A recent report published in the Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research Journal found that most parents are very agile when it comes to identifying Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) in their kids, but they
fail to notice almost any type of substance abuse in their offsprings.
The research was carried out by Laura Jean Bierut, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine and Sherri Fisher, project coordinator of the St. Louis site of the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA). The authors found that parents notice very easily symptoms of ADHD and ODD in offsprings because the two above mentioned disorders imply 'externalizing' behaviors which affect not only the sufferer, but also the others around the child. On the other hand, 'internalizing' disorders, such as depression, which affect the child alone and are not 'externalized', being also harder to be tracked down.
Laura Jean Bierut explained: "Externalizing' disorders such as ADHD and ODD have behaviors associated with them that are obvious and affect others. For example, a child who cannot sit still or focus on his or her work at school and is disruptive in the classroom, or a child who argues with his or her parents or refuses to do the things that they ask.
However, the symptoms associated with 'internalizing' disorders such as depression can be much more subtle and not as easily recognized. Things like feelings of worthlessness or loss of interest in favorite activities can be very troubling to a child, but they don't necessarily impact others and might go unnoticed unless the child chooses to talk about them."
But when it came to substance abuse in children, most parents said that they noticed no such thing in their offsprings. The situation was somehow ironic, because the authors of the study interviewed for the survey both parents and children. Results showed that parents whose children admitted to abusively consume alcohol, tobacco or marijuana failed to notice in their kids and report in the interview such bad habits.
"Specifically, if a child reported having used alcohol, the parent said their child had used alcohol only 50 percent of the time. Similarly, when a child reported having used tobacco, the parent reported this only 55 percent of the time, and when a child reported having used marijuana, the parent report agreed only 47 percent of the time," noted Professor Bierut.
But the situation was even more dramatic when it came to drug abuse among children. If some of the parents succeeded, however, in tracing alcohol, tobacco or marijuana regular consumption in their offsprings, most of them completely failed to track down drug abuse in their beloved kids.
Parents tended to believe what their children told them - meaning denying any drug consumption and abuse. "When a child reported using any of the other drugs we asked about - for example, cocaine, speed, downers - the parent agreed that their child had used any of these drugs in only 28 percent of the cases," reported Professor Bierut.
Results of the study also highlighted the fact that parents of older teenagers - between 16 and 17 of age - were more agile at identifying substance abuse in their offsprings as compared to parents of 12- and 13-year-olds. This is a highly dangerous and concerning situation, as previous researches showed that the earlier one starts to consume harmful substances, the more likely he is to become an addict of the specific substance, be it alcohol, tobacco, marijuana or any type of drug.
"In general, we found that parent reports added very little information to our knowledge about adolescent substance use beyond what adolescents themselves were reporting, particularly when compared to other types of psychiatric disorders like ADHD and ODD. Our conclusion is that parents do not provide valuable information about their children's use of alcohol and drugs because they simply don't know about it," concluded Sherri Fisher, co-author of the study.
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