"Health Canada has not approved atypical antipsychotics for children."

Yet they sit back and let it happen!

Honestly, this 'off-label' prescribing is merely a smokescreen of non-accountability. It's like, "We don't approve that these drugs are safe for kids but we won't come down on you hard if you prescribe them!"

Fid

I somehow doubt the rate of psychosis in Canadian children has gone up 1000% in the past ten years.

I wonder why they even bother categorizing drugs any more. Why call something an antidepressant or antipsychotic if you're going to use it for everything from depression to splinters.

I was happy to see the report on TV because it warned of the health consequences the prescribing doctors probably have not given. It might give some guilt and worry to the parents.

I was sad to see the child interviewed agree the chemical was helping him.
But thats what the kid had to say, Right?. Could the child disagree? Who is the childs advocate?
Was there a trial? No, just his parents and psychiatrist judged him "ill".

This armchair/ backseat driver postulates the chemical is a replacement for a male authority figure who in the past might issue physical discipline from a childs out of control angry outburst.
Invisible mental/soul abuse(YOU!YoU ArE SiCK) of forced mind altering chemicals is so much better than corporal punishment. NOT.

Whatever happened to PARENTING? Parents seem to just turn their children over to doctors these days, who are not experts in home life and environment and usually don't take the time to get to know the kids they prescribe for. Like with Destiny Hager, she'd been moved around with FOUR different sets of relatives in her short three year old life. Of course she was acting out!

There has to be a perfectly good explanation for this unexplained bizarre happening.

Maybe the World Health Organization "WHO" will be announcing a world wide pandemic of psychosis in children in the coming days.

This couldn't possibly be about out of control greed, and drugging behavioral issues for profit.

Thanks for posting this article. Yes, it is very distressing.

Sandy did a nice job on her rant, drawing into the mix this same news program. http://thestar.blogs.com/mentalhealth/2009/07/is-texting-versus-talking-good-for-your-emotional-health.html

Good for her for that rant. Maybe, a mother or two will read it, and pause, for a minute. I can say this. If I didn't have to be on an anti-psychotic drug I wouldn't be. If a doctor recommended one to my child? I'd be looking elsewhere for help, believe me. It is distressing that people think this is an answer to emotional troubles in children. And/or behaviour troubles.

I think kimbriel and Deb have it right.

What is happening to parenting and not just mothering?

Perhaps a sacrifice of one income and some "stuff" for the first precious and seminal six years of a child's life would help. Along with a serious review of the public education system which is not socializing children, but speeding them through to post secondary education.

In Ontario, Canada, Grade 13 was dropped a while back, so kids go to college or university at 17 instead of 18. Maybe they're not ready.

Kids in grade one come home with hours of homework. Maybe that's not such a good idea.

I don't know. As a college professor, what I do know is most students in my classes can barely write a sentence. They sit in class refusing to take notes.

They learn differently. My concern is, are they learning the basics. Forget about grammar. Syntax. Spelling. Those are skill sets of the past. Welcome to Spellcheck and Proofreader.

Is psychosis on the rise? No. Kids aren't psychotic. They're moody. Emotionally immature and unable to control their feelings. Or vent them in a healthy way. So they act out. They're like little ticking time bombs without the verbal skills to vent. Or the opportunity to run around and get the exercise they need.

A teacher will single out a child who isn't compliant or acts out and bingo, that child is sent to a doctor and slapped with a bipolar disorder diagnosis. In 20 minutes. Out comes the prescription pad. Quick fix. Pop a pill. Bandaid solution to a symptom, not a problem.

Antipsychotics are used for something called childhood bipolar disorders. Didn't exist when I was a kid.

I urge you to listen for 19 minutes to a brilliant talk by educator Sir Kenneth Robinson who discusses how schools kill creativity in children.

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Note his anecdote about British choreographer and dancer Gillian Lynne http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillian_Lynne

And if you are really interested, have a look at the 2008 PBS documentary, "The Medicated Child" about how 6 million American children are being given prescriptions to potentially dangerous neuroleptic drugs, off-label to them.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/medicatedchild/

Philip has done brilliant work on this issue. I just think that Texting instead of Talking is all part of the problem, too.

We're losing our ability to engage with each other face-to-face. Losing the art of conversation. No wonder kids act out in school. Who has time to really listen to them and encourage them to voice their concerns.

Talking is therapeutic, but not when you're talking to yourself and no one has the time to listen? In real time. Face-to-face.

Parents are both working. Exhausted when they get home. Don't have time to cook healthy meals from scratch. Buy processed stuff filled with more chemicals. How many families sit down at a table together and share a meal together? After dinner, parents sit in front of the TV or their own computers at night? Kids mimic what they see. They cannot run freely and safely around their neighbourhoods anymore, so they engage with an inanimate object. They're computers. Or their cellphones. Or multitask and to both at the same time, while watching TV.
What a world we live in. I'm worried.

I guess normal people want to eradicate all mentally ill people for our way of thinking. It is a shame because I think we have a lot to offer. They don't care if we are crippled by side-effects or even die early from them. Those who are on heavy doses could even be considered dead already in my view.

I think this article at the CBC is ADVERTISING these drugs and disease-mongering behavior problems. It is propaganda to promote the testing of these drugs on kids. The idea is that since they are so widely prescribed studies should go ahead in order to get approval. Anyone who has looked into research methods for all psychotropics knows the system is fraught with fraud. If a drug shuts down neurons and shuts people up (without killing too many subjects at first) it gets on the market.

A fellow commenter asks: Whatever happened to PARENTING?

This question always raises a lot of defensive feathers among parents who do drug their kids, for obvious reasons. But I think there`s ample blame go around. If you are a parent who does not make it a hobby of researching the data and debates around mental health care, you are at the mercy of your health care providers and family doctor, who are all too happy to write script after script for the lates pharma-fad drugs.

But yes, there is also a "spare the rod, spoil the child" feeling I have about all this. When I was a kid in the 1960`s, various difficult life circumstances led my little brother to (how we said it back then) "spazz out" for a prolonged period of time. He was what today would have been classified as ADHD. Back then, there was no such diagnosis. He was considered a hyper kid who was acting out, especially after consuming a bit too much sugar. My parents were tough on him, but also got him some quality child psych counselling. Guess what... he grew out of said "spazzing out" by the time he was 13 and has since grown into a professional, well adjusted, stable adult - not a single drug was administered in this process. Had he been given a cocktail of antpsychotics and stimulants at the age of 9, he`d likely be a complete basketcase today, strung out on one cocktail or another, and diagnosed with every mental ailment (bipolar, adult ADHD, OCD, ad nauseum) under the sun.

It`s no coincidence to me that the ADHD fad happened during what some call Generation Me -- those kids born after 1970, who were raised by post-60s parents and schools on a steady diet of self-esteem. The issue of instilling self-esteem seems benign, even positive. But the problem was that during that time that it was self-esteem with no reference point, no reason to be self-worthy. There need to be accomplishments and achievements directly related to self-esteem, otherwise its nothing more than narcissism.

There`s been some fantastic research on this question, most notably San Diego State psych professor Dr. Jean Twenge, whose book, "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable Than Ever Before" - offers key insights into why youth depression rates have spiked dramatically in the last 2 decades. When you you have a generation of narcissist kids who are taught they are great, wonderful and can do anything - and then are confronted by the harsh ralities of life (like the current recession and housing collapse), its no wonder we have Prozac Nation. Of course, this makes for ideal symbiotic conditions for big phrama to push their products.

I hate to sound so old, but we live in a culture now where if a teacher tries to discipline a kid, the response from parents is lawsuit. If a kid is acting up in the home, the response from parents is - my kid is sick, needs drugs. Kids need to be left to be kids! They freak our sometimes, they have spazz attacks, some spazz out more intnsely than others. For the most part, its part of natural, normal child development.

You should google Twenge`s book and give it a read. It`s an important piece of the mental health puzzle. And it will anger you to no end.

I know, my comment sounded harsh... but it's just... it's bad enough that the doctors are so trigger happy to prescribe what amounts to speed (and then more drugs, antipsychotics, when the child freaks out on Concerta)... but as the parent of a 6 year old, I simply cannot imagine just blindly giving him pills without doing my own research.

I am Destiny Hager's mother kimbriel and just let me reassure you that I did ask for help. I went to a counseling center first and said how can i be a better parent, they told me that the prairie view would be a great place because they would OBSERVE (key word here) us. I'm not angry, just heartbroken. People look at me like I'm a monster and no offense, but she was around family, not just thrown in with them all of a sudden. She grew up with these members of family. I am not a perfect person, nor a perfect parent as I'm sure none of you are either. This story was meant to bring awareness and obviously it did. Whether negative or positive at least it's out here.