In the last five years, there's been a 43% increase in the rate of dispensing of stimulant prescriptions for Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and most of these drugs are going to boys. In other words, what we're seeing is an unprecedented burgeoning of this diagnosis and its corresponding drug treatment.
What we're talking about here is nothing less than the destruction of American childhood. How so? According to a recent study published in the U.S., nearly half of American adolescents now meet some criteria for a mental health disorder. So we're talking about a massive negative impact on our children by something in our culture that's just not being recognized.
So what is it?
The conditions in which children develop have been so corrupted and troubled over the last several decades that the template for normal brain development is no longer present for many, many kids. Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Boston, actually says that the neglect or abuse of children is now the number one public health concern in the United States. Similarly, a recent study coming out of Notre Dame by a psychologist there has shown that the conditions for child development that are optimal for brain development, are no longer present for our kids. She says that the way we raise our children today, in this country, is increasingly depriving them of the practices that lead to well-being and normalcy.
What's really going on here now is that the developmental conditions for healthy childhood psychological and brain development are ever less available, so that the issue of ADD is only a small part of the general issue that most American children are no longer getting the support they need to properly develop.
The essential condition for the physiological development of the brain circuits that regulate human behavior, that give us empathy, that give us a social sense, that give us a connection with other people, that give us a connection with ourselves, that allow us to mature -- the essential condition for those circuits, for their physiological development, is the presence of emotionally available, consistently available, non-stressed, attuned parenting caregivers. And that condition, that presence, is becoming ever scarcer in America. With tragic consequences.
But what can you expect in a country where the average maternity leave is six weeks? -- as compared to, say, in Sweden, where paid leave for either or both parent(s) is 15 months!) The fact is that most American kids no longer have adequate emotional caregivers available to them throughout most of their childhood. What can you expect in a country where nearly 50% of low-income women suffer from postpartum depression and therefore can't possibly be properly attuned to their child?
What we have to understand here is that, contrary to the "free enterprise" myth that people are competitive, individualistic, private entities, human beings are not private entities. They are not discrete, individual entities. What people actually are, are social creatures, very much dependent on one another and very much programmed to cooperate with one another whenever circumstances are conducive to such cooperation. And when such circumstances are not available, and the necessary support is not available for women, that's when women get depressed. And when the fathers -- those who have even bothered to stick around -- are stressed, for lack of sufficient wages, lack of sufficient time off from work, and lack of decent employment opportunities, they're not able to support their woman in that really important, crucial bonding role that's particularly necessary in the beginning of a child's life. The men then get stressed and depressed themselves. Rancor follows, as does spousal abuse and child abuse. Children, and our society, then take the toll. A very heavy toll indeed.
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