Posts Tagged ‘teen’
Drug Testing Your Teen?
We as parents desperately want to protect our kids from the dangers of drugs and alcohol, and we know that the years of adolescence are a time of experimentation, and a time when as much as we’d like to, we can’t always believe everything our children tell us. Drug tests promise us the peace of mind of knowing for sure, and that’s a pretty attractive sense of security for parents anxious over the risks of abuse and addiction.
Drug tests do give us concrete knowledge, they may act as a deterrent to use and they will allow parents to take action quickly in the event of a positive test result. However, the issues surrounding their use are not quite as clear cut as those selling the test kits would have us believe and there are some risks associated with drug testing your teen. You need to get educated to the risks and benefits, and make an individual and informed decision about what’s best for your family, and for your teen.
Positives
You will enjoy peace of mind from a negative (no drug use detected) test result, and can reward kids who do resist temptations for their good behaviors.
You can act quickly and with concrete knowledge in the event of a positive test result, and since with substance abuse and addiction intervention is always better sooner rather than later, this can make all the difference. The tests may acts as a deterrent to use. If kids know that they have a random drug test to submit to every month, they may be less likely to experiment with drugs or alcohol, knowing that there is a good chance that they will get caught.
Negatives
The parent child trust relationship can be a bit tenuous during the years of adolescence, and when you refuse to take them at their word, this may erode further your relationship. Drug tests are not as accurate as they claim, and independent laboratory testing of home drug testing kits shows that up to 40% of the time, these tests do not show drug use when more sophisticated testing will reveal it.
Kids can beat the tests. There are easily bought products that can obscure drug metabolites, and if kids do beat the test, you may ignore other signs of use; relying on faulty informational and ignoring your intuition. It can be tough to test a non compliant teen. Are you willing to watch them in the bathroom giving a urine sample? Are you willing to remove a hair from their head?
It comes down to a very personal and individual decision, and there is no clear or easy answer to this question. The tests are not perfect, and there are risks associated with the testing process, but if you don’t think you can keep your kids safe any other way, then maybe testing is worth doing. If your child does have a history of drug use or substance abuse problems, then the arguments towards testing get a lot more compelling, and if your child has a history of lying to you about their substance use, then you may not need to worry much about eroding your trust relationship.
If you do decide that you need to test your child, make sure you have a reasoned talk with them explaining why you’re are doing it, and explaining that you are only testing them because you love and worry for them. Parenting teens is a tough job, and there are rarely easy answers.
Author: Christian Shire
Find out more on teen drug tests:
http://www.choosehelp.com/teenagers/should-you-be-drug-testing-your-teen
Read the daily blog entry at http://www.troubleblog.com/category/parenting/troubled-teens/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Christian_Shire
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Drug Abuse in Teens
‘Passive Pusher’ Parents Enabling Drug Abuse in Teens
A new survey reports that inattentive parents are to blame for their children abusing common prescription drugs.
According to questions asked by researchers from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA), more teens today say it’s easy to get prescription drugs without a prescription than it was a year ago.
And before you start blaming the Internet, the survey pointed out that in the majority of cases where teens obtained illegal prescription drugs, they got them from their parents’ medicine cabinet.
D’oh!
That’s right, folks. It’s your fault your kid is hopped up on Percocet or Vicodin.
The Columbia University study involved 1,002 kids age 12-17 from April to June of 2008.
The problem, according to Elizabeth Planet, the study’s lead author, is the disconnect between teens and their parents. Most of the parents were not aware of how often teens abuse prescription drugs. But prescription drug abuse among teenagers has been an issue for years, say experts.
Not only did parents not think their teens were taking their meds, there were also large discrepancies in the reporting of how often the teens were out of the house.
Fifty percent of the teens surveyed said they were hanging out with their friends on weekday evenings, while only 14% of the parents said they knew their kids weren’t home.
"Parents are not paying attention," said Planet to reporters. "There are parents who are out in the evening themselves. There are parents out at work."
While marijuana remains the easiest drug for kids to get (in fact, 43% of 17-year-olds surveyed said they could get their hands on some within an hour), prescription drugs are now third on the list, harder to get than cigarettes but easier than beer.
Fifty percent of teens who reported staying out past 10:00 at night said there was drinking and drug abuse occurring among the people they were with. For those who returned home between the hours of 8:00 and 10:00 pm, 29% said there was alcohol and drug use happening.
National Institute on Drug Abuse representative Nora Volkow told reporters that part of the concern with prescription drug abuse is that kids think it’s safe if their parents have it. "Kids think that because these are medicines that are prescribed, they are safe," said Volkow. "[But] the problem is that there is very little difference between the amount they take for a high and the amount that causes an overdose."
CASA’s president Joseph A. Califano had harsher words for those inattentive "problem parents": "Preventing substance abuse among teens is primarily a mom and pop operation. It is inexcusable that so many parents fail to appropriately monitor their children, fail to keep dangerous prescription drugs out of the reach of their children and tolerate drug infected schools," said Califano to reporters.
He added, "By identifying the characteristics of problem parents we seek to identify the actions that parents can take – and avoid – in order to become part of the solution and raise healthy, drug-free children."
By Anastacia Mott Austin
By Buzzle Staff and Agencies
Published: 8/15/2008
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