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Treating ADHD with Ritalin is a way to ignore the situations and factors that may exacerbate the symptoms of the disorder. Parents need to take some responsibility for their childrens disorders and seek treatments besides Ritalin. Physicians should recommend a program that combines chemical and behavioral treatments to assist children in working through their disorder. It seems that Ritalin may be over prescribed in our country, with an estimated 2 million children taking Ritalin (Breggin, 1995). Physicians rarely take the time to find out if Ritalin is even the best solution for an ADHD child. The best way to determine this is to alternate days of giving a child Ritalin and a placebo and recording the resulting behavior.
If Ritalin is found to be more effective than the placebo, the doctor should devise a plan to work the drug, along with behavioral therapy, into the childs treatment plan for a limited amount of time. Behavioral therapy for ADHD children and families can help in a variety of ways. While behavioral therapy may take more time, effort, and money than simple drug treatments, it may have more lasting and valuable effects. For example, around the time children enter school, they begin to learn that they have to take responsibility for the choices and actions that they make. Without behavioral therapy, children on Ritalin may not be able to make those same conclusions, and instead blame their disorders for their actions (Breggin, 1995).
It should be noted that with Ritalin alone, children with ADHD are still distinguishable among their peers in regard to behavior patterns and academic performance (Whalen & Henker, 1998). Behavioral therapy may teach children how to have normal interactions with others and increase the chance that peers will accept the ADHD child. This therapy may also be able to teach children strategies to help them succeed in school. Behavioral treatments should also involve the parents, who also carry some responsibility for their childrens improvement.
Parents should be taught methods of discipline that do not involve giving into the childrens behavior. The therapy can also identify risk factors and issues in the family that may trigger reactions in ADHD children. If parents learn to deal with these issues, their children may begin to function in a more appropriate way. Ritalin is a drug with many side effects and its prescription should not be taken lightly. Physicians who prescribe only Ritalin for ADHD are ignoring the fact that Ritalin does not work for all children and that when taken off Ritalin, ADHD children most often return to their previous behavior patterns. Physicians should prescribe Ritalin only on a limited basis and only when behavioral treatments for the child and for the parents are recommended as well.
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Research essay sample on Behavioral Therapy Behavior Patterns
