Struggling School-Age Boys

Most of these "diagnosed" kids don't have ADHD or anything like that, they have a desperate need for discipline, and that includes knowing that if they act out they may get their bums swatted by a loving parent. All those pills kids are taking are just makiing drug companies and doctors richer...alot of kids just need more fresh air activities and more attention from their parents. Also, in case you missed my previous posting, let me reiterate: They had to try and find some way to teach girls in an enviroment full of misbehaving boys and it is difficult. The boys were getting too much classroom attention from teachers who had to constantly reprimand them and give them special attention due to their inability to sit still and pay attention.

I completely agree with the points in this article. The majority of the kids do not need more drugs, they need time for free play to run off excess energy so they can sit down and focus in class. Thirty years ago when I was in elementary school we had an hour of recesses a day, 15 minutes both the morning and afternoon and 30 minutes at lunch time. The schools knew back then what we have forgotten...you can only make a child focus for an hour or two at most before they just need to move and do something different. Kids need some free time in school and out of school to find what they like. Our system of structuring everyday with activities before, during and after school is providing a huge disservice to our kids - they aren't learning to make decisions, manage time or even learning what they like because they are so busy doing what Mom and Dad say they have to do.

As for the comments about the schools not teaching anything practical...they never have - that is not their job. They are teaching the principles and theories and it is up to the parents to teach their children the practical application. You can't do "practical application" in the classroom with 20 students. When my son and I go to the grocery store I make him take items off the shelf and tell me how much they cost, which package is bigger, what is the better value. When I cook with my nieces, we have a fractions class - how many different ways can they make 3/4 cup, we are making a half recipe, what is 1/2 of 3/4 cup, etc.

The school is there to teach theory, fundamentals and how to work with diverse other people - my job as a parent is to teach my children how to function in this world and be a responsible person.

I totally agree.....KUDOS to the writer. I totally understand i myself thought my child might need medication and ended up putting him in a private school system and everything is totaly different. So that tells me that the public school systems dont want to deal with little boys anymore. Boys will be boys so teachers need to be taught how do deal with rough housing little boys.

Hi! My children go to a small Christian School that has about 100 students total K-12. They stress basics in education and good moral development. Very little computer and lab work. they have three recesses a day and are required to play with the other children. they older children mentor the younger ones and help in their classes. I have a 16 year old that has attended this school since second grade and he is now enrolled early in college. He is a healthy, well ajusted, educated young man. I give a lot of credit to this school with its SIMPLE classes( but well covered basics). They teach the way "it used to be done." I really feel you do not need all the "fluff" that so many parents have been told their child needs to "make it in the world today." what these children need is play, good moral education, and a good dose of common sense. Raise a Good hearted person with a good head on his shoudlers, and he/she can achieve anything they desire. Raise a "great student" and you have a unidimensional being.

I am concerned with what happens when these boys are 18 and there is no one who cares about their challenges? Considerations should be made regarding a childs lable but in the end these kids will need to feed themselves. What happens to the kids if their parents die early and they have been such a handful no one in the family wants them? What happens if the children are adopted and there isn't any family to go to? Foster care only goes to 18 -19 depending on when someone graduates high school then then it ends. What then? These children havn't been taught how to function and that trama is far greater than society expecting these children to follow rules early on. I am comfortable saying this I was one of those kids who woke up one day with no one and hit 18 to have the state say your 18 you no longer have a home. I was lucky I grew up in cusp of rules still being important and before medication but at the beginning of it being o.k. not to learn anything in school because "I had sad homelife" but it crippled me for long time. I can truly say I wish I would have been taught how to learn get a job, understand no one really cared unless I pulled my own weight alot earlier. In the end the few rules I learned and the educators who made sure I learned them eventually paid off. I am very successful, happy and respected. So are my children and they follow rules despite their allergies and the challenges that go with.

I also can speak first hand about 'burning out'. I was always in gifted and honors classes, starting in third grade. By the end of my junior year of high school I was burned out, tired of it, and I stopped the obsessive behavior over grades, done with the hard classes, I just wanted to be 16. In the end I did not go to college until I was in my mid 20s despite scoring over 1300 on the SATs, including a 740 out of 800 in math, instead I worked as a fast food manager. and this was 15+ years ago, when school was less intense than today. I personally am working very hard now so that by middle school I can either home school my boys or send them to a private school that values a learning environment that is best for kids to thrive, not test scores.

In regards to the increase in ADD and ADHD--the elementary teachers across the US have CHANGED the methods of teaching in order to accomodate girls in the classroom. Why did they do this? Because of wanting to have girls do better in math and science since boys do better than girls in junior high. The unintended consequence is that the boys got left out along the way.

I have a girl 12 and a boy 8. My daughter does wonderful in school. My son struggles, he is in the 3rd grade and is failing already. I sit down with him at night and study I am very much apart of his schooling. But I am struggling with the fact that the teacher says that she isn't going to explain more than once that he is just gonna have to get it the first time. She suggested I have him tested. I refuse to becuase what good will that do? I do not intend on giving him medication. Any suggestions?

Boys started struggling in the classroom when the "Take your DAUGHTER to Work" agenda started. The idea was to buildup the girls in the elementary grades so they could keep up with the boys in math and science in juinior high and high school.. To counter this, there were many workshops on how to promote girls in the elementary classrooms. This was the agenda that was pushed throughout the US. The unintended consequence was the boys were ignored. If we could just NOT promote one member of society over everyone else and give EVERYONE equal attention, opportunities, and mentoring there would be no problems. As often said, to put children first but I would like to add to it: "Put ALL children first"!!

As a mother to 3 boys, and a teacher, I agree with the author. Our society expects boys to fit into a box. My 5 year old son got in trouble at school for touching another student on the arm, hence the song is taught "keep your hand and feet to yourself". We are an affectionate & playful family- we are always tickling, playing chase or even wrestling. Freedom to play cowboys & native Americans, or wargames are important to a boys development. My boys get to roam 20 acres, dig in the dirt, catch lizards or frogs, catch bugs & spiders, get dirty and ride their bikes. They also play baseball & football- but the bottom line is they are ALL BOY. Yes, they get in trouble sometimes when they do stuff they shouldn't but I am extremely blessed to be their mother & confidant. Sometime they even spray me with the hose- or throw a bug on me, but I in no way shape or form think they need to take drugs for ADHD or need mental help.

As the mother of a son and daughter, I can attest to the fact that while their intelligence and capabilities are equal, the learn in very different ways. I believe that the essential differences between male and femal are no longer recognized for far that if we acknowledge these differences, we are saying that there is inequality. This is not true. Recognizing inherent differences physically and socially merely acknowledges the diversity of the human race. To often today teachers expect all children to behave in the same accepted manner and if they do not, then they call a conference and tell the parents that their child has a "behavioral disorder". Whether this is due to administrative pressures to "teach to the test" , social pressures from the "feminization" of society or sheer laziness and an inability to cope with an energetic child I don't know, although I suspect it is a combination of said factors. I also believe that the lack of male teachers in the primary grades is a part of the problem - boys today often lack a male role model.

As a 15 year member of the PTA, I was in an out of the school office and I have watched with dismay the increasing numbers of medicated students - most of them boys. It is alarming to realize that we would prefer to drug our children into compliance rather than acknowledge the pressures we have put on them.

Schools have nor only limited recess, but they have cut back on phyical education also. We must remember that to be well balanced we need to live balanced lives. Equal parts of learning with equal parts of play. Reading and hand on activities. Structured time as well as time to just be.

We need to stop looking at the excuses that it is chemicals in plastic or vaccines or computers or whatever and realize that while these are factors to consider and perhaps they play a role, the problem is we no longer care to celebrate the indivdual, we no longer believe in the balance of life.

I, along with my doctor resisted the efforts of my son's teachers to label him and medicate him. We tested him for the "problems" they were seeing, found the teacher's observations unsupported and refused to medicate him. Today my son is a healthy, happy, well adjusted 10th grader with no signs of the "troubling behaviors" that his primary teachers reported. Instead of lableing our children and medicating them into compliance, perhaps we ought to study when these changes began and what changed, then we can begin to find the solution. I believe we would find a combination of factors that would require a multi-pronged solution. Not a simplistic solution of more mental health care and more medication.

Maybe its not the schools. Perhaps its the video games, tv and other play alone games we give our children from the cradle. How s a kid supposed to get around in this world with out substantial interaction with others - especially at younger ages! Also, there are too many parents out there who take tests and studies as if written in stone and apply them to their own children. Kids will be kids and if meds, parents and teachers are going to step in the way of that, of course you are going to see a meltdown! Ask you one question - do any of you, while growing up, remember getting bombarded with so much interactive media, drugs that temporarily fix a mental problem, exposure to moral issues such as being gay, or being told not to compete because you may hurt someone else's feelings? If your over 30 more than likely not! What happened to the good old days of kids being kids! By the way, trying to 'cure' this issue will only make it worse (in fact I think it is arrogant). Stop doing what we are doing will likely produce results.

BTW this trend of wanting to medicate boys because so many have "ADHD" should be criminal. In the 1950's they were treating mental illness with lobotomies--scrambling part of the brain--because people wanted a quick fix and didn't understand the entire scope of the problem. Same with the ADHD epidemic--it's much easier to dope someone up so they will keep quiet rather than to try to fix the real problem. I hope the Doctor "experts" and social workers who encourage this type of behavior get the 'pants' sued off of them and permanently disbarred from practicing medicine or seeing patients.

I have a son and a daughter - my son is in Jr. High and my daughter is in elementary school. I can see a difference in how my school days where compared to my childrens. My daughter has one "recess" and P.E. with instruction twice a week. Also, my daughter is battling a weight issue which I think could be helped with more excercise during the day. Anyway, we had recess in the morning, after lunch and P.E. with our class everyday and I hope to think that I am as intelligent as the next person. The homework is ungodly for my son in Jr. High and along with the extra activities after school he is just shot at bedtime!! Somthing needs to change - our children are growing up way too fast and have no time to just be kids!

i can't believe people put their children on drugs in order to cope with the joke school system we have.
People are not only pumping their children with mercury vaccines, giving them a chemical lobotomy, putting them in day care, putting them in gov't prison training centers aka public schools, and then when the boys flip out, instead of taking the advice and 'just say no', they are pumped full of mood altering elicit drugs--ritilin is speed for children. If this is your boy, you have given them a grim future, because not only will they be a lifetime pill snorting/popping drug addict, they will never really mature or function in regular society.
When I look back at my so called "education", it was so strict, and SUCH A JOKE, filled with irrelevant information, rigorous training of useless knowledge, surrounded by abusive, sadistic teachers (if you were lucky they taught anything at all), school yard societal tactics which carry over into adult life.
Kids are having such problems in the gov't public schools and they try to make it out like it's so hard, but what's the facts?
Well, the fact is the USA has the lowest bar of education of any in the developed world, the Public school system in this country does nothing but pump out some of the most moronic, least informed, least thinking sentient people on the planet.
And to add insult to injury, they punish the children when they don't conform to the crap standard which is public school. They fail them, --making sure they lifetime failures and put them on drugs--making sure they are also addicts,
but at least they'll be worth something to the gov't and corporations in that they will contribute their money through their addictions, and hopefully make themselves useful and be incarcerated at one of our many american jail corporations. and hey, there's less competition in the job market when they are scratched out of the picture. Drugs and failures are made good for the economy.