How Addicted Parents Affect Their Children
Children of addicted parents are negatively affected by their parent’s substance use issues in a number of ways. Some of the concerning ways that children are negatively affected by the substance addictions of their parents are described below.
Exposes Them to Violence
Children of addicted parents often receive exposure to domestic violence. This is due to their parents acting reckless and getting into physical altercations while under the influence. Exposure to such violence can be very traumatizing for young children.
Expose Them to Overdoses
Many other children of addicted parents witness their mother or father overdose on drugs. This can be traumatizing for children of any age.
Provide Them With Little to No Parental Support or Guidance
Parents with substance addictions spend all of their time abusing drugs or trying to get more drugs to abuse. Thus, they often neglect to take care of their children or give them parental support. Such negligent parenting often forces the children of addicted parents to take on parental responsibilities.
Such neglect also often causes children of addicted parents to struggle socially, in school, and professionally. Many children of addicted parents are even forced to live in poverty. This is due to their addicted parents spending all their money on substances.
Cause Them to Experience Self-Esteem Issues
Many children of addicted parents become embarrassed about their home lives and the fact that they don’t have model parents. This is especially the case if their parents’ substance addictions have forced them to live in poverty or take on parental responsibilities. As a result, many children of addicted parents experience severe self-esteem issues.
Children May Witness Their Parent’s Arrest
Some parents with addictions get arrested for their use of illegal substances. Unfortunately, this often causes children of addicted parents to have to experience their mothers or fathers being incarcerated. Having parents get arrested is traumatizing for children. Having parents in jail not only makes life harder on children, but it’s also very traumatizing.
Cause Their Children to Fear Losing Their Parents
Many parents with addictions use illegal substances and neglect their parental duties. Thus, their children may fear that their parents may get arrested one day. This is not an unreasonable fear as many parents with substance addictions end up incarcerated at some point in life. Some children of addicted parents may even fear that child protective services may take them away from their parents.
Force Their Children to Experience Mistreatment and Abuse
While under the influence, parents with substance addictions may act out in reckless ways that they normally wouldn’t. For example, some parents with substance addictions mistreat or abuse their children physically or emotionally.
Force Their Children Into a Role Reversal
Something horrible that children of addicted parents often experience is a forced role reversal. By this, we mean that children of addicted parents must take on parental responsibilities at an early age. This may include having to be responsible for everything from finances to providing shelter and parental support for their siblings. In fact, many children of addicted parents are forced to take care of their mothers or fathers. This often ages children of addicted parents prematurely.
Force Their Children Into Experiencing Unhealthy Parent-Child Emotional Engagement
Many children of addicted parents are forced to support their mothers and fathers. As a result, they are often forced to engage in unhealthy and inappropriate emotional engagement with their parents. For example, children of addicted parents may be forced to listen to their mothers or fathers talk about inappropriate sexual experiences in front of them while they are drunk or high.
Children of addicted parents may also be forced to sleep in the same beds as their mothers and fathers. This is due to their parents experiencing withdrawal and/or addiction symptoms such as feeling depressed or anxious. Children of addicted parents may even be forced to drop everything in their lives to constantly babysit their parents or rescue their parents from harmful situations.
Coping as Children of Addicted Parents
Many children of addicted parents blame themselves for their parents’ substance use issues. For example, many children think to themselves that if they were better, their parents wouldn’t abuse drugs. This is a wrong and unhealthy thought, though.
To maintain good mental health, children of addicted parents should think positively and remind themselves of the following things:
1. Addiction Is a Disease
All children of addicted parents should remember that addiction is a disease. If children of addicted parents frequently remind themselves of this, they’ll recognize that there is nothing that they could’ve done to change their parents’ actions.
Remember, parents don’t abuse substances because they don’t love their children. They abuse substances because they are suffering from the disease of addiction.
2. You Are Not Alone
There are many children of addicted parents in the U.S. and the world. To help you manage your mental health as a child of an addicted parent, it’s good to remind yourself that you are not alone. Many support groups exist to help people overcome the secondhand effects of addiction.
3. It’s Alright to Talk About It
You can confide in trustworthy adults about your situation if things become too difficult for you. Oftentimes, children of addicted parents feel that they must keep their parents’ substance addictions a secret out of fear that speaking about it will cause them to lose their parents.
With this thinking though, things at home will likely only get worse. Thus, if you know an adult that you trust, remind yourself that it’s alright to confide in him or her and reach out for help.
The Seven Cs
Children should always be able to focus on just being kids and having fun. Unfortunately, children of addicted parents often lose their innocence and ability to just be kids. To help children of addicts be able to retain some of their childhood innocence, they should remember the seven Cs below as it pertains to their parents’ addictions.
- I didn’t Cause it.
- I can’t Cure it.
- I can’t Control it.
- I can Care for myself.
- I should Communicate my feelings.
- I should make healthy Choices.
- I should Celebrate myself.
How to Stage an Intervention for Your Parent
Talking to a parent about substance abuse can be difficult for children. This is because it’s usually not a child’s responsibility to hold a parent accountable for his or her wrongdoings. The best way for children to talk to their parents about substance abuse and convince them to attend rehab is to stage an intervention.
To stage a proper intervention, children of addicted parents should first write down talking points. Children of addicted parents should then contact professional interventionists that can help them stage proper interventions.
Interventions shouldn’t be done by just one person. To convince a parent to attend rehab, individuals should invite the parent’s other close relatives and friends to come to the intervention and talk about their concerns as well.
Just make sure to arrange a time for the intervention when everyone is available. Also, make sure to conduct the intervention at a time when the parent isn’t drunk or high.
What to Do During the Intervention
During the intervention, children of addicted parents should calmly and directly state their talking points. Any close relative or family friends that are a part of the intervention should do the same.
Hopefully, by staging an intervention, your parent will realize the severity of his or her substance use. Parents that receive interventions for drug addictions should also hopefully recognize that they need help.
Once you get your parent to recognize that he or she needs help overcoming substance addiction, you should give your parent information on rehab facilities nearby that he or she can receive treatment at. After doing that, all that’s left to do is make sure that your parent follows through with attending rehab.
Parents With Substance Addictions Should Attend Rehab At Grace Land Recovery
Grace Land Recovery is a dual diagnosis treatment center located near Memphis, Tennessee that treats addictions and their co-occurring mental illnesses. Here at Grace Land Recovery, we recognize that anyone can develop any type of substance addiction, including parents. That’s why we offer a variety of addiction and dual diagnosis treatment programs that we specialize by substance and individualize by patient.
Here at Grace Land Recovery, we also make sure to offer a wide variety of addiction therapies and clinical services. Individuals that live in Tennessee and are looking for a quality rehab facility to suggest to their parents should look into Grace Land Recovery.
To learn more about Grace Land Recovery and the wide variety of addiction treatment programs, therapies, and services that we offer, contact us today! Our phone lines are open 24/7 and our treatment center’s office hours are Monday-Friday from 9 am-5 pm.
