It has recently come to my attention that children as young as 2 1/2 years old are being diagnosed as bipolar. I did not know this until I joined Daily Strength bipolar support group. I don’t have children, so I don’t keep up in that realm.

I am sickened by the fact that the bipolar diagnosis is on the major rise in children under 16. There are very clear situations where the diagnosis is appropriate. But in most cases, I honestly believe it is a behavioral problem. Either the child needs therapy, needs to fucking play outside, or the parents need better parenting skills.

Back in March, a little girl of four died from an overdose of Bipolar and ADHD medications. She was diagnosed bipolar and ADHD at 2 1/2 years old. You can read the article here.

Obviously, this is an extreme case. But it is indicative of the child-bearing generation to have their children diagnosed to fit into a little box and behave a particular way.

Think on this: One time, an ex-boyfriend of mine told me to think about ADHD and children. He said, “Bitch, how long does a show go on before a commercial break? Ten minutes or so?” Of course, I said “Yeah, sounds about right.”

He said, okay, “What’s the average attention span of a child that gets diagnosed ADHD?” I said, “I don’t know. I don’t have kids. Maybe five minutes or so?”

He said, “Do you see a correlation between the amount of time the TV trains us to pay attention and the amount of time a child can maintain attention? Also, remember that there is more action per frame in movies (at 24 frames per second) than there ever was in history.”

I think he was onto something. I am not saying that ADHD doesn’t exist; I just believe it’s not NEAR as prevalent as doctors are diagnosing. Children need to play. They need to go outside. They need to build forts, and they need to be creative.

The constant, non-stop action in the video games that they play, the commercial breaks every eight to ten minutes, and the unexpended energy that our children possess really play into these diagnoses.

I live in Dallas. Try to find one kid that goes outside and plays. Nada. Not one. They are all inside playing WoW or Wii or something. Or they are so structured that they go to school, go to soccer practice, go to piano lessons, eat dinner, do some more lessons, finally do their homework and then get to bed and get five hours of sleep.

Please. Can we let our children play again? I mean, play FOR FUN?