The Baker Acting of minors is controversial. Many parents have been devastated when their child was taken from school without their knowledge and held for examination in a mental health facility in Florida.
Some children have been Baker Acted for displaying typical childish tantrums that were not easily brought under control. But many of these children were already victims of psychiatric drugging.
There is a one in seven chance that a young boy will be diagnosed with ADHD. This psychiatric labeling most often leads to a stimulant being prescribed, such as Ritalin, Adderall, Vyvanse or Concerta.
These are Schedule II drugs, with a high potential for abuse and addiction.
Potential emotional side effects on Children
There are reports of children displaying serious shifts in mood, energy, and thinking after being prescribed one or another of these drugs. Some kids observably become aggressive or hostile, and some have psychotic symptoms such as hearing voices or believing things not true. Some become manic. Certain kids feel like bugs are crawling on them.
If a child is displaying agitation, irritability, confusion, depression or nervousness due to stimulant drug side effects, the probability of them being Baker Acted from school obviously increases.
Between 2003 and 2013, there was a 42% increase in the number of children diagnosed with ADHD. There are now over 6.4 million kids between the ages of four and seventeen labeled with this disorder.
Unfortunately, doctors who believe that pharmaceutical treatment for a child’s hyperactivity should never be used at all are in the minority. Hence most kids who have been labeled with a mental disorder are put on drugs which can have psychotic side effects.
Two years ago, in 2014, there were 181, 471 Baker Act commitments in the state of Florida. Out of that number, 17% were for children, patients younger than 18 years of age.
That number has undoubtedly increased since.
Childhood Behavior as a Pathological Condition
Ned Hallo-well is a psychiatrist who has been diagnosed with ADHD himself. He has strong words regarding the universality of this supposed disorder. “God bless the women’s movement—we needed it—but what’s happened is, particularly in schools where most of the teachers are women, there’s been a general girlification of elementary school, where any kind of disruptive behavior is sinful. What I call the ‘moral diagnosis’ gets made: You’re bad. Now go get a doctor and get on medication so you’ll be good. And that’s a real perversion of what ought to happen. Most boys are naturally more restless than most girls, and I would say that’s good. But schools want these little goody-goodies who sit still and do what they’re told—these robots—and that’s just not who boys are.”
The horrendous side effects of powerful psychiatric drugs are ignored by the profession that promotes them. Obviously, these drugs are big money makers for pharmaceutical companies, and an easy stress-free (for the psychiatrist, at least) way to treat a child who is experiencing emotional distress, boredom in school, or an excess of energy.
In this busy society, giving a child a pill is the expedient way of dealing with emotional turmoil. Psychiatrists have lulled many parents into believing that they know best and are the experts in this matter, when in fact psychiatry has not a single cure in its roster.
The revolving door of psychiatric drug treatment followed by the Baker Acting of minors leads the unsuspecting further into the Russian roulette world of psychiatric treatment.
Here no cures are promised, but misery in the form of permanent disability and even suicide are possible.
To learn more about The Baker Act, and how you as a parent can help protect your children or grandchildren, go to www.bakeractrights.org. It is possible to help restore parental rights in Florida.
SOURCES:
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a32858/drugging-of-the-american-boy-0414/
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-03-11/study-adhd-diagnosis-more-common-among-youngest-students-in-class
http://www.drphil.com/articles/article/153
http://jacksonville.com/opinion/editorials/2015-11-09/story/children-are-especially-vulnerable-overuse-baker-act#