Spanking a child who truly needs to be medicated is like spanking a child who has diabetes. It’s cruel and abusive, and absolutely ineffective.
If you want to help a child, give him medication if he needs it.
As a Rebbe, I am loathe to ask parents to have their son evaluated for medication. I know that as a parent, it would be a difficult phone call to receive.
I have seen the downside of medication in some of my students over the years. I know that overmedicating can completely turn off a child’s personality and make him somewhat of a robot. Nobody wants this, and doctors, parents, teachers and Rebbeim work together to find the right dose.
Even so, I can tell you that the downside is far outweighed by the benefits.
Schools, teachers, and Rebbeim do not want to medicate students who don’t need it, and they would be unable to do so in any case. The diagnosis of ADHD is based on a very large amount of data that is collected from parents, Rebbeim, teachers, therapists, and the child himself.
Talk to a psychologist. You’ll find out that there is no real benefit to a child to withhold necessary medication from him.