How to Know if Your Child Is Drug Abused?

How to Know If Your Child Is Drug Abused?

Many parents fail to detect drug abuse habits in their children in right time. Identifying drug abuse in proper time can help parents to give proper counseling or diagnosis to their children before they get affected from its long-term abuse. Drug abuse cause changes in regular behavior and habits of children. Parents need to identify these symptoms to save their children from hazardous effects of drug abuse in time.

General symptoms and signs
Drug abuse forces some changes in regular behavior and appearance of children. Behavioral changes include confusion, aggression, secrecy, anxiety, fear, depression, loss of interest, etc. Physical changes to watch out for are slurred speech, drowsiness, slow breathing, unusual increase or decrease in blood pressure etc.

Physical health
Listlessness and apathy are the major symptoms of drug abuse among children. Red eyes, unusual weight loss, unusual changes in appetite and eating habits, runny nose, tremors in hands, feet or head, etc are other symptoms spotted frequently in drug abused children. Children using injecting drugs might bear needle marks on their lower arm, leg, or bottom of their feet.

Performance in school and extra-curricular activities
Drug abuse in children will steal their motivation and inject apathy in them. It also deprives them off their coordination skills and concentration levels, due to which they will not able to perform well in their school or extra-curricular activities. Drug abused children show dislike to school and tries to find excuses to avoid. If the grades in academics have fell suddenly and the performance in sports has decreased drastically, then the child is probably drug abused.

Personal behaviour
Drug abused children crave for more privacy. Sudden avoidance of family members and old friends, and hiding details of new friends might be result of new drug abuse habits. Drug abuse causes extreme irritation in children even for small or no reason. Some drugs lead children towards excessive talkativeness or extreme hyperactivity.

Money
Drug abused children may frequently request for money without giving sensible reasons. Children who do not get attention to these requests may start stealing money or valuable things. Disappearance of money or items from home should not be ignored as this may be related with drug abuse in children.

Drug abuse symptoms vary with the type and amount of drug intakes. Parents should not ignore these symptoms in their children without logical reasons. It is recommended to confirm drug abuse as soon as parents notice some of these symptoms in their children, through standard home drug test kits.