offers incentives for more aggressive and encompassing studies of all drugs to be performed. As a result, children are ensured a permanent seat at the drug research and development table.
Additionally, children’s medications are safer today than at any other time in history. It’s certainly good news for parents, and the increased awareness of a nationwide call for safer pediatric drugs has been answered and is still being answered today.
Advocating Your Rights
Pediatricians specialize in caring for our youth. We trust them with the health and wellbeing of our children, and we look to them for answers when our ability to find answers is exhausted. But with society’s addiction to addiction and mental illness starting so young, what can you do as a parent to ensure your child is properly diagnosed and cared for?
- Seek a second opinion. If a mental illness comes up out of the blue, discuss the basis for the diagnosis in detail with your pediatrician. Don’t be afraid to get a second opinion.
- Discuss alternatives. Children are growing. Their brains are continually developing, and what manifests itself today could change a month from now. While you must be careful not to hold onto false hope, if you are weary of accepting a prescription, openly discuss alternatives with your child’s pediatrician. For example, ADHD can sometimes be treated through dietary changes, negating the need for medication.
- Be aware of the warning signs that something is amiss. If your doctor discourages you from trying alternatives before a prescription or seeking a second opinion, be on alert. A qualified medical professional will never speak ill of trying alternatives or seeking another opinion. If they do, it might be best to start over with a different pediatrician.
- Educate yourself. If the possibility of a mental illness comes up, the best thing you can do is take the time to educate yourself. Learn about the illness. Research the symptoms. Compare your findings to that of the doctor and your child. You are around your child more than anyone, which means you have the best chance of properly identifying which symptoms are truly in the mix.
By advocating your rights and those of your child, you may be able to eliminate the need for potentially dangerous prescriptions altogether. If medication is needed, be sure to learn about its side effects. If at any time you believe your child has or is developing a dependency, consult your physician.