Medication for Kids with ADHD

I just read an article in a Newsletter from The Center for Learning Differences about the long-term effects of giving stimulants to kids with ADHD. I don't doubt the validity of the information. I know from experience that stimulants can interfere with appetite and sleep and that impairment of either one is a serious matter in the life of a child.

Nonetheless, I think there's a lot more to the story than what's in the article and I worry that parents who are already leery about giving medication to their children will grab on to this kind of information as further support for not medicating.

What the article doesn't talk about is that there are a variety of different medications that are stimulants and a child may have adverse side effects to one medication and yet be fine on a different one. And not all children experience side effects anyway. Moreover, there are also medications to treat ADHD that are not stimulants. So I hope that people don't react to this article by assuming that they shouldn't even try medication.

• Click here to go to The Center for Learning Differences' website.

Please note that I am not endorsing or expressing any opinion about this organization as I don't know anything about them, have not studied their website and am not sure how I got on their mailing list.