Family Violence

Early Deviance and Related Risk Factors in the Children of Narcotic Addicts

Nurco , David Blatchley , Robert Hanlon , Thomas O 'Grady , Kevin

1999

Findings of early studies on related issues on deviancy on children show that poor parental authority and family functioning are among the most powerful predictors of juvenile conduct problems and delinquency . The same thing is true with respect to substance abuse . Family factors are found to strongly contribute to substance abuse in adolescents . Also parent-child interaction is found to be predictive of substance abuse more likely characterized by

lack of closeness , poor and inconsistent discipline , and lack of monitoring or adequate supervision . The contrary findings show that positive parent-child interaction results to positive dispositions on the part of the children . Related studies also show that drug use by parents are more likely to influence the behavioral tendencies of the children with extremely negative consequences on their children including physical and mental health Children of addict parents are less adaptive and less responsive to children 's needs

The present study deals with the development of children of narcotic addicts . Its aim is to obtain a , based on interview data of how children of addicts were functioning in their teenage years in a number of risk factors and to examine interrelationships among this risk factor to determine whether contemporaneous relationships exist that might have implications for prevention and for treatment interventions with the children of addicts

Prior to the present study , the same researchers conducted a vulnerability study on the behavior of adolescents comparing the children of parents who are narcotic addict and those whose parents are not . Such study was mainly a comparison of the behavioral tendencies of adolescents with a control group

Pursuant to the objectives of the study , the researchers obtained 285 children as subjects of the present study , all of whom are children of male and female adult narcotic addicts enrolled in methadone maintenance treatment programs from Baltimore , Maryland and Washington DC . The mean age of the subjects is 14 .4 (SD 1 .71 , with ages from 12-17 . These children were duly compensated for the 2 .5 hours approximately during the interview conducted . Of the 285 subjects , 51 are male and 49 are female , 84 are African-Americans and only 16 are White Americans

The date of the present study were obtained through survey instruments and made by trained interviewers on the subjects which includes factors such as commission of deviant acts , drug and alcohol use and presence of psychological symptoms . The researchers contemplated on lack of reliability and validity of the information , thus , they required the interviewers to also rate the subjects ' responses in terms of perceived accuracy , overall truthfulness and the like

The factors under consideration are early deviance of children , drug use , alcohol use , family atmosphere , home atmosphere , peer deviance and psychological status

Results of the study reveal that gender is significantly related to early deviance variety and severity . That is , males have the tendency to engage in more varied and severe deviant...