Are your child’s grades not up to par? Forgo talking to his teacher and instead, talk his doctor into an Adderall prescription. Doctors are prescribing antipsychotics—especially to low income kids—at alarming rates, because their use often results in better school performance.
The debate over whether or not attention deficit disorder (ADHD) in kids should be treated pharmaceutically isn’t new. But these kids don’t actually have ADHD― or any other learning disability, according to The New York Times. Instead, they’re suffering from the effects of underfunded public schools and the poor academic performance that comes with needing extra help when your teacher is too overwhelmed to give it.
Dr. Michael Anderson, a pediatrician in Canton, Georgia explains to the Times, “I don’t have a whole lot of choice. We’ve decided as a society that it’s too expensive to modify the kid’s environment. So we have to modify the kid.” He readily admits some of his diagnoses of “ADHD” are often a “made up excuse” to prescribe drugs to children who otherwise would fall through the cracks of a failing school system.
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