I’ve followed the story of the Schofield family since they first went on Oprah, on and off. I saw an article about mental illness and decided to see if there was anything new today. I google searched for articles after going to their YouTube page and found this thread. So I’m gong to vent for a minute here because what these parents, through their narcissistic/ munchausen-like behaviors have created are two children who have become just a shell of their former selves.
I’m an elementary teacher and my degree has a focus on students with disabilities. I have had numerous kids on medications over the years. Mostly students with ADHD but also students with autism who usually have either severe ADHD/ADD or severe anxiety. I had an autistic child last year, who was not medicated, who would have tantrums (desk banging, stomping feet, crying/sobbing uncontrollably, screaming at the top of her lungs, hitting herself in the head or pulling her hair, throwing her work materials...) because of her own anxiety and frustration over her assignment not being as perfect in her own mind. And it was all in her own head bc she was brilliant and almost always had A’s and scores of 100% on the work she was upset about. Her tantrums would last for an hour plus at a time and sometimes she’d have several a day. The rush of thoughts and irrational emotions, even had physical impact for her. Like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. She literally had a gradual change in physical appearance to her face, shoulders/neck and arm movements before she would have a tantrum. It got to a point that I could easily recognize it happening and if I saw the transformation beginning, I could help calm and remind her of her her strategies for dealing with her thoughts and emotions before it got to the point where she couldn’t speak until all the frustration and emotional overload were out. So I have a good understanding of how the parents felt about having 2 children with mental health and behavior issues.
The Schofield parents probably longed for some easy fix and a sense of “normal behaving children” They probably longed for calm and peace in their lives and for the behavioral outbursts to stop. So the medications, at first probably got the kids to sit still and be quiet for maybe 5 minutes (I’m being sarcastic here), the parents could see what they longed for on the horizon and medicating their kids with higher doses and more medications for peace and quiet all the time, seems like a gift from God. It’s not!
Medicating a child, or anyone for that matter, into an almost comatose state isn’t the way to do this. Rule of thumb for medicating someone is to still see them, their personality, their quirks, but with a sense of calm so there is control. If the child is lethargic to the point of barely being able to move and falling asleep all the time, slurs speech, and loses all of their true personality...it’s not the right dose or medication and needs to be adjusted! When my little girl was finally put on medication mid-year, it was an adjustment. The parents, dr, therapist and myself worked hard to make sure she was still same kid with the same personality but now with the ability to control her thoughts and emotions and she was happier and more content because she wasn’t upset all the time and angry all the time. Just going back and watching the YouTube videos from even just a year ago to now, My heart breaks to see the negative transformation that are easily observed and even praised by mom!
The negative impact the medications the Schofield kids are on is just an easy fix for the parents and not the kids long term emotional health. Jani’s speech obviously gets more slurred as the video become recent, all the school clips have her talking about sleeping in class, but she chats on the videos and smiles so you can’t really see a personality change but I’m guessing there are some. And poor Bodhi, he goes from an autistic child who was a spunky monkey, having a hard time focusing, bouncing on the bed, chatting up a storm to a child who 15 minutes after a medication dose can’t keep his eyes open (loved how mom turned the comments to that video off). Several times you can see that he can barely move his arms and hands to put food in his mouth to eat! He couldn’t even move his arms to open his own birthday present in one clip. And almost all the recent videos, he couldn’t even form a single word sentence and mom commented and had to probe to get him to say that word. The parents did that to these kids, on purpose!
Medication is suppose to help, not hinder. It’s purpose for someone with mental health disorders, is to help calm someone, so they can focus long enough to be able to effectively function in society. How can you do that if you can barely move, talk or stay awake? Medications are suppose to take the edge off the anxiety, so rational thoughts are within reach and not drowning somewhere in the their mind, mixed in with all the frustration and worry that they physically can’t control and need to get out of their heads. It’s suppose to help them focus on the tasks they doing instead of the squirrel running around. It’s suppose to help someone remain calm and focused long enough to learn to deal with their thoughts and feelings appropriately through behavioral therapy and self-help coping strategies. Don’t these parents understand that? What’s scary is that they have created a foundation to help support other parents and kids deal with autism and schizophrenia and they haven’t really dealt with it themselves. I hope they don’t tell these parents looking for support to just medicate into compliance!
I’m sorry, but this mom, both parents for that matter, thinking their children are thriving and doing great because they aren’t having behavioral outbursts or tantrums but have now basically created zombies, should be a clue that what you’re doing is not working! Shows just how out of touch with reality the parents themselves are too. Getting your child so high day and night that they can barely function is unthinkable to me...but at least they are calm and behave?! Right! No!
The before and after videos of Bohdi getting his medication are insane! It gives the impression that the medications he’s on are the perfect fix, why? Because he’s high as a kite and calm? Mom seems so proud of it too, for what? Allowing her children to be stoned out of their minds 24/7? Barely being able to function? And how do the drs and psychologists and therapists continue to recommend and then prescribe these medications without seeing what it’s doing? Is there more to these kids behaviors and tantrums that hasn’t been relayed to the public. With both books out, the interviews, the TLC documentaries, we have a pretty good picture of what was going on and how they acted. I keep looking for an answer to why they would want to put their children basically in a coma all the time , because it’s so obscure to me I can’t help but think there’s more to the story. But I don’t think there is. Their parents are really narcissistic/individuals who don’t really have their children’s mental health and best interests at heart and suffer from munchausen syndrome themselves or else why would they drug them up like that!
The Schofield’s obviously have the perception that all this medication is the key to their kid’s success but at what cost?. Reality check-all the medications they are one, they will eventually become immune to and I foresee these kids on the streets strung out on hard core street drugs because their medications don’t give them any calm anymore.