Ritalin In Your Child's Backpack?

For many parents, back-to-school preparations don't mean just stocking up on pencil boxes; it also means buying prescription drugs for a hyperactive child.

Dr. Melvin Oatis, a pediatrician and a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the NYU Child Study Center, visits The Early Show on Monday to offer a refresher course on detection and treatment of ADHD.

He says parents and teachers should look for disruptive or daydreaming behavior "in at least two settings, settings being: at home, with their peer group and in school."

Once it is established that your child is suffering from impairment, he suggests talking to a pediatrician to find out specifically where the impairment is, before asking for a prescription for Ritallin.

"Once you have the diagnosis, you can decide on a medication," he says.

There are lots of opinions about whether kids are over medicated or under medicated, he notes.

"There are more kids not on Ritalin or some other ADHD drug that need it, than there are kids on it who don't need it," he says.

Ritalin, he explains, is the most researched medication for treating ADHD. It has been studied since the 1950s. And it comes in doses that last up to 12 hours, "so kids don't have to take it two and three times a day, just once," he says.

The downside to taking Ritalin are: "decreased appetite, headaches, stomach aches, difficulty with sleep. There are ways to minimize the effects, sometimes these are transient and go away with treatment," Dr. Oatis says.