Troubled Teen Options




Teen Drug Abuse

Teen drug abuse is more likely to occur in teenagers who come from a family with a history of drug addiction. It goes without saying, if a young child witnesses his parents or siblings using, their first instinct is to copy.

Children of Addicted Parents

Not only will a parent’s drug habits be imitated, a child of addicted parents is more prone to depression and anxiety, putting them at far more risk to addiction then teens from stable families. Also exhibited are increased incidence of ADHD, emotional truncation, less capacity for empathy, and extremely poor social skills.
• Children of addicted parents exhibit depression and depressive symptoms more frequently than do children from non-addicted families.

• Children of addicted parents are more likely to have anxiety disorders or to show anxiety symptoms.

• Children of addicted parents are at high risk for elevated rates of psychiatric and psychosocial dysfunction, as well as for alcoholism.

Children of addicted parents experience greater physical and mental health problems and higher health and welfare costs than do children from non-addicted families. • Inpatient admission rates and average length of stay for children of alcoholics were 24% and 29% greater than for children of non-alcoholic parents. Substance abuse and other mental disorders were the most notable conditions among children of addicted parents. • It is estimated that parental substance abuse and addiction are the chief cause in at least 70-90% of all child welfare spending. Using the more conservative 70 percent assessment, in 1998 substance abuse and addiction accounted for approximately $10 billion in federal, state and local government spending simply to maintain child welfare systems. (Unknown Source) By Ann Walker