Introduction
The typical teenager’s desire to take risks and seek thrills may be easily satiated in today’s society through drug and substance abuse. Drug abuse has become more prevalent among adolescents, and many children have their first drink before they even graduate high school. In 2017, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) reported that 29.8% of high school students admitted to drinking alcohol on a regular basis, while 19.8% of high school students admitted to recurrent use of marijuana (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019). The perspectives and behaviors that parents model concerning their use of substances such as alcohol, marijuana, and prescription medicines, as well as other substances, have a significant impact on their children. This paper investigates the variables that might lead to substance abuse and misuse in children and discusses several important educational and preventative options designed to lessen these dangers’ impact on families and communities.
Risk Factors that Contribute to Substance Abuse in Children and Adolescents
Protective factors and risk variables make children and adolescents more susceptible to substance misuse. Parenting plays a significant role in an adolescent’s life (Luk et al., 2017). According to Luk et al. (2017), adolescents who have experienced physical and mental abuse at the hands of their parents are more likely to engage in drugs and substance abuse. There is an existing correlation between drug abuse and children brought up in child welfare services, with almost 20 % of them ending up taking alcohol and using marijuana (Schleimer et al., 2019). In a wider lens, parenting can be subdivided into poor parental monitoring and parental history of substance abuse, which may negatively impact a child’s behavior and promote drug involvement.
While parenting can be considered a major risk factor in child substance and drug abuse, peer pressure is also influential. According to Nawi et al. (2021), approximately 65% of marijuana use in schools results from peer pressure. Concurrently, factors such as low academic performance and family rejection of sexual orientation might also contribute to high adolescent engagement in drug abuse. Mostly, they might take alcohol to reduce their frustrations due to failure in school or get involved in hard drugs to get back at their parents for not accepting them for whom they are respectively.
Educational and Preventable Options to Mitigate Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse
Effective preventive programs in the family, school, and community focus on risks and protective variables. In the family, improved parental communication, more age-appropriate methods of punishment, strict but consistent rules enforcement, and other forms of family management training are just some of the ways in which prevention programs can boost protective factors among children and adolescents. Research studies have shown positive outcomes when parents take a more active role in their children’s lives (Nawi et al., 2021). This can be achieved by effectively monitoring their activities, talking to them about drugs and peer pressure, and understanding their concerns. School-based prevention programs aim to help students succeed academically while also preparing them to resist the pressure to engage in drugs. Teachers can create awareness of the impact and consequences of drugs and substance abuse. On the other hand, environmental strategies are frequently implemented at the community level because of the scale of impact of substance abuse. Policy changes, like the drug-free school movement or strengthened community behaviors requiring identification at the point of sale for tobacco products, are two examples of risk mitigation techniques.
Conclusion
As drugs and substance abuse continue to remain prevalent in children and adolescents, the war against drugs calls for action from the individual, organizational, and community levels. Effective prevention programs, such as policy changes and effective law enforcement strategies, are necessary to mitigate the risks associated with substance abuse. Implementing these programs would result in positive outcomes in the war against substance abuse. Further, creating awareness among children and adolescents through engaging them in conversation regarding the impact of substance abuse on their health would reduce substance abuse risk among this population.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2019). Youth risk behavior surveillance — United States, 2017. Web.
Luk, J. W., King, K. M., McCarty, C. A., McCauley, E., & Stoep, A. V. (2017). Prospective effects of parenting on substance use and problems across Asian/Pacific Islander and European American youth: Tests of moderated mediation. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 78(4), 521-530. Web.
Nawi, A. M., Ismail, R., Ibrahim, F., Hassan, M. R., Manaf, M. R., Amit, N., Ibrahim, N., & Shafurdin, N. S. (2021). Risk and protective factors of drug abuse among adolescents: A systematic review. BMC Public Health, 21(1). Web.
Schleimer, J. P., Rivera-Aguirre, A. E., Castillo-Carniglia, A., Laqueur, H. S., Rudolph, K. E., Suárez, H., Ramírez, J., Cadenas, N., Somoza, M., Brasesco, M. V., Martins, S. S., & Cerdá, M. (2019). Investigating how perceived risk and availability of marijuana relate to marijuana use among adolescents in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay over time. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 201, 115-126. Web.