Medicating the next generation

I saw an article in the Sunday Star Times (SST) yesterday that, among other things, mentioned that PHARMAC had recorded a 140% increase in antidepressant drug taking in children under 4 years of age over the last few years. Talk about a horrifying statistic - and at face glance - an abuse of medicine.

I recall an earlier article on the increasing use of TV as a child-minding device and children not learning key skills on how to play and interact. An alterantive form of medication, destructive also.

And in some other article, I noted that pre-school survey forms parents were completing turned out to be used to assess children for a myriad of "mental health" issues. Some parents did not realise ticking the box for "Johnny has had a temper tantrum" either made them bad parents or necessitated Johnny being drugged up and ready to glide through the stressful world of playgroup.

And articles continue to hit the papers where child abuse is conflated with child discipline, to the point that a smack in discipline is treated as an equally serious offence as hitting children in anger. Surely, parents can take drugs for that? Or, as discussed on 60 minutes last year, do the drugs parents take contribute to the hitting? Let's not go there.

And no-one wants to discuss the impact of easy divorce and single parent families on children, for fear that single parents take the news personally.

Who would have thought a small jigsaw puzzle would be so hard to put together? Certainly seems to be confounding our bureaucrats.

Mind you, after assembling this simple puzzle myself, I discovered some more ominous information about just where medication by drugs is taking us. That's another post.