Despite the potentially dangerous side-effects of Ritalin, public school authorities now pressure many parents to give Ritalin to their children so these kids won't "act up" in school.

Naturally, most parents don't want to drug their children just because they are unruly, bored in class, or high-spirited. However, compulsory attendance laws force parents to send their children to public schools. Just as school authorities resort to compulsion to get their students by force, so they apply the same compulsion against children and their parents to pressure parents into giving Ritalin to their kids.

How do schools pressure parents? They threaten to expel the child, hold the child back a grade, put the child into a special-education class, or threaten the parents with prosecution for child abuse.

Here's one parent's story:

"Hello, my name is Bobby B. [last name withheld for privacy], and that little boy you see above [in a picture in the article] . . . is my pride and joy. The picture was taken on Halloween when he was 5 years old and he was already on Ritalin. He was put on Ritalin because the local school district informed us that if we did not put him on medication he would be removed from school. In fact his first year was a nightmare from the start."

"Kindergarten is supposed to be fun and enjoyable for the child. However, Christopher had the teacher from hell and she made his life miserable. He could do nothing right and at the end of the school year she was going to flunk him out of her class. . . . Christopher's teacher thought he was nothing but trouble, too hyperactive, too hard to manage and she wanted nothing to do with him. This was the start of our own nightmare and our introduction to Ritalin and ADD. For the next 8 years our little boy was on this medication because without it he would not be allowed to continue in our public school system. . . ."

"My wife volunteers at the school in the office area weekly, and she has told me of the hundreds of kids that are on Ritalin and other medication. They line up every day to get their medication in order for them to stay in school, and attempt to do their work in a drug-induced state."

"About 12 months ago we were told to put Christopher on Adderall and that this medication would work better and would last longer. The side effects were the same, dehydration, loss of appetite, growth limitations and violent mood swings, and the fact is that no one knows what the long term effects on your children's health will be. We did as the Doctor advised and he has been on Adderall since."

"Any time Christopher has a bad day in school, the teachers want to know if he took his medication for the day. You see, once a child is labeled ADD or hyperactive, it stays with them, and it's locked in the teachers' minds. Thus if the child has a problem, it must be that he/she did not take their medication. I am sure this goes on in public schools all over this country and parents like us have no choice or our choices are very limited. If you want your child to stay in school, Ritalin or Adderall is their solution to any and all behavioral problems."

Here we have an example of school authorities not tolerating normal children who might be having a "bad day" or want to express their anger about something. As adults, we all have such bad days and we all get angry occasionally. But because public schools are like mini-prisons that require "order" and "discipline" to function, children are expected to conform to the rules. They are not allowed to have "bad days" or express anger. Hence school authorities must pressure parents to drug these children to make them passive.

Christopher's horror story is repeated again and again in public schools across the country. Parents, if public school authorities are pressuring you to give your children mind-altering drugs, alarm bells should be going off in your head. You should immediately consider taking your child out of public school and homeschooling him, for your child's sake.

Joel Turtel is the author of "Public Schools, Public Menace: How Public Schools Lie To Parents and Betray Our Children."

Website: http://www.mykidsdeservebetter.com,
Email: lbooksusa@aol.com,
Phone: 718-447-7348.

Article Copyrighted ? 2005 by Joel Turtel.
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