A family therapist offers a surprising new look at the rise of ADHD in America, arguing for a better paradigm for diagnosing and treating our children.

Since 1987, the number of American children diagnosed with ADHD has jumped from 3 to 11 percent. Meanwhile, ADHD rates remain relatively low in other countries. Alarmed by this trend, family therapist Marilyn Wedge set out to understand how ADHD became an American epidemic—and to find out whether there are alternative treatments to powerful prescription drugs.

In A Disease Called Childhood, Wedge examines the factors that have created a generation addicted to stimulant drugs. Instead of focusing only on treating symptoms, she looks at the various potential causes of hyperactivity and inattention in children, and behavioral and environmental—as opposed to strictly biological—treatments that have proved to help. In the process, Wedge offers a new paradigm for child mental health—and a better, happier, and less medicated future for American children.

“[Wedge’s] encouragement to look anew at the ‘problems’ our children have . . . is valuable and expert advice.”―Booklist

Where can parents turn when their child exhibits disturbing behavior and they want to avoid psychiatric labels and drugs? Pills Are Not for Preschoolers presents a much-needed alternative: child-focused family therapy―a brief, effective approach that involves family members in the child’s therapy. A family therapist for more than twenty years, Marilyn Wedge treats children’s problems not as biologically determined “disorders” but as responses to stressors in their lives that can be altered with the help of a therapist. Parents can now respond to symptoms of ADHD, depression, and anxiety with respectful family prescriptives, not prescriptions―and Wedge brilliantly shows us how easy it can be to understand and implement her approach.

Wedge’s central argument, presented clearly and illustrated in engaging cases, is that all experience, even the experience of one’s own self, is a construction of signs. Symbolic forms such as language, myth, ritual, and drama create and shape our realities and provide useful tools for encouraging therapeutic change. This is a Norton Professional book, geared toward mental health professionals.

This is the hardcover edition of Pills are Not For Preschoolers.