Kevin's Watch

that IS the saddest calvin and hobbs!!

booboo lips for the C&H clip...

Remind me: What is wrong with the C&H strip? I don't read it.

Bloom County is, without a doubt, one of my all time favorite comics.

Thanks for bringing all that back Peven.

I still have all the Bloom County books.

That was a great strip.

my all time favorite strip as well, and i still enjoy pulling out my compilation books and killing an entire afternoon reading through them. the Steve Dallas strips were some of the funniest too.

Spring wrote:Remind me: What is wrong with the C&H strip? I don't read it.

Aw, Spring...come on! They put Calvin on meds, now his imagination is fried! Hobbes turns back into a stuffed toy...

I have never understood how or why people find/found Garfield funny.

Even when it came out I didn't like it.

::sigh:::

I too find the C&H strip to be sad, especially as it sums up how I feel about medicating kids for 'focus' and 'behavioral' issues. But, I know many posters on the AS boards who feel just as strongly that medication is a blessing for their kids...

It seems that medicating kids is a relatively new phenomenon. When I was Calvin's age (early '70s), you never heard about medicating kids for behavioral issues. It became more of an issue in the mid-late '80s.

Maybe I'm completely off-base, but the majority of the kids I've seen with so-called behavioral issues are suffering from nothing more than poor parenting, and in our rush to cure all of life's ills through the simple fix (taking a pill), we've created a whole generation of over-medicated kids who're going to become over-medicated adults.

I have no empirical evidence to support this, so I welcome any comments or insight from anyone who knows more about it.

Cail wrote:Maybe I'm completely off-base, but the majority of the kids I've seen with so-called behavioral issues are suffering from nothing more than poor parenting, and in our rush to cure all of life's ills through the simple fix (taking a pill), we've created a whole generation of over-medicated kids who're going to become over-medicated adults.

Cail, it does appear that way to the 'non-educated in various disabilities' eye. And yet, Paul and I were doing everything we could to resolve some of Beorn's issues and getting nowhere. We tried various parenting techniques, consulted parenting 'experts,' and nothing helped.

When I stumbled across the Parade Magazine Article on AS when Beorn was 9 years old, it didn't fit Beorn perfectly. But it was enough to set my 'Mommy radar' a quiver.

Getting the AS diagnosis didn't solve all his problems, but we researched and learned about techniques that do help him, such as sensory integration therapy in OT, pragmatic language usage and social skills in ST, and gross and fine motor coordination in PT. As of now, he does not see either a psychiatrist or psychologist, and is not medicated through prescription drugs, although we have found some nutritional supplements which we believe benefit him. However, the techniques used successfully for parenting NTs have been found to do nothing for Beorn at all. Unless he lived his life in punishment, he barely noticed parenting input, and then he would not have any idea why he was being punished, even if we sat the entire time and tried to discuss it with him. And this is an academically gifted child, according to his school district.

He will still stim (pace and hand flap) in stressful situations to him, but as he learns to self regulate himself, it is becoming more rare that he does so. He still has atrocious social and conversation skills, even with the therapies and our constant reminders about manners and being polite. But, I do see progress, and am awaiting the day when he will recieve his own phone call from someone inviting him to play or hang out (he's never had a phone call other than a family member or teacher, kids simply shun him).

I strongly believe the use of ritalin was over prescribed for primary school aged boys in the late 1970s/1980s. However, I also hear of children with absolutely no impulse control (preschoolers to seven year olds who run out the door to the street at every opportunity, even with vigilant caregivers/parents and routines in place to try and avoid the opportunity from arising or tweens and teens who can not censor what comes out of their mouths at all) or the sever anxious or hyperactive child. For some of these kids, and their families, use of medications like straterra or celexa (I think it's called celexa) do help these sitations. I praise HaShem that we have not had to go that route so far, but Paul and I have been advised to watch Beorn as he enters adolesence and becomes more aware of his social isolation. Aspies have been known to become severely depressed in their teens due to peer shunning, and we hope by starting therapy with Beorn at a somewhat early age that his social skills will be improved enough to avoid this. But, if he should become clinicaly depressed, we may have to go the medication route at that point.

Thank you Menolly. I had no idea.

Excellent post Menolly. I certainly agree that there are instances where medication is the answer. However, I strongly believe that there is an over-eagerness, either among parents or the medical or educational communities to over-prescribe it.

I remember a recent case there where the court attempted to force a parent to have ritalin diagnosed for his child.

I truly believe that it should be the last resort, and only as part of a clear diagnosis, and after other methods have failed.

Too often, I fear it is the answer for parents who don't want to, or can't be bothered to, make the effort, unlike yourself and Paul, who clearly made every effort first.

(And why is there only one C&H strip in here? Oh, and I like Garfield sometimes. )

--A

Sarge, is this a real C & H strip. I've never seen it and it doesn't really seem in the spirit of the strip?

u.

Cail wrote:I have never understood how or why people find/found Garfield funny.

Even when it came out I didn't like it.

That's because it sucked.

dANdeLION wrote:

Cail wrote:I have never understood how or why people find/found Garfield funny.

Even when it came out I didn't like it.

That's because it sucked.

Enter Garfield Minus Garfield.

dANdeLION wrote:

Cail wrote:I have never understood how or why people find/found Garfield funny.

Even when it came out I didn't like it.

That's because it sucked.

Yay Maddox.

I will say that, as someone who is now medicated, I have not been able to track any effect whatsoever that the meds have on me, positive or negative. I would say that the second "major" manic episode I had resulted in a kind of paranoia which has not and probably will not fade and an occasional tendency to completely zone out from whatever problem is at hand (in fact, sometimes I've given my parents the same treatment that Calvin gave Hobbes in the comic strip, sans forgetting that they exist - I've been in the middle of conversation with them and then lost track of the conversation in favor of thinking about something else). But I've been something of a day dreamer for a long time.