Andrew Statum

Far be it from me to question the utility of behavior-modifying drugs. I, like millions of people, have benefited from the use of anti-depressants. But my chemical course of treatment was arrived upon only after several months of talk therapy failed to produce any "progress." Even then, I wasn't simply given a few bottles of pills and sent on my way; I had to attend weekly sessions with my psychiatrist who insisted I keep a journal of my feelings, moods, etc. But it seems that an alarming number of children are being labeled with certain attention/mood/emotional disorders and fed behavior-modifying medications at a rate never seen before, which brings to mind an experience I had one summer a long while back.

When I was nineteen, all those years ago, I spent my summer as a camp counselor at a boys-and-girls sleep-away camp in New Mexico. Campers were between the ages of six and fourteen (I think) and I was charged with looking after a cabin of nine-twelve year old boys. For the most part, the kids were great and I got to spend the entire summer fishing, hiking, playing dodgeball, horseback riding, all that great summer stuff. The worst part of it all, though, was the food: soupy, tasteless proteins alongside french fries and boiled vegetables served chow-line style in a faux-Native-American mess hall that resembled something out of James Fenimore Cooper's wildest nightmares.

In addition to depositing their children, parents were also required to drop off their children's medications with the camp nurse. I don't remember her name, but she was a kindly old woman with thick glasses that hung from a slim chain around her neck who was also quite heavy and figured prominently in the male counselors' games of "Would You Rather" that summer. Anyway, part of her job was to ensure our charges took their medications at the appointed times, most of which were during meals. Every breakfast, lunch and dinner, the nurse would shuffle around the mess hall with a tray of small plastic cups, each one loaded with every size, shape and color of pill imaginable, and at every table, a tangle of arms would reach for their cups.

I was amazed at how many kids we had who were one some kind of prescription medication. Some of these, no doubt, were of a non-psychoactive sort, prescribed by their pediatricians for those limitless little ailments that plague children. But when I asked Nurse Wouldyourather about it one afternoon, she told me (though I imagine she probably wasn't supposed to) the majority of these kids were taking Ritalin or Adderall for ADD and ADHD or they were on one of a handful of other drugs used to treat various kinds of emotional disorders. Dear Christ, I thought, were all of my kids emotionally disturbed? Would one of them slip into my side of the cabin at night and slit my throat in some kind of "Lord of the Flies" inspired coup? Why wasn't I told this was a camp for the insane?

No doubt some of these kids did suffer from some kind of attention deficit and/or hyperactivity disorder. No doubt some of these kids did have emotional problems that required the careful administration of drugs. But surely, not every last one of them. Unless this camp was some kind of repository for unstable children, I felt like these kids were way over-medicated. Has Ritalin really become the new "babysitter?" What ever happened to plopping your kid in front of a television for hours at a time? You know, the way Mom did for me?

I would love to see the diagnostical statistics for ADD and ADHD in children. What percentage of children have been diagnosed with these disorders? And how does their behavior differ from that of the average, undiagnosed child? Is there no threat of chemical dependency in these kids? And what happens to their neuro-biological chemistry as they grow up? If, say, a child takes a dopamine re-uptake inhibitor throughout his or her childhood, will the child's brain ever be able to manufacture its own supply of dopamine? If not, are these kids, then, physically "addicted" to these medications? Have their been any longitudinal studies done on children who take these medications in childhood but stop taking them later on?

The funny thing is, the one kid not taking drugs - one of those odd, emotionally distant, prone to aggression types; what used to be called a "bully" - was the only kid who probably most in need of medication. Oh the irony.