Is 5 Years Old Too Young to Medicate? Long Story...

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Perhaps somebody would be courteous to answer the OPs question.
Is 5 years old too young to start medication?

The reality is not enough research has been done on this question. Data will no doubt be available in the next 10 years on the long term effects of Ritalin and Prozac on children as they grow to adults.

Currently in Australia unless there is severe medical problems, children under the age of 8 are normally not allowed to be medicated with anti-depressants. Having said that our pediatrician has indicated he will allow (at his discretion) prescription if there is no other alternative and our 6 yr old does not show improvement re: anxiety issues.

I have read of some cases of ADHD medication being given at 4 or 5, but have no personal knowledge. The OP's description doesn't sound like those cases. I think it depends on the doctor you see -- the developmental psychologist who diagnosed DS with AS (but not ADHD) at age 5.25 said to try other approaches first. A year later, at age 6.25 and after some serious incidents at school, a developmental-behavioral pediatrician (the head of a developmental behavioral health group and a professor of clinical pediatrics) had no hesitation to prescribe meds.

I know from another board that many AS kids are helped by anxiety meds, but I don't know how young they started.

I'd suggest getting to know other parents in your area whose kids are somewhat similar to yours, perhaps a bit older, and find out what therapists and doctors they recommend in your area. If you can't find any recomendations, look for a doctor with "developmental" in their credentials, and ask what percent of their practice is on the ASD spectrum.

I guess in my mind the answer was implied: Because no one actually knows the answer, it depends on how desperate the need is. But if a medication was not the right answer to start with, all ages are too young, so sometimes you do have to answer the question that was not asked, and I felt that even if it wasn't the answer sought, if my thought was "normal regression" (not usually a medication situation) instead of "mood disorder" (medication may eventually be indicated), it was important to say so. While the poster has much more information than the rest of us, she doesn't have an ages and phases line to compare to, which we can help with, and treating the wrong condition, we all know, rarely works out well.

I do know that we are seeing young adults saying they wish they had not spent so much of their childhood medicated, becuase it made them feel funny, but no one was listening to them. But the meds commonly used 15 years ago are not the same as ones people have started to use now, and the reasons were often different. And I know that parents here DO listen when their kids tell them they don't like the drugs, and I think that is important.

These drugs alter brain chemistry, that is what we do know, and the younger the child is, logic says, the riskier that is. So even when you know you may have to take that road, you want to wait as long as you possibly can.

Not quite true. In the USA the FDA have approved the use of Prozac for children as young as 7. In Australia there are guidelines that recommend Prozac is not started before a child is 8.

My understanding is that guidelines exist for Prozac and Ritalin but not for other meds. Of course guidelines are not strictly enforced.

Unfortunately I live in Melbourne Australia where people in my neighborhood think autism is a form of "retardation" and health providers who claim to treat autistic kids use stand-over tactics to get you to pay bills before they give you any feedback or reports that tell you nothing.

Australia sucks big time when it comes to helping kids with autism. It's a fact of life I have to deal with every day of my life.

I am in Japan and honestly I don't always trust the things the doctors say. We brought my son (age 3) to a doc for sleep issues (melatonin is not available here) and he ended up prescribing something for hyperactivity symptoms. I forget what it was called. He took it for about a month, it did calm my son down but he was almost like a zombie sometimes. We decided to discontinue it because we are returning to the US soon and asked if there was anything else we could try. He prescribed something else, I forget what it was called, but when I looked it up I found that it was another name for Valium! Um, no thanks.

Last edited by Wreck-Gar on 27 Nov 2011, 1:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

Behavior is communication.

He's adorable but I wonder how he likes being everyone's mascot. Is he aware that he's different? Can you ask him why he's being such a punk? Just ideas from my own experiences. I don't know your son.

I never responded well to drugs but it was hard for me to say what the side effects were, still is, I just know they make me miserable in a lot of ways I carry a list of the things I've tried and failed and show it to any doctor who tries to prescribe anything.

I hope you can find an alternative to drugging a 5-yr. old.

That alternative would be the parents getting on drugs.

I would say that medicating a 5 year old is appropriate when the child is an imminent danger (meaning, trying to stab people or setting things on fire... serious danger) to self or others AND all other options have failed.

I read the original post again. This child isn't stabbing people. The worst he's done is hit another child. That's not completely age-inappropriate behavior. Screaming no in someone's face isn't from bad behavior, it's because somethings bugging him and no one's hearing him. Maybe he doesn't know how to say what. He is new in life.

If I were a betting person, I'd bet my entire fortune that something happened at school with an adult or, more likely another child. Just because they're nice to him when you're looking, doesn't mean they're nice behind your back. Kids can be real brats.

I think it's a good idea to try other methods before you try medication. A lot of medications aren't safe for a child's growing brain.

Highly likely. Plus, sometimes it is something that wasn't meant to be mean, that the child completely misunderstood.

And, little tiny things can add up. You have one after the other that seemed to totally glance off the child, and then there is the one that is like the straw that broke the camel's back. I have seen that over and over and over with my son.

I can't answer with a fact to the OPs question, rather our experience.

Our DS was having very severe trouble at 8. He was randomly, violently freaking out and we didn't understand why. He was attacking with weapons, so we opted to medicate.

He is almost 12 now, in hindsight here is what I wished we had done prior to starting g meds.

I wish we would have tried some of the nutritional approaches while he was still little and we had control. I would love to know if gluten has impact. At this point, he won't try a diet, so we are SOL

Wish we would have calendared all meltdowns, and wrote down what was happening and what he had eaten (or not) the days of meltdowns. This was probably the single thing that helped us figure out how to end meltdowns. Too bad we started after he was medicated.

I wish I would have had Neuropsych evaluations to assess what he needed from a learning standpoint so school wasn't such a nightmare.

I say these things because once the meds start, you can't really know what is working and what isn't. When you get goofy behavior, was it the meds or progression of his condition? Then if you add or take away a med, is it the combo or a reaction to a singular med?

The stimulant meds that are prescribed for ADHD are pretty simple to get on and off of, so while the side effects for my DS have been horrid, I'm not particularly scared of them. On the other hand, the psych meds that are often prescribed for meltdowns and anxiety can be really complicated. I wish at I would have figured out what stesses my son, and how to avoid those stresses before we tried the meds.

We are now homeschooling to avoid the stress and he is now off of meds altogether. The psych meds were really a nightmare. Because he was violently attacking people, and we were in crisis, I feel we made the right choice to do what we did. That said, if given the opportunity for a do over at five years old, there are definitely things I would have wanted to try first.

My DS is not obviously autistic, so all of the professionals were treating bipolar. Unfortunately, he doesn't respond well to meds and is extremely sensitive, so we had a harder time than most. Had I been clear on the autism component of what was happening, things would have looked different.

If you have a child in school here in Australia that hits other children it is mandatory the child is medicated. Otherwise the principal has the discretion to expel the student, even if they have special needs.

I didn't say hitting was acceptable, but it's not out of the range of things kids do. They're human kids. I would have a hard time accepting that someone would actually medicate a 5 yr. old for hitting another child. When I was a parent of young children, we just dealt with it, like people. We provided consequences for unacceptable behavior. It might not be as easy as medicating but you do what it takes.

And I never said never medicate. If used, it should only as a last resort. I've read a lot of good suggestions here that one ought to try first.

That is just wrong.

My NT daughter hit a child in second grade. I considered it a discipline issue. The school considered it a discipline issue. She needed to learn some self control and respect (hey, never said I was a perfect parent!). You can't medicate maturity into a child; it is something they are supposed to learn.