Elephant still chooses what to print and what not to print. Unless Elephant has become a free for all where anyone can write anything at all, I assume it is curated in some way by the editors. Thus, Elephant, you have to accept some responsibility for what is written here. If it were just a "community forum" where anyone could write anything, how could you say that it is "dedicated to the mindful life." There is some decision process that decides what contributes to the vision of elephant and what does not. Abdicating responsibility for this makes me sad. Either you are an online community publishing content relevant to the mindful life, or you are just editors of whomever wants to take a platform for anything. If the KKK wrote a piece about committing mindful hate crimes would you publish that and just throw up your arms "hey! It's not us, it is the COMMUNITY!" ??
I don't understand the intro about "crack whores" and wanting to hear a gunshot. I can't believe the profound and unexamined privilidge in this. As a person who works with people who live in profoundly dangerous and violent places, your complaint that you didn't get to see "Crack whores" (who are people, BTW. People's mom's and daughters and friends and sisters) or get a nice Disney "brush with danger" is pretty disgusting. And, your advice? Nice for some people who are risk tolerant and have someone to fall back on if their plans fail utterly. Lastly, people who go to college, still, on average do much better in the long term than those who do not. For the average person, going to college is a way to secure better income. Thanks for this look into the world of the profoundly privilidged. May you never have to actually live in these conditions that you "missed out on."
I think it is perfectly reasonable to ask that those who read also are constructive in making things even better. Like it? Cool, maybe you have ideas for more . Don't? Ok, give constructive feedback and contribute to making a better article. elephant, here is walking the talk and asking you to do the same: participate mindfully in community. Yes, you have the freedom to NOT do this, of course. None of this takes away your freedom to be an ass. It is an invitation that we might not be used to: come in and participate; don't sit outside the door and whine.
Additionally, the TITLE to this is "just Say No, Parents" this doesn't really imply that this is about being more thoughtful and mindful about the use of medication, but that we should say "no" to drugs. This is a reactive stance that can do harm to those children (and adults!) who really do need this medication to function.
Only doctors "prescribe" drugs. Parents cannot prescribe ADHD medications. So, perhaps the problem is with doctors who are under-informed about proper diagnosis or don't know to send a child to a psychologist and a psychiatrist to get to the bottom of behavior problems and assess for ADHD?
I agree. We seem to elide the experience of clinically debiliiating ADHD with kids who are "hard to handle." Certainly parenting skills, a healthy diet and plenty of exercise should be tried first, and quickly. But, if those things are in place then drug therapy (yes, we CAN call drug therapy that because that is what it is called in the medical world) in the appropriate intervention. Our good hearted, wholesome, natural parents can sometimes jump too quickly on the "ADHD is all about diet and artificial flavors" bandwagon and do serious damage to their kid's education, development, social life and the family structure (imagine being the sibling to someone who cannot seem to stop yelling, running, breaking, hitting -- hard to get an ounce of attention in that family, plus parents who are overwrought, frustrated and ashamed). We mustn't minimize the real impact that clinically diagnosed ADHD has. Any parents who "put their kids on drugs" are only half at fault -- a DOCTOR must prescribe and if doctors are prescribing because parents want them to, they should have licenses taken away.
This doctor is a chiropractor and thus, is unqualified to give nutritional advice. DC's are not medical doctors, dieticians, nutritionists or even naturopathic doctors. I'd even feel more comfortable with a practitioner of ayurvedic medicine. Why he is giving advice on nutrition is beyond me and I wish Elephant would refrain from promoting health advice from dubious sources. Especially when he is just pulling in cultural nutritional practices (ayurveda) without obvious expertise. What just because it is from another country, you get to culturally "borrow" and give advice based on that system? My respect for Elephant has been going downhill lately and if it were me, I'd stay far away from this DC who is practicing WAY outside his scope.
Hard not to be literal when the author must find a way to say "penetrate" no less than three times in a short piece.
MIndfulness might entail why this piece is anything other than same old mainstream GQ and Cosmo relationship advice. Any number of things on elephant could stir up discussion. The question is how this fits with Elephant values and the oveall view?
![[Avatar]](/images/avatar26.png){kind=avatar}
Joint