Ep 4: Are We Overmedicating Kids?

Raising Parents with Emily Oster

Kids and teens today are more diagnosed than ever, across the board, whether it’s a disorder like ADHD or a mental health condition like obsessive-compulsive disorder. Say you’re 15 and you’re worried about that upcoming algebra test? Anxiety. You’re 12 and you weren’t invited to that birthday party? Depression. Scared to ride your bike again after that little fall last summer? PTSD. And with these diagnoses come a menu of medications that purport to fix your child.

Today: What’s behind the rise in diagnoses—both for ADHD, mostly among young boys, and for anxiety and depression, mostly among teen girls? Are they really the most distracted, anxious, and depressed generation ever to exist? Or are we, perhaps, pathologizing what used to be considered normal feelings and behaviors—and as a result, diagnosing and overmedicating kids for. . . acting like kids? And what are the long-term effects of having millions of boys on speed and millions of girls on SSRIs?

Resources from this episode:

• Abigail Shrier Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up (Bookshop)
• Jennifer Wallace Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic—and What We Can Do About It (Bookshop)
• Sami Timimi Naughty Boys: Anti-Social Behaviour, ADHD and the Role of Culture (Bookshop)
• Erica Komisar Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters (Bookshop)

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