KIDS ARE SUFFERING LEGAL DRUG ABUSE

Most adults used to think that psychoactive drugs - substances that affect
thinking and feeling - were bad for children and teen-agers. Hence the
slogan, ''Just say no to drugs.'' At the same time, prescribing psychiatric
drugs to children was a rare and extreme measure.

But now many adult authorities are turning to drugs in order to bridge the
gap between generations in a far more insidious and coercive way - by the
forced drugging of children. Probably at least 5 million or 6 million
children each year - 10 percent or more of the school-age population - will
take one or more of a variety of psychiatric drugs, including stimulants
such as Ritalin and Adderall and antidepressants such as Prozac and Zoloft.
The rates are even higher among children in special classes, foster care,
mental hospitals, and juvenile detention centers.

In my psychiatric practice, I see children 6 to 10 years old who have been
put on four or five psychiatric medications at once. Why? Because their
parents and their teachers haven't found a way to reach them with the
necessary combination of rational discipline, unconditional love, and
engaging relationship. And because society has failed to address the whole
range of problems that afflict our children - from the breakdown of the
family and the educational system to child abuse, sexism, racism, poverty,
and inadequate health care.

Who gets drugged among our children? Literally any kids who do not put on a
happy face and conform. This includes children who are sad and anxious, or
angry and aggressive, as well as disobedient kids - children who won't do
their chores, finish their homework, or get good grades. Even children who
are shy and dreamy are now the target of psychiatric drugs.

This medicalization of shyness ignores its causes, including both traumatic
abuse and natural personality differences. The child is compelled to
display a drug-induced superficial social veneer. In a society that's
supposed to accept and even value differences, drugging shy children
reflects an extreme of enforced conformity.

The child's ''problem'' in many cases is caused by unrealistic adult
expectations or neglect, conflict, and trauma. But instead of recognizing
our role in creating and in healing our children's suffering, we give them
psychiatric labels such as Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,
Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and Clinical Depression that blame the
children themselves and their presumably faulty brains.

As a result, the International Narcotics Control Board of the World Health
Organization has warned about the massive overprescription of stimulants to
children in the United States, a country that now uses 90 percent of the
world's Ritalin.

We are the first adults to handle the generation gap through the wholesale
drugging of our children. We may be guaranteeing that future generations
will be relatively devoid of people who think critically, raise painful
questions, generate productive conflicts, or lead us to new spiritual and
political insights.

Growing up on psychiatric drugs, millions of children are developing little
sense of personal responsibility. Instead of discovering their own capacity
to improve their lives and to transform the world for the better, they are
being taught they are brain-defective - and require lifetime treatment with
psychiatric drugs.

From Ritalin and Dexedrine to Prozac and Paxil, the drug epidemic among our
children comes increasingly from our prescription counters. (Indeed, the
use of most illicit drugs has for some time shown a steady decline among
youth.) It's time to stop subduing our children at the cost of their brains
and their independent mental life. Instead, we need to do what every
generation has been called upon to do - to bridge the gap through active,
disciplined, and loving engagement with the children in our care.

There's no simple prescription for this. It requires a thorough
reevaluation of personal and political priorities and a determination to
create a society that meets the needs of its children for adult
relationships, solid family life, inspiring education, and equal
opportunity for men and women of all racial and ethnic backgrounds.

Amid all the hype over ''listening to Prozac,'' we need to listen much
harder to our children's cries for help. Instead of chemically restraining
and gagging them, we need to do the hard work of reordering our private
lives and our public policies to address the needs of our nation's children.