| | |  | Fun & Exercise | Home » » » Frontline: The Medicated Child | | | | | | | Description: | | Studio: Pbs Release Date: 05/05/2009 Run time: 60 minutes | | | Product Details: | | | Director:
| Marcela Gaviria | | Format:
| Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC | | Language:
| English | | Number of Discs:
| 1 | | Studio:
| PBS | | Run Time:
| 60 minutes | | DVD Release Date:
| March 04, 2008 | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 5 reviews |
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Average Customer Review:
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12 of 12 found the following review helpful:
 the medicated childApr 01, 2009
By Jane P. Cox
This video was excellent. It broke my heart to witness the results of the bright-eyed little boy after being put on medication for the rest of his life. He stands out because you can see the results of many years of experimentation. We certainly like to play God, don't we. The Nazis had nothing on us when it comes to damaging the minds of our young. Who says that every child given us is supposed to fit into a certain mold. What if they do daydream, forget instructions, have fits, wiggle...it's our job to train them, not medicate them. I guess we don't have time. This, of course, seems much quicker since we must rush off to our important business of the day. What right have doctors, teachers, or parents for that matter have to alter the entire personality of a person. I would like to see more of this type of documentation.
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
A Bitter Pill For All Of Us To SwallowApr 17, 2011
By Doctor A.
Frontline presents a thoughtful and serious look at American society and the challenges of being a child (and a parent). Some reviewers want to instantly demonize doctors and the pharmaceutical industry. Sure, they have a major role here, but that is certainly not the whole story. As this important PBS documentary illustrates, the issues are many and interwoven.
First, we have a society that has become commoditized... got an ill, take a pill. Whatever life's issues, there's something we've got to buy to fix it. Second, it is interesting that "appropriate" childhood behavior is now defined in such narrow terms. If Tommy or Suzy is fidgety, rambunctious, or not focused 100% on the programmed activities teacher is required to present, then a clinical issue is assumed to exist. Third, where are the traditional outlets for kid's energy? Today, kids rarely play outdoors and schools offer few playtime activities or sports. Finally, if more parents were home and available to interact with their children, then assessing and perhaps intervening in their children's lives would improve. Were these basic conditions of child rearing better met, the perceived need for such medication would diminish dramatically.
As was made clear in this thought-provoking documentary, often, it's the parents that need help -- either education on parenting or some serious psychotherapy. We find ourselves in an era where kids can't be kids, where they have few outlets to express themselves freely, and where society is a bit too quick to reach for a pharmaceutical solution that often becomes a greater problem. Perhaps if our own education placed greater emphasis on courses like biology, chemistry, anatomy, physiology, psychology, sociology, philosophy, art, music, history, and the humanities, we'd better understand childhood and we wouldn't be quite so ignorant and gullible about psychiatric medications. Instead, let's all become computer geeks or get our MBAs and then consume our way to high-technology, self-absorbed happiness.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
"throwing pills at them"Nov 21, 2009
By Matthew G. Sherwin
As a former psychiatric social worker, I can assure you that this episode of Frontline REALLY pushed my buttons! It made my heart ache for those children whose doctors are "throwing pills at them" (as one psychiatrist I knew, who shall go nameless, always used to put it) without knowing exactly what the efficacy of those pills are in the childhood population. These pills have been used to help adults with certain disorders including bipolar disorder; but it's not very responsible for doctors to simply prescribe powerful psychiatric medicines for children when there's such a paucity of research findings on their effectiveness in helping children. Yes, doctors want to help children in need; and I could see that most if not all of the children we meet in this film are indeed troubled in one way or another; but without enough research doctors are essentially merely groping in the dark for fast, easy answers as this program illustrates. On top of all this, there's the terrible roller-coaster parents must ride as they try to manage their children's unusual behavior and deal with the unpleasant side-effects of these powerful drugs; and that's very disturbing.
Frontline shows people on both sides of the fence; we meet one doctor who we see in session with the parents of a troubled boy who, at the age of six or seven at the most, has multiple psychiatric diagnoses and several prescription drugs to take each day--some of the drugs to help him but still more drugs to take away the unpleasant side-effects of the initially prescribed drugs! When the parent rather timidly asked the doctor if there was any other way to treat her son, the doctor confidently replied that the treatment would have to be "99%" prescription drugs. There's no way you can tell me that talking with the young boy about his problems would have done any harm whatsoever; it could very possibly have helped him and maybe even reduced his need for some of those drugs given enough time.
Worse yet, Frontline presents footage of parents testifying before Congress that some antidepressant drugs actually caused suicidal ideation and even actual suicides just a few weeks after those drugs were prescribed for their children. Frontline also explores the topic of the inherent conflict of interest when research funding about the efficacy of these drugs comes from the very same companies that manufacture the drugs! Wow.
Believe it or not, I still haven't given it all away. There's a real emotional charge here and the rest of the program is fascinating. We get terrific interview footage with young children, their parents, doctors, researchers and others including social workers that this adds color to this topic.
This episode of Frontline on DVD is practically mandatory viewing for any parent of a child who exhibits behavior that could be indicative of mental illness. People who are studying counseling or other psychiatric treatment techniques with children would also do well to add this film to their collections.
0 of 3 found the following review helpful:
 What's the message?Jun 26, 2011
By Shelley
"chelle"
I'm confused watching this. Is the message that children shouldn't be on medication? If so, then I don't understand why the parents allow children to be medicated! The message I'm getting is that these parents are complaining about how children shouldn't be on medication yet they continue to feed their children 8-9 prescription meds even in the documentary. These children don't have to stay on the meds if it's not working for them or have too many side effects.
Everyone knows medications come with side effects. You don't have to be a doctor to know that.
1 of 7 found the following review helpful:
 *Emptying that Simpsons Episode out of My Head*Jun 14, 2008
By Jeffery Mingo
One of my all-time favorite "Simpsons" episodes is "Brother's Little Helper" in which Bart is put on Focus-In. The episode mocks how nowadays there's a pill to "correct" any trait parents or teachers don't like in a child, usually male. However, Bart begins concentrating in class and ends wrapping himself in aluminum foil and promoting conspiracy theories. The doctors themselves want to just prescribe more drugs and seem like they are just rolling the dice on Bart's health. What is presented as hilarious on "The Simpsons" is presented here as a major problem for many families, and possibly the nation as a whole.
The Frontline episode speaks for how doctors are feeding children more and more drugs without knowing the risks of all these medications at such a young age. Further, it states that while drug companies test drugs on adults, they have done few tests on children. The narrator says, "Well, no one wants to see a child in a placebo group," somewhat pointing blame at the companies. However, I wonder if parents refuse to put their children in medical experiments whereas ill adults may be more than willing to play a role in a test.
This work can be seen as anti-climactic. It shows children and teens who committed suicide after being on these drugs. However, it also showed the suicide rate increasing when children-in-need were not taking such drugs. A severe catch-22 is established here. Only at the end of the work does an expert say, "Let's do like we did with pediatric cancer; have doctors try things and report it to their colleagues and as a group they can decipher what works and what doesn't."
The work doesn't speak about demographics, but I had read somewhere that boys are more likely to suffer from ADHD than girls. They showed a girl being interviewed whose answer for all problems was "Let's just cut that person's head off!" I was floored by that image. A boy saying such a thing should be equally frightening, but I must admit my own flaw in gasping when hearing a little girl say something so violent and destructive.
I don't have children and I can easily sidestep the spanking controversy. But I must admit that everyday folk often say a good spankypoo would solve all this acting-up better than these questionable drugs. The Frontline episode says nothing on that argument. Some also said at-home parents, usually women, could solve these problems, but our rush-rush society just wants to correct all with medicine. Also, some have questioned whether pollutants in the modern environment are causing the increase in autistic numbers. I do wonder if this rise in ADHD may have some environmental causes. Maybe if we went greener, fewer young people would have these intense mental challenges.
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