ExchangeEveryDay Past Issues

Does anyone have experience with or recommended sites to learn about neurofeedback (EED) and ADD or learning deficincies?

Amen to this. Who is this person? They should be heading the department of education or the teachers union.

I am sick and tired of people harping on the school systems and standardized testing. The problem is the parenting and quite honestly the child care industry has not helped. There is clearly a huge need for parent training. There is not one legitimate study that correlates spanking with violent behavior. There is a difference between a spanking and abuse. I have worked with abused and neglected children for over 15 years. The parents of today's society are both lazy and afraid of disciplining their children. They are afraid that their child will not like them. They are afraid that they will be reported to DHR if the child pitches a fit in Walmart and they don't respond by trying to get down on the child's level and giving them choices. The choice is stop pitching a fit or get a spanking. Children start learning prior to birth. They know when the parent is nervous or unsure and start minipulating their environment very shortly after their birth through crying. An inappropriate response to crying starts the child and parent down the wrong path and eventually to the conclusion of the parent that drugs are the only means to control the monster that is created by the parent and society.

I've been in the Child Development field for 10 years and I do believe that if a child is properly diagnosed by the appropriate medical doctors and child development professionals, and then together conclude with out a doubt that the child needs medical intervention then the issue is being handled properly. However, you do see some parents out there who do want a quick fix regardless of whether or not their child has been diagnosed properly. For example, my step daughter is only 2 years old and lives with her biological mother in Arizona. During one of our visitations with the child and biological mother, the biological mother to us said, "I believe its highly possible that my daughter has ADD just like my brother does." This is a mother who is on the highest dose of antidepressents making this statement to us. She floored us with this comment and raised even more concerns for this childs future. Living with a constantly medicated parent, what chance does this child have in being able to grow up with a normal childhood. Being a Child Development professional I only observed a normal 2 year old showing typical 2 year old behaviors. My question to everyone out there is, "What do we do about the parents who are highly medicated, and they are making their children go on medications just because they can't handle their own child when they are medicated or just because it is the normal thing to do because the extended family is also medicated, so therefore the child needs to go on medication?"

I am a special ed teacher and have observed many special needs children and I really don't think that a child enjoys rolling around on the floor or having an uncontrollable tantrum or engaging in head banging, face smacking or biting. We need to help the children.