How alcoholic and drug-attic parents effects a students learner, and what is there outcome in life - Research Paper Example

Download file to see previous pages... Children are heavily dependent on their parents especially during the early stages of their life. Parents satisfy all their demands and provide love, care and attention and thus create an atmosphere conducive for the overall development of their children. But this description is not suitable for certain households in which either of the parents are drug addicts or alcoholics. The familial atmosphere is entirely different in such cases and the children who belong to such families face a number of difficulties which cause serious damages to their character formation and also to the overall development of the child. Studies have also found that the academic performance of such learners is also adversely affected. This paper is an attempt to analyze the difficulties faced by student learners with alcoholic or drug-attic parents, to identify the impact of parental alcoholism on the life of their children and also to identify appropriate strategies to deal with such children. Challenges faced by learners of Alcoholic Parents Many studies have shown that most of the children start identifying the parental drug use and alcoholism between 10 to 12 years of age even though it is subjected to interpersonal variations. There are also cases in which the child identifies some sort of problem in his house even at the age of five but fails to recognize what exactly the problem is because none of the family members will be ready to explain things to him. According to the results of National Household Survey on Drug Abuse in the year 1996 8.3 million children in the United States live with alcoholic or drug addict parents and the most surprising fact is that this contributes to 11 percent of the total child population in the US. Appendix 1 provides a clear idea regarding the nature of substance abuse by parents. 3.8 million children live with alcoholic parents and 2.1 million children live in households with their drug addict parents and 2.4 million children belong to parents who are addicted to both alcohol and drugs (see Appendix 1). It is also observed that the children living with substance abusing parents are found in all age groups. Appendix 2 gives the statistics of children who belong to different age groups and who live with drug-attic and alcoholic parents (see Appendix 2). These statistics are quite disturbing and alarming. The drug use and alcoholism of parents put their children in dilemma at early ages which affect their character formation adversely as they grow. The effect may vary from person to person but it is much heavier in the case of certain individuals. There is a global acceptance regarding the fact that parental alcoholism adversely affects the emotional, cognitive and social functions of the children as they are exposed to the parental illness for a long period of time. There is every possibility for such persons to become anti-socials and to be involved in criminal activities and eventually to end up in prison (Frank, 1983, p.22). It is also possible to observe a high degree of risk involved in the case of children with alcoholic and drug addict parents to develop personality disorders, behavioral problems and ultimately to become alcoholic and drug addicts. The parent-child conflicts and conflicts between their patents may lead to impaired ...Download file to see next pagesRead More