Drug Counselor Video Transcription
“If you get a positive drug test result for your teen, you may want to consider the following suggestions.
Talk with your child. Open and honest communication is very important in parenting, especially when your child is involved in high-risk behaviors like drug use. Remind them of what your expectations are and that not using drugs is important to you as a parent and reiterate any of the consequences that there will be if they continue to use.
You will want to let them know that you have factual information that shows that they’ve been using. Be prepared that your child may deny that the test is accurate. Denial is very common in youth that have been abusing drugs. Stand firm and let your child know that you would be willing to have another test done, and will continue to have tests done, until they test clean or that there are no drugs in their system.
Retesting is very important. Now that you have evidence that your child has used drugs, you will want to test them randomly. You will want to make sure that your child is not expecting when that next test will occur. You certainly will always want to retest them if in fact there has been an incident where you suspect that they’ve been using.
One important thing to know is that drugs stay in our bodies long after that drug use, and the drug how long they stay in the body varies depending on the drug. Marijuana, for example, the active ingredient, the THC can stay in the body up to 30 days. Cocaine, other narcotics, for example, metabolize much quicker and are out of the body in two or three days. If you suspect that your child may be using one of these particular drugs, you may want to retest in that frequency.
You want to avoid power struggles with your teen when it comes to drug use. You want to let your teen know that you definitively will continue to drug test them. It is very important that you follow through on this. Know [the] drugs.
You want to be able to hold your child accountable for their actions and help them see that their drug use not only has an impact on them but it impacts the entire family. You want to give them consequences that help deter them from using drugs. For example, if they have access to the family car, you might want to take that privilege away until they can demonstrate that they have clean drug screens or that your confidence has been restored in their decision-making.
You may want to consider for your child if they test positive for a drug test to have them be a part of substance abuse counseling. If your child is using drugs in spite of them knowing that you don’t agree with it, that it’s illegal, that it’s harmful to their health, and they continue to use, your child may be at risk of addiction. Good substance abuse counseling is going to help your child to honestly acknowledge their level of use. It’s going to have them know what their actions have in terms of impact to their family and to themselves. You may also want to provide them some alternatives and other things that they can do other than use drugs to connect with peers, to manage their stress, and to have fun.
Lastly, become knowledgeable as a parent about drugs. Do your research. Look in libraries, internet. They all have an abundant amount of material about what’s going on in the teen culture and drug use. Many kids like to say to their parents, “All kids use,” or, “It’s a phase all kids go through.” This simply is not true. Not all kids are abusing drugs. Your child needs you as an advocate, to stand behind them, to give them factual information about drugs that are going on in their community and at their school, and give them a pathway to finding alternatives into using drugs.”
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