Are kids today being labeled too quickly....??!

Are kids today being labeled too quickly....??

When I was growing up, there was no such thing as ADD/ADHD....but it seems to me that today all kinds of kids are on medication for either ADD/ADHD, or Bi-Polar Disorder, or depression. What's really going on...??

I think children grow up too fast sexually and are being pushed too hard mentally to achieve a nebulous "success." The labeling comes about from society and parents turning on the under achievers in an effort to remedy their supposed deviation from the normal. There really is no "norm."

One of the best books ever written on social stratification was by the late Stephen J. Gould entitled "The Mismeasure of Man." about IQ. It seems in his opinion that IQ measures nothing that has to do with an ability to function well. IQ is an American invention designed to reward only those who are socially desirable, that is those who the elite approve of. Gould was an elite member, a proffesor at Harvard. A low IQ denotes one as being inferior as does a diagnosis of ADD/ADHD.

The ideas of inferiority that these children gain from their elders and peers is a stigma that follows them and leads to either a physical or mental revolt or both. Depression and the rising rate of teen suicide seems to me to be and denote an epidemic.

FromGould's book I take this quote by Charles Darwin:
"If the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin." Not all depressed, Bi-polar, ADD/ADHD children are poor but most are afraid of being so or are a victim of their parents and teachers fear of being so; a fear placed there by our society's emphasis on "success".

Good luck, good health, peace and love!