14 DAY TRIAL // Growing up in a disorganized family is no easy task, as most kids coming from such environments could tell you. But being raised in a home where one or both parents are addicted to cocaine is infinitely worse, scientists say, who have just recently concluded a study on the long-term effects of exposure to such experiences, especially in the case of teenage girls. They have learned that young females exposed to events related to drug abuse are now four times more resilient than boys in forgetting the tragedies they have lived or witnessed, and moving on with their life.
There are 5 main factors that the researchers have taken into account for the current investigation, namely if the children were part of a family with mental illnesses, if one or both parents were jailed, if they had been subjected to domestic violence, if they were a victim of abuse, or if they had one of the parents die due to the use of drugs. Out of the 125 young adults that were surveyed, a whooping 70 percent said that they experienced at first-hand two or more of these events.
Some 62 percent admitted that they lived through three or more of such terrible occurrences, while 22 percent reported going through four or more. The investigators were even more surprised to learn that just 2 percent experienced none of the above issues during childhood, even though they had an addicted parent. The science team maintains that, in such conditions, it's perfectly normal for girls to be more resilient than boys, especially considering the fact that young males have a higher probability of committing violent crimes by the time they turn 18, if they have been subjected to such experiences while growing up.
“These are very high-risk kids with at least one parent who is addicted to heroin. What we mean by resilience is a reasonable transition to adulthood by working or being in school, avoiding substance abuse and staying out of trouble with the law in the past five years. These seem like ordinary expectations, but only 30 of the 125 young adults we studied met them,” the lead author of the new study, Martie Skinner, who is also a research scientists from the Social Development Research Group at the University of Washington, explains.
“This research and the earlier Focus on Families study highlight how vulnerable these children are. It also indicates that there are early warning signs, and if children get the attention they need to meet early problems it can reduce the burden on society later on in caring for them,” the author concludes.