I sent Tim's original post to a psychiatrist friend, who responded: Ritalin is a lifesaver for a small % of children who suffer from a condition characterized by hyperactivity and poor attention span. These kids (usually boys) may be bright as hell but fail in school because they can't sit still or pay attention; they get made fun of, they behave badly, get depressed, it's a mess. Some of them (milder cases) respond to behavior modification therapies which involve training of the parents and teachers to have realistic expectation, recognize the specific difficulties the kids have, set them goals, reward them for achieving them, give them disincentives for misbehaving etc. Others really do need Ritalin. It's a relief not just for the parents and teachers but for the kids to be able to sit still and pay attention and learn and succeed and be liked etc. Most of them grow out of it by their mid-teens. However, there are many more kids on Ritalin than there need to be; some teachers pressure parents to get kids put on it... I know one very bright little girl who's bored out of her mind in school, the school refuses to move her up a grade or give her more challenging work to do, instead complain that she is not paying attention and suggested that she be put on Ritalin... mother was furious. Some of the kids who use foul language (a very small %) have Tourette's disease, and also need medicine (a different one)... by and large the politically correct thing is sometimes to label a kid as sick rather than bad or spoiled, this is probably why drugs are over-used. But we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater! By the way, some old people who are severely depressed after a stroke also do well with Ritalin and don't respond to any other antidepressants... Arun Mehta Phone +91-11-6841172, 6849103 amehta@cpsr.org http://mahavir.doe.ernet.in/~pinaward/arun.htm The protestors of Tiananmen Square will be back. Next time, the battle will be fought in cyberspace, where the students have the more powerful tanks...