Or if you're hearing voices, go GET some medication. Please do not figure that somehow God is against certain types of pharmaceuticals just because your conservative Christian brothers and sisters said so.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/10/shooter.youth/index.html
Yes, you need to be careful what you put in your body. But when you're hearing voices, acting weird and no one wants to be around you, it's time to see the doctor, ok? I've read in other news stories that the fellow who did this was homeschooled in a deeply religious family. Hopefully that doesn't get TOO much play in other places... but I will say... what I hear from more conservative homeschool families (like this one SEEMS to be at first glance, and you really don't know based on a news story... I'm just talking about generalities here...) is that somehow it's wrong to take medicines prescribed by a psychiatrist. That children should never be medicated.
I'm going to differ with you all in love on this one. I think after a careful consideration of the risks versus the benefits, it's certainly OK to take medication that has been prescribed by a physician. Just because you pray over your children and are schooling them up in the Lord does NOT make you totally immune to mental illness any more than any other physical ailment.
This story is just so sad, but that aspect of it is something I felt needed to be talked about. God bless you all.
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Look Out, Dad!!
My father is the purple dot above the blue weather station. He's juuust outside Milton's evacuation zone. Well! My brother and I jus...
As a mental health professional and a Christian I thank you for this recognition. Often times something is chemically wrong--and it is always a plus when parents are loving and supportive of their child no matter what. I believe God created the professions of social workers and psychologists for a reason :)
ReplyDeleteI will agree that social workers and psychologists can do a great deal of good when the patient is VOLUNTARILY asking for help and co-operating with treatment. No point having good medicines and therapy if the medicines are never ingested and the therapy is never *really* worked on.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I do think that medications are overly prescribed. We've had pediatric developmental pediatricians with lots of degrees and letters recommend meds for my ADHD son and my younger child with autism. The problems would be "helped" by the medicines... but really... when we pulled the children out of the public schools most things got better right away.
Emperor still is very inattentive, careless at times and hyperactive... but... you work around it. He was in kindergarten earlier this year and the teachers did a crummy job of handling him and never saw his potential. I've been homeschooling him, and he is in his brother's second grade classes... almost ready for THIRD GRADE math. And yes, he understands the concepts as well as the "facts."
Elf doesn't need anything. It was the bad school environment that got him upset and nervous. We just keep him home now and he's happy. The only medical side-effect we've seen is a decrease in colds, flus, and other sicknesses.