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Zero
Tolerance - Really?
Sandra Hartle
10/08/2002
We
are living in an age where some people want us to raise our boys
exactly as we raise our girls. They claim that there are no
differences between girls and boys until they reach puberty. I say
that people that make these kind of statements obviously have never
had a child. The reason I say that is I had both a girl and two boys,
and they are definitely different from age zero.
What benefit is there to making boys more docile, allowing them to
play with dolls instead of trucks? Well, to the feminist among us,
that creates a more sensitive man when he grows up. Boys I grew up
with had holes in their jeans at the knees all the time from grubbing
around on the ground. My brothers could not keep a new pair of shoes
on their feet, because they were always stuck in the ooze at the edge
of the swamp that was later replaced by Interstate 5 at the bottom of
our dead end road.
Boys pick up bugs and pull them apart, they want to know what is
inside of everything so they take it apart, and if it won't come apart
they break it to see what is inside. I cannot tell you how many of the
digital dashboard clocks I went through in the '70s due to the
curiosity in my two boys.
Boys think up other things to do also. They prefer outdoors to
indoors, they want to take their new trucks out into your landscaped
flower beds and rearrange them for you - where girls simply want to
pick some pretty flowers for you. I can remember the heartbreak on my
father's face when he reported he had spanked my oldest son for
picking grandma's flowers, of course it wasn't for picking the flower
he was in trouble for it was pulling the entire plant out of the
ground in the process.
My daughter wanted to do everything I did from the time she was two,
of course that changed dramatically by the time she was 13, but let's
stick to the under 12 set. She played with her doll when I nursed her
little brother pretending to feed her baby at the same time. She
wanted to help with the dishes, the cooking and the all the cleaning.
Her brothers at the same age wanted to mix all the chemicals together
that were stored under the sink, stamp my toilet bowl with postage
stamps, hatch mosquitoes in a bucket they had hidden in their closet
(they thought they were pollywogs), and take baths with the tree frogs
they had smuggled into the bathroom in a bucket when I was not
looking. My oldest boy at the age of three had used a dime to
dismantle every outlet in his bedroom when he was supposed to be
taking a nap, had disappeared in a fenced backyard (he was napping
with the dog under a stump), and my youngest at age 5 yelled at me in
the kitchen from about 30 feet up in the tree in our back yard. Was
this due to the fact I did not watch my kids? No. It was due to the
fact that they simply moved faster than I did, and could accomplish
much in very little time, and were very quiet about their activities
especially if they thought it may land them in trouble.
So now that we have determined that anyone that thinks boy children
and girl children are somehow the same have rocks in their head, lets
go on about the title of this article.
Zero tolerance is about drugs in our schools. Schools will not even
allow a child to take an aspirin at school without a parent's
permission, yet they will insist that we drug our children so that
they behave according to their standards. Ritalin is the drug of
choice. This is a dangerous drug and it is being prescribed to
children by the gross. USA Today reports that more than 450,000 young
people are taking this drug. Ritalin is in the same medical
classification as cocaine, heroin, morphine, and other class 2
narcotics. It comes with heavy warnings on its use including the
following: "Do not stop without consulting your physician and
never abruptly," but I know of several parents who had their
child on this drug who just stopped giving it to them, then started it
again and then stopped. A side note here, both of the young men
involved in the Columbine shooting had been on Ritalin at one point in
their lives.
Teachers who feel they are glorified baby sitters, who often do not
have children of their own, are the ones pushing for this medication
to be given to many children. From the time the first diagnosis of
ADHD was made, nearly 700,000 children have been given this drug. It
is intended to make the child more capable of sitting and paying
attention. But the problem is it is often prescribed incorrectly. For
instance if the child is acting out because of other problems, rather
than attention deficit, how will giving them a stimulant work to calm
them? What if the problem is allergies? What are the long term effects
of a drug that is know to cause these symptoms: Abdominal pain,
headache, drowsiness, dizziness, mood changes, lack of coordination,
tics / unusual movements, irritability / nervousness, skin rash,
hives, blurred vision, sexual problems, or paranoia.
My children had allergies that made them act out at times, but diet
corrected the problem and they were able to get through the routines
of sitting in class and learning. Boys simply do not like sitting
still. If they are stimulated with what they are being taught, and
activity is part of the teaching process, it is not hard to keep them
directed toward learning. Boys, like girls, do love to
learn at a young age and will participate if the activities are fun
and stimulating. I say that kids have not suddenly changed to become
more aggressive and less willing to learn, I say that the teachers are
attempting to slow them down at a time in their life when activity is
an integral part of their development.
Boredom sets kids off on a bad road as well.
If
we want zero tolerance regarding drugs, don't you think it is up to us
as parents to put our foot down and refuse to allow the schools,
teachers and the NEA to force us into drugging our children with drugs
so powerful that addiction is one of the major problems with
prescribing it in the first place? If the teacher cannot or will not
control the children as they come should they be allowed to teach?
Are you aware that of all the children that are taking this drug, over
90% of those children are boys? Are you aware that the United States
is the only place this is done to this extent? According to USA Today
- "Other countries already see the USA as a place
where kids are prescribed too many psychiatric drugs. Ninety
percent of the world's supply of methylphenidate (Ritalin) is
used in the USA, for example, and 80% of the U.S. supply is used by
children and they worry that the "ADHD culture" will spread
to them. The issue will be the focus of the Associazone Culturali
Pediatri (Association of Cultural Pediatrics) convention in Rome on
Oct. 10."
Haven't any of these people heard the term "Boys will be
Boys" with the forced drugging of our children to slow them down
is it any wonder we are becoming the nation of the "couch
potato"?
Sandra
Hartle
Email: sandrahartle@juntosociety.com
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