Reaction to the "Cutting Edge" Programme
Millennium Radio News
Wednesday 23rd July 2003
Millennium Radio News
Hundreds of thousands of children prescribed the drug Ritalin for hyperactivity might simply be the victims of deficiencies in their parents responses to their behaviour, according to new evidence. Warwick Dyer, a behavioural expert, says parents, where possible, need to move away from prescription drugs and towards informed. precise parenting.
Dyer's programme claims 100% success based on a system of rewards and sanctions for good and bad behaviour. Warwick Dyer also insists that children and parents are polite to each other and control their tempers.
"In the last 40 years," says Mr Dyer, "parents have started talking to their children a lot more, but they have often mistaken this as a effective consequence for inappropriate behaviour. Their own experience should tell them it is not, but they often have nothing else which which to replace it. I am to put parents back in control of reasonable consequences."
His "back to consequencies" approach worked to stunning effect with Fred and Diane, and their seven-year-old daughter, Georgina. She had been prescribed Ritalin because of her appalling temper tantrums and violent behaviour. Uncontrollable, Georgina was expelled from her first playgroup at the age of two and a half. But within weeks of adopting Mr Dyer's techniques, Georgina's behaviour strikingly improved. By the end of the seven months, she was having less than two tantrums a month.
Her mother Diane said: "The change has been incredible". This has all been done without Ritalin. Before, I hated her. Now, she is a normal child." Their case will feature in a TV documentary to be broadcast tomorrow in Britain.
Janice Hill, of the Overload Network, a parent support organisation, says: "ADHD is a myth. Children are being given a drug when in fact they and their parents need help with their behaviour."
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