According to research, children who grew up in a household with a drug-addicted parent are much more likely to develop an addiction when they grow up.
Children who watched their parents suffer from drug addiction develop many psychiatric conditions and experience neglect, trauma, and abuse.
Not to mention, many children have been victims of prenatal drug exposure, which alters their brain’s susceptibility to addiction.
Parental drug use is damaging enough that a social worker has the right to remove a child from a household with no questions asked.
The problem is, what are the physical effects of parental drug use on a child’s life? Why should a parent avoid drugs once they conceive a child?
Thankfully, we’ve created this article to cover that information. Keep on reading to learn more about parental drug use and how it will affect children.
How Many Children Live With Addicted Parents?
According to a research article by the substance abuse and mental health service association, over 8.7 million children live in a household with at least one drug-addicted parent.
This means that one in every eight children, aged 17 or younger, are being exposed to illegal street drugs regularly. This premature-exposure leads to a numbing of the negative effects of drugs on the body.
This numbing can lead the child to grow up and feel that drugs are not really that bad because their parents (their mentors of life) were using at such a young age.
The Effects Of Parental Drug Abuse Around Children
There are many ways that parental drug abuse can negatively affect a child’s life. We will cover a few of the most common negative outcomes.
Aggression
If the drug-addicted parent either runs out of their supply, or their high is wearing off, they can easily become abusive.
Their brains are used to having the effects of drugs to help them achieve homeostasis in the body, therefore, being without the drugs creates an internal panic.
Understanding the drug addiction definition helps to comprehend what is happening physiologically in the drug-addicted mind.
Neglect
Neglect can appear in multiple ways with parental drug abuse. When the user becomes high, they go into a state of mind that may make them completely forget about their child.
Also, once social services catch on that there is a drug-addicted parent, that child may be taken away from their home and forced into foster care. Then they will feel neglected by their parents if they are too young to understand the situation.
Over Exposure
The overexposure of illicit street drugs typically causes a child to grow up feeling the need to mimic their parent’s actions. This leads to many problems that carry on with them into adulthood including drug abuse and breaking the law in other various ways.
Learn More About Parental Drug Abuse and Children
There you have it, understanding the effects of parental drug abuse will help you to identify if a child you know is being exposed to drugs, and what you can do about it.
If you found this article helpful, check out more like this under the health and family section of our blog.
I’m a 20-something stay-at-home mother and wife. I have an amazing husband, a beautiful daughter, two loving dogs, and a lazy cat. I wouldn’t change my life for anything! I love to read, listen to music, cook and blog!
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