I’m sure that many of us have been on an airplane, bus, or train where a mother or father struggles to calm the loud and disturbing screams of a child. We’ve all presumably experienced this annoyance, but for the most part haven’t given it much thought after the situation ends. To avoid potentially embarrassing situations such as this, parents often times give their children drugs (ie. Benadryl, other ADHD medications) for sedation. According to parents, it makes their lives a lot easier as they no longer have to deal with an overly fussy child and can relax more. Yet several critics argue that drugging up children who are problematic can have some seriously detrimental health effects, and should be considered a form of child abuse.
Dr. Shan Yin from the University of Colorado believes that the illicit drug use on children is a growing problem that threatens the health of children throughout the United States. According to Yin, about “51 percent of 1,634 ‘malicious’ poisonings that occurred over [an] eight-year period studied involved drugs for sedation”. There are caregivers out there who give children sedatives with the intent of hurting them, but I do not believe this is the intention of the vast majority. He speculates that parents may have administered these drugs in an attempt to calm a crying or screaming child or simply escape the responsibilities of being a parent if only for a few hours. I do not doubt the fact that many parents do not have ill intentions for their child when giving them such sedatives, however I believe that administering drugs that typically require a prescription or may have unknown side effects on the healthy is an extremely reckless move on the caregivers’ part. Children rely on their parents to ensure that they are raised in a healthy and safe environment, and sedating children can lead to an immeasurable amount of risks that simply aren’t worth whatever reason they were given to begin with.
It is highly unlikely that parents are aware of how great of a dosage they should give their children, according to a Associate Professor Paul at the Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, "Dosing is so difficult...Physicians will say give a quarter teaspoon. People will mess up. They will use a food teaspoon. They will use a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon. There is a lot of room for mistakes to occur." With so many opportunities for error, giving children sedatives even for non malicious intent is unethical on the most fundamental level. Parents and caregivers are responsible for the well-being of their children, and putting them in a position where there are so many potential heath risks makes them inexcusably irresponsible.
Sources:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2013456049_babies19.html
http://www.elementsbehavioralhealth.com/drug-abuse-addiction/parents-sedating-their-children-with-drugs-called-child-abuse/
2 comments:
Readers of Newsweek note that children are not the only cause of annoyance in flights - “the loud couple behind you that talk incessantly,” for example, are comparable (1). Children are sedated because they cause too much noise on planes – under this scenario, the talkers should be drugged too. The adults are not sedated, of course. It seems an annoying adult is somehow better than an irritating child. Though adults talking is annoying, it is nothing more than that – an annoyance. A mere annoyance does not justify drugging adults.
Why, then, should an annoyance justify drugging children? A quick step back shows the hole in the silencing children argument – people want children quieted so they can enjoy a community flight in a manner more conducive to their own enjoyment. If a person wants to maximize enjoyment in flights, business class seats are available. Airlines simply sell tickets based on maximizing profit; they offer first-class tickets for those who want to truly maximize comfort. Reduced-price tickets in the coach come with a risk – noise, sometimes. Airlines declare the cost of comfort equivalent to the cost of a first- or business-class ticket. Coach class has lower cost because not as much comfort is provided. Complaining from the coach is flawed because the coach class was never expected to maximize comfort.
Fifty-nine percent of air travelers “support creating special sections on flights for families” (2). It seems that this scenario helps fix the problem of child noise while increasing passenger comfort. Unfortunately, this simply parallels the first-class argument. The family section would be doubtless priced lower because of the noise, and some people would purchase family section tickets for affordability. They would have to endure the noise – even if their comfort is decreased, they knew what was coming. Passengers in the coach today fall under the same scenario. They know what noise they could face – this is a risk they are willing to take when buying coach tickets. Their pursuit of comfort is simply complaint at not being able to maximize comfort while minimizing cost. It is invalid to complain from a perspective of coach travel – risks of noise are assumed for the reduced price.
1. http://current.newsweek.com/budgettravel/2008/01/childfree_establishments_reade.html
2. http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/travel/108747814.html
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