Negative Behaviors, Emotional Stress and Depressive Symptoms of Children with Substance Dependent Parents: Towards an Intervention Program
Ronald Yrog-Irog
Discipline: Education
Abstract:
The study explored the negative behaviors, emotional stress and depressive symptoms of children with substance dependent
parents. Fifty children of substance dependent parents whose ages ranged from 11 to 18 years old were the study participants
who took the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-42 and the ten highest scorers were interviewed. Majority of the children came
from a low-income, nuclear family where the parents had been into drug use for at least five years. Exploration of the
children’s experiences revealed that their schooling had been compromised due to continuing drug use of parent/s which in
turn was influential on their own drug using activities. The stigma and the problem of being ostracized by society and the
disengagement of relationship to friends and other significant people prevailed as caused by the drug using activities of
parent/s. Moreover, parental substance dependency impacted the family’s dynamics, leading to some of the participants having
suicidal thoughts and denying reality. Interviews of significant others (e.g., neighbors, grandparents, friends, and others)
indicated the presence of negative modeling and lack of parental supervision, growing up in an aversive environment and
among deleterious people, a display of oppositional behaviors, the likelihood of developing internet gaming addiction,
increased health problems, and the perception that children wanted to have change in their lives as they tried to develop
courage in the midst of all the adversities they faced. Based on the findings of the study, an intervention program intended for
the children and the parents was designed.
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