Rating: 
Summary: One Pill Makes You Larger and One Pill Makes You Small....
Review: "One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small, but the ones the doctor gives you don't do anything at all." I'm being jokingly sarcastic but the experiences my step-son and I had with ADHD and Ritalin were not far from this. My step-son came into my life as a high school senior who had been diagnosed as ADHD ten years earlier and who had been on Ritalin that whole time. He came to me because he had attempted suicide and after his release from the hospital he needed somewhere to go. His mother had "had it with him." He was in the ED and LD program at school, getting F's in every single class, had "no hope" of graduating according to his LD teachers, could not read above a 3rd grade level, was disruptive, rude, and inattentive. So, why, I asked myself is he still on Ritalin when it obviously isn't helping? He was unable to eat much, having no appetite, and was underweight and nervous. He acted out in school and had no respect for anyone. I weaned him off the Ritalin and the Zoloft he took because of Ritalin induced depression. The ideas I found outlined in this book were and are an enormous help to us and it is my earnest prayer that every parent who is either allowing or considering the use of Ritalin or other mood-altering drugs on their children read this book and think long and hard about it before deciding to continue with the chemical restraint method. You have one easy book to read but your child has a lifetime of misery with which to contend. Please be educated on the subject.
We learn in this book that nearly one-tenth of all school-aged kids in the U.S. are being given stimulant drugs with side effects that include insomnia, tearfulness, rebound irritability, personality change, nervousness, anorexia, nausea, dizziness, headaches,heart palpitations, and cardiac arrhytmia. Millions of children are taking speed, the same class 2 drug that dopers on the street have been getting high on and getting arrested for taking and selling for decades. Speed is illegal to take without perscription because it is dangerous even life-threatening. Dr. Stein, himself a practicing clinical psychologist and father of two sons who were diagnosed with ADD points out, in very clear, compassionate and thoughtful terms, seven misconceptions or myths surrounding attentional disorders. He carefully explains the dangers of chemical restraints and also talks about their monumental ineffectivness. He offers very sound and proven and actually common sense approaches for the effective parenting of not only the ADD and ADHD kids who so desperately need it but also for each and every child growing up.
This book does require that as a parent we take responsibility, we slow down, we modify our own behaviors, and we do this with consistency. It can be hard to modify our own behavior, let alone that of our troubled children, but we must stop relying on a dangerous little pill to modify and restrain creative, unique and individual children into a national army of speed freaks. Don't kid yourself if you are believing that a perscription and a doctor you see once in awhile make the difference between safe "medicine" and drug abuse. Speed is speed, with a perscription or not, and it can make your mind work in an obsessive way that seems like attention. It makes you euphoric and it seems like quieter behavior. It also disrupts the way you eat and nourish your body, it causes nervousness and dizziness and it makes you eventually paranoid, aggressive, intolerant, and downright squirrely. It never, ever makes you normal, whatever that is. Schools and Physicians are willing to settle for the dangers and the misery for our children in order to get the attention and quiet they need to control over-crowded schools with robotic and mind-numbing curriculum.
This book is frank on the subject of the dangers versus the benefits of stimulant chemical restraints like Ritalin. It is straight-up with us about our culture's move away from the family values many of us grew up with. It causes us to re-examine our own approach and understanding of this condition that is labeled ADD and ADHD as if it were a disease which it is not. Best of all it gives us ideas and useful, practical directions to help get ourselves and most importantly our children back on track to a happy and stable life. There is also an interactive companion to this book called The Ritalin Is Not the Answer Action Guide that makes its ADD/ADHD parenting program even more workable and undestandable.
My step-son graduated with straight B's. He has no trouble with authority or the community with disorderly conduct as he frequently did while on Ritalin. He went to Prom and has a healthy relationship with his girlfriend and her family. He doesn't drink or use drugs. He follows the household rules and keeps reasonable hours. He smiles and laughs and eats big cheeseburgers and pizza like the healthy young adult he is. His hands don't shake. His nightmares have stopped. His teachers told me I am an amazing parent and they can't believe the changes in my step-son. Well, I am NOT an amazing parent. The only things I did differently were take my son off speed and I DID believe in the changes I saw in my son as we worked through the suggestions in this book. It can't hurt to read it and it CAN hurt to keep your child on Ritalin. I hope it helps you and your child.
Rating:
Summary: One Pill Makes You Larger and One Pill Makes You Small....
Review: "One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small, but the ones the doctor gives you don't do anything at all." I'm being jokingly sarcastic but the experiences my step-son and I had with ADHD and Ritalin were not far from this. My step-son came into my life as a high school senior who had been diagnosed as ADHD ten years earlier and who had been on Ritalin that whole time. He came to me because he had attempted suicide and after his release from the hospital he needed somewhere to go. His mother had "had it with him." He was in the ED and LD program at school, getting F's in every single class, had "no hope" of graduating according to his LD teachers, could not read above a 3rd grade level, was disruptive, rude, and inattentive. So, why, I asked myself is he still on Ritalin when it obviously isn't helping? He was unable to eat much, having no appetite, and was underweight and nervous. He acted out in school and had no respect for anyone. I weaned him off the Ritalin and the Zoloft he took because of Ritalin induced depression. The ideas I found outlined in this book were and are an enormous help to us and it is my earnest prayer that every parent who is either allowing or considering the use of Ritalin or other mood-altering drugs on their children read this book and think long and hard about it before deciding to continue with the chemical restraint method. You have one easy book to read but your child has a lifetime of misery with which to contend. Please be educated on the subject.
We learn in this book that nearly one-tenth of all school-aged kids in the U.S. are being given stimulant drugs with side effects that include insomnia, tearfulness, rebound irritability, personality change, nervousness, anorexia, nausea, dizziness, headaches,heart palpitations, and cardiac arrhytmia. Millions of children are taking speed, the same class 2 drug that dopers on the street have been getting high on and getting arrested for taking and selling for decades. Speed is illegal to take without perscription because it is dangerous even life-threatening. Dr. Stein, himself a practicing clinical psychologist and father of two sons who were diagnosed with ADD points out, in very clear, compassionate and thoughtful terms, seven misconceptions or myths surrounding attentional disorders. He carefully explains the dangers of chemical restraints and also talks about their monumental ineffectivness. He offers very sound and proven and actually common sense approaches for the effective parenting of not only the ADD and ADHD kids who so desperately need it but also for each and every child growing up.
This book does require that as a parent we take responsibility, we slow down, we modify our own behaviors, and we do this with consistency. It can be hard to modify our own behavior, let alone that of our troubled children, but we must stop relying on a dangerous little pill to modify and restrain creative, unique and individual children into a national army of speed freaks. Don't kid yourself if you are believing that a perscription and a doctor you see once in awhile make the difference between safe "medicine" and drug abuse. Speed is speed, with a perscription or not, and it can make your mind work in an obsessive way that seems like attention. It makes you euphoric and it seems like quieter behavior. It also disrupts the way you eat and nourish your body, it causes nervousness and dizziness and it makes you eventually paranoid, aggressive, intolerant, and downright squirrely. It never, ever makes you normal, whatever that is. Schools and Physicians are willing to settle for the dangers and the misery for our children in order to get the attention and quiet they need to control over-crowded schools with robotic and mind-numbing curriculum.
This book is frank on the subject of the dangers versus the benefits of stimulant chemical restraints like Ritalin. It is straight-up with us about our culture's move away from the family values many of us grew up with. It causes us to re-examine our own approach and understanding of this condition that is labeled ADD and ADHD as if it were a disease which it is not. Best of all it gives us ideas and useful, practical directions to help get ourselves and most importantly our children back on track to a happy and stable life. There is also an interactive companion to this book called The Ritalin Is Not the Answer Action Guide that makes its ADD/ADHD parenting program even more workable and undestandable.
My step-son graduated with straight B's. He has no trouble with authority or the community with disorderly conduct as he frequently did while on Ritalin. He went to Prom and has a healthy relationship with his girlfriend and her family. He doesn't drink or use drugs. He follows the household rules and keeps reasonable hours. He smiles and laughs and eats big cheeseburgers and pizza like the healthy young adult he is. His hands don't shake. His nightmares have stopped. His teachers told me I am an amazing parent and they can't believe the changes in my step-son. Well, I am NOT an amazing parent. The only things I did differently were take my son off speed and I DID believe in the changes I saw in my son as we worked through the suggestions in this book. It can't hurt to read it and it CAN hurt to keep your child on Ritalin. I hope it helps you and your child.
Rating:
Summary: Offers practical advice for creating mindful children
Review: According to Dr. Stein, a psychopharmocologist and psychologist, the long-term effects of drugs on so-called ADD and ADHD children are still largely unknown. Because of drastic changes in society, parents are overly stressed and children often out of control. Stein offers a proven, easy-to-follow parenting program that teaches children to think about their behavior, take responsibility for it, and change it for the good. Parents and caregivers see positive behavior changes within a couple of weeks!
Rating: 
Summary: Good and Very Bad all Rolled into One Package
Review: Actually, if you can get past the fact that part about ADD/ADHD being presented as largely a myth, it's actually a very good book to use any spirited child. It has a very good discipline program that I have used to help with my ADHD child along with meds. And in that capacity, I highly recommend it. The discipline program is spelled out and that is what I needed. So use it in that regard and it is a very good book.
Rating: 
Summary: Ritalin Is Not The Answer
Review: Actually, if you can get past the fact that part about ADD/ADHD being presented as largely a myth, it's actually a very good book to use any spirited child. It has a very good discipline program that I have used to help with my ADHD child along with meds. And in that capacity, I highly recommend it. The discipline program is spelled out and that is what I needed. So use it in that regard and it is a very good book.
Rating: 
Summary: How does inaccuracy sell books?
Review: As a mother of a young ADHD/ODD child, I am very sensitive to critism of the medical field that has literally saved my childs life. (Suicidal at the age of 7). I found this book very difficult to read (and did not finish) because of the attitude that ALL these children have been improperly medicated. I also had a hard time focusing on the book because of inaccurate comments (ex- a diagnostic category that didn't even exist 20 yrs ago. Truth- my younger brother was diagnosed with hyperactive disorder and put on Ritalin at the age of 2. He is now 32. The diagnosed name changed to ADHD, the same as Manic-Depression, now Bi-Polar Disease and others where the name could be found offensive). Parents turning to this book are looking for help, not to get their hands slapped for listening to a doctor who has actually seen the child. I credit the author only for setting strict guidelines to help parents keep structure for the ADHD child, although not new or revelutionary. This is something I have learned all my life thanks to my brother. Information in books like this is why parents of ADHD children have constant troubles with teachers and parents of non-ADHD children. And why the ADHD child has to also learn to "put up with" people looking down their noses at them in disdain.
Rating:
Summary: A sound approach to treating ADH D without medication
Review: As a psychologist with twenty years' experience counseling ADHD children, I found Dr. David Stein's book, "Ritalin Is Not The Answer," an easy-to-understand, insightful and viable solution to the controversy surrounding the use of Ritalin with ADHD children.He first outlines the fallicies of the disease or chemical imbalance model for ADHD, and then introduces his "Caregivers' Skills Program," the ultimate goal of which is to enable children to self-monitor their behavior. To achieve self-monitoring, however, he stresses that medication must be withdrawn completely so that new skills can be learned independent of the drugs. He shifts the focus from the "symptoms" which imply "disease" to a list of targeted behaviors. The goal is to either improve or eiminate the targeted behaviors. This approach avoids the prevalent but disenfranchising tactic of labeling ADHD behaviors as a "brain disease" and prescribing medication. The parental role in the Program--that of conveying specific instruction to motivate and empower the child to take charge of his or her own behavior--re-establishes parents as authority figures in the chld's life. Dr. Stein clims that his Cargiver's Skills Program "produces dramatic and positve changes in children by completely eliminating ADD and ADHD patterns without the use of medication." I believe that the application of his techniques would not only produce the claimed results, but also would empower both parents and children thereby enhancing the parent-child relationship. This appears to be an effective, easy-to-apply alternative to medicating our children with Ritalin and other drugs. If you child has been diagnosed as ADHD, this book offers great hope. Ty C. Colbert, Ph.D.
Rating:
Summary: A sound approach to treating ADH D without medication
Review: As a psychologist with twenty years' experience counseling ADHD children, I found Dr. David Stein's book, "Ritalin Is Not The Answer," an easy-to-understand, insightful and viable solution to the controversy surrounding the use of Ritalin with ADHD children. He first outlines the fallicies of the disease or chemical imbalance model for ADHD, and then introduces his "Caregivers' Skills Program," the ultimate goal of which is to enable children to self-monitor their behavior. To achieve self-monitoring, however, he stresses that medication must be withdrawn completely so that new skills can be learned independent of the drugs. He shifts the focus from the "symptoms" which imply "disease" to a list of targeted behaviors. The goal is to either improve or eiminate the targeted behaviors. This approach avoids the prevalent but disenfranchising tactic of labeling ADHD behaviors as a "brain disease" and prescribing medication. The parental role in the Program--that of conveying specific instruction to motivate and empower the child to take charge of his or her own behavior--re-establishes parents as authority figures in the chld's life. Dr. Stein clims that his Cargiver's Skills Program "produces dramatic and positve changes in children by completely eliminating ADD and ADHD patterns without the use of medication." I believe that the application of his techniques would not only produce the claimed results, but also would empower both parents and children thereby enhancing the parent-child relationship. This appears to be an effective, easy-to-apply alternative to medicating our children with Ritalin and other drugs. If you child has been diagnosed as ADHD, this book offers great hope. Ty C. Colbert, Ph.D.
Rating:
Summary: Good and Very Bad all Rolled into One Package
Review: Be prepared to be offended by Dr. Stein's beliefs. It is hard to get past his claims that there is no such thing as ADD/ADHD and that the associated behaviors are as a result of bad parents! However, the approach outlined in this book will help children - any children - whether they have ADD/ADHD or not. It employs basic nuts-and-bolts positive/negative reinforcement methods to shape child behavior. A program such as this is important for rearing EVERY child, however it simply will not be enough for most ADD/ADHD children to overcome their difficulties, nor or will it magically "cure" the syndrome as suggested in this book. Likewise, Ritalin ALONE will not compensate for a lack of positive parenting skills. In many situations a combined approach is necessary to give children the help they need. There is little new in this book, and I don't recommend it for skilled parents who have already tried various behavior modification systems without success and are now wrestling with the question of whether or not to medicate. For the parent who's child is just beginning to have problems it is important to try a comprehensive behavior modification plan such as this before resulting to drugs. However, don't buy into his ideas that ADD/ADHD is a myth and your child's problems are your fault. The fact that many ADD/ADHD children come from loving families with excellent parents clearly disproves Dr. Stein's erroneous and harmful assumptions.
Rating:
Summary: Not just inaccurate, but intentionally untruthful
Review: Dr. Stein clearly has an agenda. While there is certainly nothing wrong with having an agenda, using inflammatory rhetoric, misinformation and outright falsehoods to advance that agenda is reprehensible. A parent's decision whether or not to incorporate medication of any kind in a child's treatment regimen should be made conscientiously, after a responsible examination of available facts. Dr. Stein attempts to thwart any parent's search for information. He claims, for example, that "nearly one tenth of all school-aged children ...are being coerced into taking mood-altering drugs [for ADHD]." Further, he claims that some of the stimulant medications used for decades in treating the disorder are Schedule 2 medication because they are addictive. He claims methylphenidate (Ritalin) is an amphetamine, and attempts to paint school nurses who dispense the medication to school children under doctors' orders in exactly the same light as a tatooed, greasy-haired pusher of an illegal drug, speed ("Yeah, man. Take these and you feel real good."). The facts are quite different--and Dr. Stein surely has access to the facts. The number of children diagnosed with ADHD is between 3%-5%--not the 10% he claims--and not all of those diagnosed receive medication. Furthermore, Ritalin, although a mild central nervous system stimulant, is not an amphetamine. Dr. Stein is clearly using the language of demagoguery to engender fear and distrust in the credulous reader. Finally, methylphenidate and other stimulants used in treating ADHD have been placed on Schedule II by the DEA for the following reasons--and ONLY these reasons: 1) They have a legitimate, recognized medical use; 2) They have a "high potential" for abuse; and 3) Abuse of the substance may lead to psychological or physical dependence. Writing a book where one creates assertions out of plain cloth is certainly no novelty; it is called fiction. But for an individual who claims to be a mental health practitioner and teacher to use his position as a means to hinder parents in their search for legitimate information is not merely unethical. It is despicable. Joseph M. Parsons
|
