A couple comments here.temporal1 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 29, 2025 2:04 pm MATT WALSH can be stern.
PSYCHOTROPIC DRUGS Medicalizing the human condition.
Found in Comments:
@swellshocked WROTE:
I'm a therapist and I specialize in ADHD. Everything he's saying is accurate.
Kids need a change in diet, a steady sleep routine, an increase in exercise, a decrease in screen time, and specific reward based activities to increase motivation and dopamine activation.
Medication isn't the answer.
How about loving the child you have? - rather than trying to force him/her to be what he/she is not?
1. Having gone through this with my daughter with depression I have found the American health care system to be geared more towards medication than treatment. My wife is a senior clinician with a major health care group and even she found it extremely difficult to find any sort of therapy for our daughter because there simply wasn't enough therapists available in network and none had openings. And the paperwork barriers were immense to go outside of network. At the same time, any primary care doctor within the system could quickly and easily prescribe anti-depressants. So drugs are about 100x easier to get than actual therapy. There is a role for modern medication. But we are too quick to default to it because that is how our health care system is designed.
2. Diet is going in the wrong direction. School lunches, especially in poorer schools and neighborhoods can be atrocious processed junk (food service frozen pizzas, tater tots, chicken nuggets etc.). Michelle Obama tried to push back on this but ran into enormous political obstacles from the processed food industry and frankly, Republicans. You also can't magically change menus and expect kids to change. It takes a cultural change and time.
3. Exercise is going in the wrong direction. Many schools, especially in poorer areas are cutting out PE and recess in order to focus on rote test prep because education has become so focused on standardized test scores. And we have designed our schools and neighborhoods such that parents are forced to shuttle their kids back and forth to everything rather than sending them outdoors on foot or bike. Just look at the dropoff line at any suburban school. It didn't used to be that way. How does a hyperactive child who never has a chance to go outdoors ever release their pent up energy? Organized sports aren't even that great and I say this as someone who coached youth soccer for over a decade. Drive by any soccer complex during practice time and observe how many kids are just standing around in line for drills and not really doing anything aerobic. It is way too hyper-organized. Kids in Brazil just play in the streets until it gets dark. They don't stand around endlessly while their dad sets up cones for whatever drill he saw on YouTube.
4. Screen time is also going in the wrong direction. Cell phones need to be taken out of schools completely but you would be surprised at how much virulent resistance this generates among parents who think they need to have 24/7 cell phone contact with their kids, even during school. And schools have converted to Chromebooks rather than textbooks, mostly as a money saving measure. Chromebooks bought in bulk by school districts can be had for about $100. Whereas a single textbook can be $150 or more, multiplied by 5 classes at the HS level. So no wonder districts are rolling out Chromebooks so that teachers can use free open-source curriculum rather than expensive paper textbooks. Chromebooks are a great teaching tool. But they do have disadvantages too.
5. Probably 85% of student success can be predicted based on the socioeconomic background of the parents and family. But schools are expected to address 100% of it and negligent parents who never read to or teach their children (or just neglect them) are off the hook. And schools are expected to fix every health and psychological problem that gets presented to them.
