Week 7

After reading the article “Should You Stay Together for the Kids”, I was shocked to see such different opinions coming from professional psychologists that have been in the field for many years. I was completely taken back when I read a quote from Wallerstein, “Children don't need their parents to like each other. They don't even need them to be especially civil. They need them to stay together, for better or worse.” This is a load of crap. I believe the worst thing you can put your kids through is to force them to grow up in a home with an unhealthy relationship between their parents. They grow up with a dysfunctional idea in their head about how their future relationships should be.

 I have two kids and have been divorced. My husband and I were together for 9 years and married for 6. We tried to work on things, we tried to fix things, but people change and after 9 years I realized the man I married was not the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I wanted to be happy. And the biggest thing was I wanted my kids to be happy, it’s not their fault their dad and me couldn’t get along and they didn’t need to see me being treated like crap or make assumptions about either me or their dad based on things they heard us say when we were mad at each other.  My son is now 15 and my daughter is 12, I love my kids and I would sacrifice anything for them but I honestly think they are happy. I know a divorce and/or custody battle is a lot to drag kids through but one day they will realize it was better to grow up with happy parents that weren’t together, than to be in a home where their parents are constantly fighting.

I strongly agree with Anne Watson’s view on the subject. “She opposes tightening divorce laws out of fear that the truly miserable-- battered wives, the spouses of alcoholics--will lose a crucial escape route. But restless couples who merely need their space, in her opinion, had better think twice and think hard.” "If people are divorcing just because of choices they want to make, I think it's pretty tough on the kids," Watson says. "Just because you're going to feel better, will they?" The day I took my wedding vows I never thought in a million years I would be getting a divorce. Marriage is a serious step and I knew that’s what I wanted to do, but sometimes things don’t always go as planned and people grow apart. I’m glad there is the option of divorce because without it I know I wouldn’t be as happy as I am today.

Week 6

Reading the article “Teens before their Time”, I made a lot of connections to what is going on today. They mention how girls are looking older than they actually are. I think it really comes to parenting and what you let your kids do. Girls now are coming into high school with long straight hair, tan skin, white teeth, and are dieting. These are freshman, 14 and 15 year olds that look like they’re in college. Well obviously the senior boys are going after them and giving them all the attention, other girls see this and strive to fit in or are depressed because they can’t fit into that mold.

 It sounds silly but parents need to watch how much time their kids are spending on their appearance. And girls should absolutely not be in a tanning bed and whitening their teeth at the age of 15. After letting them wear tight jeans they’re going to be wearing short shorts, low cut shirts, lots of makeup ect, and it’s just not necessary at that age. Obviously as they grow up and mature they can start making their own decisions about what they wear and how they look but as a parent it’s your job to guide them in the right direction and teach them to have respect for themselves.

 Another problem is that when guys are seeing younger girls that look older they are making advances on them and getting asked out by a senior guy as a freshman girl is pretty much the best thing that could happen. They aren’t thinking period let alone thinking about making the right decisions. I think this is a cause of a high teen pregnancy rate and girls are being exposed to STD’s. It’s a vicious cycle and I think the only way to break it is to educate girls and discipline them to know that it’s okay to look like you’re 15 and that there is a lot more to life than just looking pretty.

Week 5

 

 

week 4

Growing up with ADHD, Andreas story really hit home for me. My mom never believed in medicating her children. I ended up dropping out of school in the eighth grade because I had such a hard time.  I have wondered numerous times if either of my kids will be ADHD. I cant imagine how hard it would be to make a decision to medicate or not. I do believe a brain that is not fully grown can be damaged by unnecessary medications. As mentioned in this article children ages five to nineteen have at least a 7.5% chance of being diagnosed with ADHD And "Children often get their drugs not from a specialist in psychiatry and psychopharmacology  but from and M.D. with the power of a prescription pad."  So who is doing the diagnosing for this 7.5% of children?  In my experience with some doctors, if they have no clue about what is wrong chances are they will give it a guess. For example: when my daughter was eight or so her eye was bothering her. Instead of monitoring her myself my mom nagged me to go to the E.R. After hours of waiting the doc looked in her perfect little eye for five seconds. He then wrote a script for pink eye medication and said it looks the pre stages of it. Skeptical of his diagnoses I tuck the paper away and never pulled it out again and nothing ever happened to her eye. He had no idea what he was talking about. So when I am handed a prescription for certain medications I wait it out awhile before taking them.  I think that our society has diagnoses and medication for everything now a days and its abuse. According to a study by Julie Zito,  a professor at Maryland school of pharmacy the use of antidepressants by children, tripled from 1987 to 1996 and  continues to go up. After reading this article I would really like to learn more about the process of diagnosing children and teens with mental disorders. If I had an unlimited amount of money for a study I would choose to look into misdiagnosing and how often t really happens.