The Effects on Children with Drug Addicted Parents
It is from the above consideration that this paper intrinsically evaluates the effects on children with drug addicted parents. The paper further explores the models that could be used to address the problem.
Facts and statistics
Nicola, Johnson and Leanne (2009) report that about 10 million of the total American children have drug addicted parents. By the year 2005, SAMHSA (2009) points out that about 4.3 million adults beyond the age of 50 years used illicit drugs between years 2006 and 2008. Use of marijuana by this group was 6.1 while non-medical drugs abuse was 4.1 during the same period. Nicola et al (2009) adds that among the children admitted as inpatients in the United States between 1995 and 2005, children of drug addicts were 29 higher compared to others. In addition to that, 70-90 of states welfare spending on children is estimated to result from parents substance abuse (Nicola et al, 2009).
Shaffer and Katherine (2009) indicate that about 80 of homeless and runaway adolescents reported alcohol use in their homes to have contributed to their situation. Shaffer and Katherine (2009) continue saying that among the unemployed adults, 17.1 were illicit drug addicts compared to 10.2 for those working on part time and 8.2 for permanently employed. Wells (2009) and Panos (2008) conclusions cohere by claiming that the 0.8 drop in the overall drug abuse between years 200 and 2005 was insignificant.
Resultant effects
Analysts indicate that drugs abuse in a family have great effects and affects that are reflected to other members of the family and indeed the whole society. However, the implications to the children are enormous.
Greater risk of abusing drugs
According to Christopher (2004), children always look up to their parents as the immediate role models before extending the same considerations outside the family setup. Notably, children consider their parents to depict the expected code of behavior and therefore directly take them up. As a result, they consider taking drugs as being part of their families and interpreted to be the holistic expectations. Why then would children want to be associated with drug addicted lives similar to their parents According to Albert Banduras theory of cognitive development, young peoples minds have highly reduced capacity to make the correct decisions on the expected effects to their parents and most importantly to themselves (Barlow and Durand, 2008). 70 of drug addicted parents became addicted to drugs at early ages of their lives (SAMHSA (2008).
In his consideration, Panos (2008) argues that most of the drug addicted parents lack the necessary moral grounds to advice their children. In his book, Panos (2008) reports that one of the respondents indicated that he could not stop taking alcohol because his parents were taking it. As more children at their early ages get into drugs from their parents modeling, the fight against drug abuse might take much longer to be won.
From their study, Amy et al (2009) concluded that many drug addicted parents are unable to effectively tell when their children start getting addicted to drugs. As a result, corrective measures are either not employed or they are assumed very late to have any positive effect to the youths. Amy et al (2009) concur with Haggerty et al (2008) conclusion that as parents fail in their duties, peer pressure often turns out to be the next option for the children and takes drug abuse to the next level. It is from this concern that addressing drug abuse has been recommended from an early stage to create the sense of its negative impacts in the future.
Maltreatment and neglect
While maltreatment and neglect has at times been hard to diagnose especially for the children at younger ages, Goldberg (2009) argues that they form some of the most intensive impacts to the children. Drug addicted parents judgment is impaired and therefore either use their children consciously or unconsciously in dealing with their addiction. To concur with Michelle et al (2010), it is indeed very hard for a drug addicted parent to stay clean.
a) Physical abuse
It is estimated that about 500, 000 children every years are victims of physical abuse by drug addicted parents a consideration that contributes to about 39 of the children getting to welfare states every year (Barlow and Durand, 2008). Children of drug addicted parents suffer from major and minor injuries evident from bruises, fractures, burns and fractures among other types of bodily harm. Most of the addicted parents often suffer from key personality disorders and therefore become either less tolerant and impose too high expectations to their children. In this case, a parent is often tempted to use different objects to brutally discipline their children. In addition, children during their tender ages that are entirely dependent on their parents often get hurt during the persistent quarrels between their parents. From the definition of drug addiction, the notion of going back for more leaves little of no time to attend to children affairs such as dietary, education and health (Nicola et al, 2009).
b) Sexual abuse
Similar to other forms of maltreatment, sexual abuse take place largely from poor reasoning ability of the addicted parents. However, as Goldberg (2009) reports, cases of sexual abuse are often lower compared to those of physical abuse in the society. Parents under the influence of highly intoxicating drugs such as alcohol and cocaine have occasionally been reported to attempt raping their children. Besides, Michelle et al (2010) report that of all the adult rape cases reported in the United States, about 60 of them are conducted when the culprits were under influence of the drugs. Other forms of sexual abuse include, touching of the childs private parts such as breasts and buttocks or even exposing them to pornography. In his view, (looked in details in the next section), Nicola et al (2009) argues that it is the threats and coercion that children get to keep their experience in silence that have greater mental impacts to them. Other children as Goldberg (2009) continues to say are often given out for prostitution either to raise more money for the parents ever rising demand for drugs or because of their economic situation.
c) Emotional child abuse
Parents attachment to their children as Haggerty et al (2008) indicate is very crucial for their cognitive and psychological development. Eric Ericksons theory of psychosocial development indicates that failure to achieve the correct development by any child at a particular stage leads to fixation (Michelle, 2010). As a result, emotional abuse creates a major obstacle for the child to progress. Like most of other drug abusers, parents behavior is uncontrolled and they often belittle, shame and humiliate their children. This is often done through calling names while making negative comparison to others a factor that causes very low self esteem. According to the theory of operant conditioning, calling a child names and negatively punishing them destructs their normal learning process and takes very long before restoration (Jos et al, 2009).
For some parents, addiction makes them withdraw from their normal duties and therefore make minimal constant with their children. As Albert Bandura indicated in his theory of cognitive development, children at their early ages require great support by their parents for normal growth (Ries et al, 2009). Withdrawal from the children therefore denies them the normal kisses, hugs, smiles and ultimately creating poor confidence in their actions which greatly minimizes their personality and cognitive development.
Depression and anxiety and other disorders
Parents drug addiction has been a major cause of psychological disorders among the children. Indeed, psychological disorders occur alongside other forms of abuse and maltreatment and therefore mostly inseparable from them. According to Panos (2008), children who undergo physical, sexual or emotional abuse suffer from higher levels of anxiety, aggression, hyperactivity and aggression. Notably, repeated maltreatment results to children seeking alternative methods of coping and therefore developing oppositional defiant disorders (Barlow and Durand, 2008). Scholars agree that with internalization of the disorder, it is reflected in all other activities that children are involved with in the society.
In schools, Jos et al (2009) argues that children are often isolated from others as they talk of how their parents treat them well for instance goodnight kisses, taking them out and good moments. As a result, they have low self-esteem compounded on belittling, negative reference and other abuses. Isolation and lack of support makes the children consider their problems as major obstacles towards any improvement and therefore causing major depression (Michelle et al, 2010). Due to this depression, adolescents easily fall into the trap of negative peer pressure which ultimately results to drug abuse.
Amy (2009) agrees with Christopher (2004) conclusion that from the beginning of maltreatment, children develop major worries about their parents and their ability to support their effective growth. Particularly, it is worth noting that children are entirely dependent on their parents and therefore consider themselves disadvantaged as they see other parents tenderly and carefully treating their children. In one of examples cited from his research, Wells (2009) records that one child used to cry bitterly whenever an advert or a program brought images of a healthy family. The child suffered from anxiety at advanced level because he could not see possible miracle to get to such status. When not addressed effectively, this worry turns out to major anxiety that could lead to full depression.
Poor education performance
A major concern that has persisted over the years is poor education performance by children of drugs addicted children. Drug addiction in the family as Haggerty et al (2008) and Goldberg (2009) noted, causes poor performance through the following. First, addicted parents lack the needed capacity to emphasize on cognitive progress of their children. Indeed, the concern for most addicted parents is inclined to search for more drugs in bid to satisfy them. Furthermore, most of their time which could otherwise have been used to assist children develop cognitively is used taking drugs and addressing the resultant hangovers. Children are therefore left without the necessary support and easily underperform in their education.
Secondly, children of drug addicted parents suffer from key low self-esteem that creates the view of inferiority compared to others. Particularly, negative reference creates a very negative image which Michelle et al (2010) argue that it becomes very hard to address as children skip major cognitive steps that could have been used to anchor their latter mental development. According to the theory of cognitive development, a childs cognitive development is greatly dependent on the learning environment. With home environment indeed being highly stressful for the child and the school assuming critical isolation from other children, Shaffer and Katherine (2009) argue that it is indeed very hard to perform as per the expectations. Though teachers may try to address the situation, winning it often takes long or even fails to succeed due to lack of parents support.
Involvement in crime
Following the lack of effective support especially at home by the addicted parents, children who develop deviant behaviors or get into negative peers often get themselves into conflict with the law. Unlike other children who get consistent guidance both at school and at home, Wells (2009) explains that drug addicted parents indirectly misguide their children to breaking the law. By creating a drug using model as indicated earlier, the children are slowly introduced into the world of crime. Like their parents, Wells (2009) adds that reasoning of the expected implications often goes down and they easily participate in criminal activities such as rape, assault and murder.
Conclusion
It is from the above discussion that this paper concludes by supporting the thesis statement, at a time when global consumerism and lifestyle patterns have increasingly shifted to role modeling and application of ethical lessons in real life, drug addicted parents form the most influential platform towards maladaptive behavior and sociological disorders for their children. It came out from the study that the current high number of children with HYPERLINK httpwww.essaywriters.netsysindex.phprate14docguidepageorder-structure-and-definitions l topic t _blankdrug addicted parents has great negative implications to them. While it is almost certain that children with drug addicted parents will at one time in their lives abuse them too, physical, sexual and emotional abuse culminated to key psychological disorders in their lives. Besides, they also result to poor education performance and involvement in crime.
To address this problem, there is need to identify those children whose parents are drug addicts and breaking the abuse cycle. This consideration therefore requires great cooperation between the society, school and administration to identify the suffering children. Besides, the parents should further be subjected to major counseling to bring bout the effects of drug abuse to them, their children and models of reducing it. Finally, there is need to anchor greater economic growth and development to facilitate better employment and less reliance on drugs.
Categories:
0 comments:
Post a Comment