We all knew kids who were called “hyper” in the classrooms. If disruptions occurred, it normally resulted in the parents being informed and the behavioral issues subsided rather quickly.

In the 90’s with children in elementary school, I noticed a pattern. There were no longer those daily gym classes to burn off that excess energy and recess activities were gradually reduced. Dodgeball, Four Square, Tag and other physical activities were outlawed seemingly because the visibly overweight and/or aging female principals and teachers saw little value in monitoring young children who liked to do normal things like run around.

It also appears many of those teachers, along with parents who couldn’t find the time to deal with the issues a hyper-active child brings, deferred to doctors who prescribed medications to quell their child’s natural energy and it’s clear there is a correlation between the increased carnage at our schools and the cocktails of psychotropic drugs that eventually make a child snap.

We’ve been warned since 2000 by Dr. Peter Breggin, M.D. when he testified in front of the House Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations; not only about the psychological and physical damage that prescribed narcotics can cause in children that really don’t need them but also the nefarious politics pushed by the pharmaceutical industry in concert with lazy parents and educators that would much rather drug kids as to avoid any kind of education reforms that would require accountability.

Dr. Breggin was motivated to write Reclaiming Our Children by witnessing, along with millions of other Americans, the events surrounding the shootings at Columbine High School as they unfolded first on television and then in the print media. Dr. Breggin’s book begins with a description and analysis of these tragic events in Littleton, Colorado, and then moves on to examine our government’s response at the White House Conference on Mental Health. He criticizes biological psychiatry and psychiatric drugs as a solution to the suffering and rebelliousness of America’s children. He also presents strong evidence that psychiatric drugs commonly cause psychoses and aggression in children, and that they probably contributed to individual cases of school violence.
— Peter R. Breggin M.D., Psychiatric Drug Facts

Access to readily available violent imagery while under the influence of these drugs doesn’t help either; again a factor we didn’t have back in the day when there were zero school massacres. Of course, the entertainment industry always counters with there being no proven correlation with the constant bombardment of graphic violence in their productions and/or video games despite the horrific acts we’re witnessing today.

So, despite the current media/activist narrative (but it’s not political), it’s NOT all about guns and the kneejerk call for additional legislation.

Until we have parents who will give their children the time and care they require, teachers who aren’t quick to refer a fidgety child to a doctor who’s quick to prescribe addictive narcotics, and an industry more than eager to supply drugs that are as potent as the strongest illegal street drugs, children will continue to display the symptoms that will eventually lead to he or she harming themselves or others.