To Med or Not To Med

Image: CDC (PD)

This post is right in line with what I was going to post about so I thought I'd linky dinky doodle it.

I think the decision to medicate or not when it comes to our children's health is a tricky question to be presented with as a parent. I have heard other parents talk about children that are simply zoned out on meds, I can't imagine what meds would cause either of my children who are on meds to zone out. We haven't met those meds and it might be a good thing because there are days when I would no doubt be tempted. :-)

We have done the Omega route, the supplements, and their diet is very healthy comparatively. I include veggies in every dish I can think of, low sugar and limited processed foods. Mr. can't handle food dyes so that helps to keep the foods that are not fresh more organic and natural because the food industry likes to put dye in everything. Even marshmallows have food dye? They are white for goodness sake!

We have the structure and routine that these kids need. We have been educated on pretty much every parenting technique out there, I think. We have wonderful professionals involved who regularly get their butts kicked by these two.

With both we went the behavior route and or attachment route before we even considered medication. When both the Physician and the Attachment Therapist felt it was time to see what kind of benefit Miss M could get from medication I felt pretty confident I wasn't just looking for the easy way out. What would that be anyway?

I'll admit that I used to pray, "Oh please God let a guy selling tranquilizers and a blow dart come to my door now." But aside from that happening and me being able to completely knock these two out I can't figure out what the easy way out would be.

Before I had to start being CEO of my own Loo Loo Ranch I used to work in a Nursing Home. Most of the patients there were suffering from some form of mental illness in addition to health issues that required skilled nursing care. Some day if I actually had 5 minutes I should write a book about those folks because it would be a funny read. But it was amazing when a doctor finally got a patient's brain chemicals regulated. The transformation in that human being was phenomenal.

I am not a fan of medicating children if it can be avoided. I do think other strategies should be tried first and I don't think any kid should be medicated to the point of "zone out". If they are zoned out they aren't on the right med in my opinion.

Speaking of the right medication Mr. is doing much better. We have not had aggression since last Tuesday. Miss M is holding her own I guess. We have seen some minor backsliding since her rage a little over a week ago, but she seemed back on track today so here's hoping.

Interesting side note - the next day after her rage she was pretending to help her baby doll through a tantrum the same way that Dad was able to help her. She used a calm voice and said the things that Dad says to her to help her get control. I thought that was pretty awesome.