Prevention is better than cure; this saying holds much more weight when it comes to drug addiction. It is easy to prevent addiction than it is to treat it. A very large number of addicted teenagers have confessed to having started using alcohol as early as 9 or 10 years old and then gradually graduated to harder substances.
According to the National Survey on Alcohol and Drug Abuse among Secondary School Students in Kenya, around 330,000 secondary school students reported to having used drugs in the past 30 days. These are really alarming numbers. Click here to get the full report.
Statistics show that one teenager dies every week from an accidental drug overdose. Drug addiction is classified in the ICD-10 as a dependence syndrome and is defined as the physiological, cognitive and behavioral incidences that usually occur due to repeated use of drugs.
We have all seen the harmful effects of drug and substance abuse in our society. Especially in the urban areas and the middle to upper-class populations, however, addiction is a disease that does not discriminate and it should be treated as such and not as a crime. Drug addicts require treatment, not jail time. The people selling the drugs to kids and teenagers are the ones who belong behind bars.
As a parent, you really don’t have control over what your child gets up to when you are not around - especially teenagers - so in order to truly protect them, now and forever, you need to equip them with life-lessons that they can use by themselves in order to protect themselves while having a more hands-on approach to parenting.
Addiction specialists who have experience in the treatment of over 400 Opiate dependent teenagers have come up with these 8 tips that parents can use to protect their children from drug addiction.
1. Support your child
If your child is not an addict, try to be as supportive as you can of the positive things in your child’s life. This may be in terms of activities in their lives such as sports and hobbies. Children with supportive parents have always been seen to have a higher self-esteem than those with unsupportive parents. And low self-esteem is one of the major predisposing factors to substance abuse and addiction. If your child is an addict, be supportive of his/her treatment process and his/her sobriety, However, for this to work, your child must be aware that you do notice their positive aspects. You can achieve this through positive affirmations, remember, No Enabling!
2. Learn about the signs of drug addiction
As a parent, you are the one who actually knows your son or daughter, not the teachers at his/her school or anybody else for that matter. So you would notice subtle changes in your child’s behavior that may be as a result of drug use. Early detection of early-onset drug use and addiction could mean the difference between life and death for a child. There is a lot of information you can get on signs of drug use and abuse.
Here is one good read: https://drugfree.org/article/spotting-drug-use/
3. Get involved in your kid’s life
Get involved in the activities your son/daughter engages in, for example, sports, hobbies, interests, school work. Reward good behavior and punish the bad. Believe me, it is more fun spending time with your child doing positive activities, than dealing with rehabilitation, interventions, and court cases.
4. Never assume that it will never happen to your child
Some parents tend to think that their children are perfect little angels and they would never engage in drug and substance abuse or think that it only happens to certain people from certain backgrounds. Addiction does not discriminate it is a biochemical problem so it could happen to anyone, rich or poor, educated or not educated. Thinking it could never happen to your family could be the very first mistake you make.
5. Be the best parent you can be
There is no perfect way of parenting, and no parent is perfect. Parenting is about rewarding the good and punishing the bad. However, there should be a delicate balance between the two. Let me use this analogy, think of your child as an egg, if you hold it in your hand too tight it will break and if you hold it too loose, it will slip from your grasp, fall, and break. It is up to you as a parent to find that perfect balance.
6. Protect your child from abuse
Abused kids have a higher risk of drug abuse and addiction so protecting your child from abuse is key. Always monitor your child’s behavior around relatives or friends. If your child acts strangely around a relative or a friend, this could be a danger sign. Abused children usually will not speak up due to threats by their abusers. Just like addiction, abuse doesn’t discriminate either, it is pervasive and present at all levels of the society.
7. Build Self-esteem in your child
Low self-esteem and drug use is such a lethal combination. Children with low self-esteem are highly vulnerable to drug abuse and drug addiction. Find out and learn the different actions you can take as a parent to build your child’s self-esteem. You can read here on how to build self-esteem.
8. DO NOT TAKE drugs in the presence of your children
Do not raise your child with the “do as I say and not as I do” approach it is very counter-productive because children learn from their parents, or from the immediate environment they are in, it’s how human beings learn, by copying what they see around them. So if they see you taking drugs they see it as being normal and okay so nothing will stop them from doing the same. Lead by example.
Drug addiction has become rampant in our society and necessary actions need to be taken at all levels. So as a parent, incorporating these tips into the upbringing of your child will definitely go a long way in protecting him/her from the bottomless black hole that is drug addiction.
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