The problems with kids, ADHD and teachers promoting Ritalin are complex, yet at the same time fairly simple. The official association of headshrinkers have expanded the definition of ADHD to include literally normal behavior. They have also expanded the diagnosis to include preschool children. They do this because they have a financial incentive to do so, both in terms of their own practices but in terms of the money they get from the makers of drugs such as Ritalin. Teachers are, by and large, big fans of anything that will calm and sedate children in the classroom to make the kids more easily controllable.
Diagnoses of ADHD and of Ritalin prescriptions have increased more than 400% in the last decade. Ninety percent of the world's Ritalin is prescribed in the United States. In 1970 there were 150,000 Ritalin prescriptions written. In 1980 there were 400,000. In 1990, 900,000. In 2000 it jumped to 2 million. In 2010 it was 8 million.
The 2000-2001 guidelines released by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association restricted the use of Ritalin to children aged 6-12 years old. The new recommendations of 2010 expand the "targeted group" to 4-18 years old, and with recommendations that children as young as 3 are fine to use the drug. Combine the expanded age groups for Ritalin with the massively expanded criteria for being diagnosed with ADHD, and the desire for parents and teachers to find a way to calm down their kids, along with the desire of pharmaceutical companies to rake profits, and you can see how more than 8 million prescriptions can happen, for something that probably should only be prescribed maybe 100,000 times a year.
There's a reason the current generation of kids are called "The Ritalin Generation," and it's not because people are misinformed about the situation. It's because they are.
The New York Times - Raising the Ritalin Generation