komponisto comments on Our House, My Rules - Less Wrong

36 Post author: David_J_Balan 02 November 2009 12:44AM

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Comment author: Psy-Kosh 02 November 2009 03:03:29PM 6 points [-]

Or at least, there ought be rather strict rules about when medical care can be forced. I guess forcing a kid to take an antibiotic in the case of them having a nasty bacterial illness that doesn't go away on its own, etc etc... is one thing. ie, if there's a clear unambiguous no one could reasonably dispute it "you're unhealthy now, you'll be better off with this" thing, then okay.

But "well, kids are teasing you, you're a bit different, we're not even really going to diagnose you with anything, but it's just easier for the teachers and everyone if we make you take ritalin 'to make you focus' and supposedly 'help you cope'", well... zah? (excuse me? You want to forcibly chemically hack my mind, that which makes me, well, me... and without even a really compelling justification?) (yeah, they did mean well, but...)

But yeah. I do admit though that, like most things in this world, pretty much any rule we adopt is going to probably have nontrivial downsides.

Comment author: komponisto 03 November 2009 02:40:46AM 5 points [-]

You know, I agree with the general thrust here about the suboptimal treatment of children, but my reaction to this particular sub-thread is to be somewhat envious of those whose parents were actually informed enough to have them put on psychiatric medication for these types of issues. Myself, I was in graduate school before I found out that I needed this sort of treatment. My parents, I think, always viewed my difficulties as character flaws, blamed me (and themselves) for them, and attempted to correct the problem mainly through shaming and punishments of various sorts.

In contrast to the experiences of a lot of other people, I tend to think that if I had been given something like Ritalin from an early age (say middle school), I might not have nearly flunked out of high school (which resulted in my having to attend a run-of-the-mill state university, and so on).