Mom Slips 6-Year-Old Adderall As An ‘Experiment’

A 39-year-old Florida mom was arrested for slipping Adderall into her son’s yogurt and emailing a teacher to ask her to report on his behavior. She was just curious to see what 5mg of a drug combining amphetamine and dextroamphetamine would do to him. No big. You generally need a doctor to prescribe these things – buy why worry about that?

“I tried something today,” 39-year-old Heather McAuliffe wrote to the teacher early Wednesday, according to a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office arrest report. “I gave [my son] 5 milligrams of my Adderall just to see if there is a noticeable difference. He does not know because I crushed it up in his yogurt.”

She continued her message by asking the teacher, whose name was not included in the report, to email her later with information on any changes in the child, and ended with a thank you. The boy is in first grade at an undisclosed school.

I’m probably having an even harder time understanding this than most people would. I’m one of those moms that gets paranoid whenever she gives her child medication. I check the dosage instructions about 40 times and keep a time log so I don’t forget the last dose. The thought of slipping medication into my young child’s yogurt and then sending him to school makes me twitch.

The mother is facing chid abuse charges because “her decision to give her 6-year-old son a controlled drug without a prescription could have caused him physical injury, violating state child abuse laws.”

In Palm Beach county, teachers are required by state law to report any indication of child abuse. Clearly slipping a 6-year-old prescription drugs is troubling enough to qualify. It seems the mother didn’t realize she was doing anything wrong, which scares me even more. Can you imagine? Hi Ms. Brown! It’s Ms. Guido. I crushed up a little Xanax and put it in my son’s PB&J because he’s been a little testy lately. Let me know if this works out for you. It’s been working great at home!

Palm Beach County School District spokesman Owen Torres said the boy’s teacher “did the right thing” by putting the matter in authorities’ hands: “I don’t know what the circumstances are, but if the kid was not prescribed this, obviously the teacher had a right to notify proper authorities to do an investigation.”

(photo: dachazworks/ Shutterstock)