Foster Children

Re “Foster Child Medication Not Excessive, Study Finds,” Nov. 2:

Children, foster or otherwise, need love, care and attention--not drugs or “medication.” I can understand children needing medical attention for physical conditions that require some form of treatment, but this “drugging” of children for supposed “mental disorders” is getting completely out of hand. This wasn’t necessary 30 years ago! If the drugs that psychiatry has been introducing into society are so effective, why, then, do we see an actual rise in “mental disorders”? Whose idea was it to give natural childhood activity (like running around, gleeful laughter, not wanting to sit still for too long) a label and then prescribe a “medication” to “cure it”?

Certainly, foster children may have emotional problems from time to time--as do we all--but when I was a kid, I responded to a kind word or a hug. Communication, understanding, compassion: These are far more therapeutic than what has become the typical and lazy way of handling things--drugs!

PERRY MARTIN

Tustin