The Role of the Family in the Relapse Prevention around Youth - Article Example

The Role of the Family in the Relapse Prevention around Youth Family plays an important and basic role in youth upbringing. Family is considered to be a breeding ground for material and spiritual riches, where it is impossible to get social and psychological harms. But it is not always so. It is really a fact that the greatest part of deviations is connected with the relationship in families, where different forms of home violations are considered to be the norm of life. Another fact is genetic strain – when the relatives of young people suffered from alcoholism and drug addiction or just had an antisocial behavior. Many families meet the important problems in upbringing children. Especially these problems are obvious in transferring period: children – young people. Mostly it is connected with the pubertal period. At this age people experience some serious changes in their psychology and physical state. The psychological and physical developments are very frequent and that is why young people are always anxious and it is very difficult for them to make the decisions. On the other hand young people at that age begin to feel that they need respect from the side of their parents and peers. They want their parents to conduct them as full-fledged persons. At the same time the interests of young people are not in the frames of their family any more, they meet new people and enter society independently. Taking into account everything that was mentioned above it is worth concluding that young people demand much attention from the side of their family at that time. It is the very time when parents should have a great impact on their children in order to achieve success in the relationship between them. Parents should understand the demands of their children, their spiritual needs. The most successful variant of upbringing is establishing good, human and emotional relationship between generations. The members of family complete each other and need attention. Only if their feelings towards each other are sincere, the stable and good relationship is possible. (Brenna) Family is very important in the process of the relapse prevention among youth. There are many socio-cultural factors that cause the drug addiction. The most noticeable factor is the communication with people who had some experience of drugs taking. Such people are real and serious danger for youth. Usually young people trust their friends who have experienced drugs taking and they believe that it is really as good as they are told about. Sometimes people do not believe that drugs are impossible to give up and young people do not consider themselves to be serious drug-takers. The factor of communication is vey strong because youth form their opinion about drug-taking with the help of peers and Mass Media. Sometimes Mass Media give the information that really causes interest to drugs – these are movies and musical programs. A great work concerning the anti-narcotism programs is held in schools and colleges, but it is not productive. (Tucker Jalie A., 2001) Many families are concerned with the problem if it is possible to prevent relapse among youth. To my mind it is impossible. Every person can meet the drugs at school, in the street, in gyms and disco clubs. But every person should be ready for these meeting in order not to have fatal results. Here family plays an important role. The task of every family is to try to prevent the child from narcotism. Many specialists who work in this field – sociologists, psychologists, pedagogues – say that the problem of narcotism is rarely discussed in families. Nevertheless even if such discussions take place in families, they do not have a great impact on the decision of young person. So it is easy to suppose that the nowadays families are not ready to prevent relapse among youth. (Brenna) Among the reasons of drug alcohol addiction among youth many specialists point out the genetic and physiological - hereditary addictive traits, difficult pregnancy and birth, craniocerebral damages. All these factors prepare a successful ground for the addiction development. It is much more difficult for these children to go to school, to kindergarten, to protect their interests. The future of every young person often depends on psychological and social reasons. All specialists underline the importance of family influence. The positive climate in the family can completely, correct the biological inheritance. It is a fact that some psychologists such as Alan Marlatt and Dennis Daley see the main reason of drugs addiction in the absence of parents’ attention and care. (Daley Dennis C., Marlatt G. Alan, 2006) The main reason of narcotic and alcohol addiction among youth is their lonely life, the lack of parents’ attention and proper upbringing. Probably there was a moment when parents missed the right time to show their love and care. Many people are concerned with the problem why it is so. To my mind the main ground for this is the goal of adults to earn more money. Parents often forget that money is not as important as their children who need love and support. So it is obvious that the role of family in relapse prevention is determining. From the very early childhood every child should feel care and attention and at the same time they should have some space for their independent actions and they should be sure that their parents trust them. Usually the pathological upbringing (hypoprotection and hyperprotection) that in fact destroys individuality makes the child predisposed to narcotic and alcohol addiction. It is worth mentioning that young people that were brought up in such way meet the difficulty with independent problems saluting. They are disabling to make the decision of their own. Besides as soon as they have a possibility to get rid of this ‘extra care’, they try to do everything that they were forbidden to. Here a great impact of friends and peers should be mentioned. (Daley Dennis C., Marlatt G. Alan, 2006) Another type of wrong upbringing is upbringing in ‘the culture of illness’. It is possible to meet such type in the families where children are sick very often. The illness of the child becomes the object of attention of the whole family and that is why parents and relatives try to protect the child of any problem. Such children are always helped in problems solutions and they are not ready to face with the difficult problems. As a result such people try to solve the problems with the help of escaping from reality. So it is obvious that extra love and care can also be bad for the child. To my mind parents should bring up a strong personality, their child must have their own experience of gained victories. (Tucker Jalie A., 2001) Many people who suffer from narcotic and alcohol addiction were spoilt by their parents. They always got what the wanted – expensive presents, fashionable clothes. All these things formed ‘the will paralysis’, they can not resist dangerous temptations. Such people have a special attitude to their wishes – they have to be satisfied in any way. It is possible to meet the same type of relationship in independent families where parents are busy with their work and they try to substitute their attention by money and presents. The absence of the notion “no” formed the illusion of permissiveness in all spheres of life. It is worth saying that parents should pay attention to their children, they should try to organize their spare time, taking into account the things that can be interesting for the young person at this age. The spare time should be organized in such a way not to give free time for the bad actions. Children are to be told about the healthy way of life. I think that it is a very dangerous situation when young people do not have interests and they do not know how to spend their spare time. (Tucker Jalie A., 2001) In order to prevent relapse among youth parents should het interested the child in something that can be interesting for them. Every parent should be interested in their child, be attentive to them. It is a great mistake to make children do what their parents are interested in. The children should choose their interests according to their likings. It is really very difficult and even impossible to point out some definite type of families that are dangerous and can potentially suffer from drugs and alcohol addiction. The problems of alcohol and narcotic addiction can touch both – rich and poor families. The only difference is that rich people are taking expensive narcotic substances and poor people are taking the cheap ones. In addition it should be mentioned that parents who smoke, take alcohol or drugs increase the risk of their children to have a harmful addiction. So the first factor of risk is a bad example of parents. Besides if parents suffer from narcotic and alcohol addiction they do not have enough time for their children. Many successful families to not consider the problem of harmful addiction to touch their family. This problem was never a current issue for their relatives and they have never discussed it with their children. Moreover they even do not know the fist symptoms of addiction. Very often parents are not completely informed about the danger they can have in their family. The lack of knowledge does not allow having a substantial conversation between parents and young people. In addition the indicators of drug-taking are not recognized in families because parents have never faced the problem by themselves. Parents find out about their child’s addiction when it is already difficult or even impossible to help. (Washton Arnold M., 1991) It should be said that the relationship between parents and children play an important role in relapse prevention among young people. The role of mother is of great importance, because mothers participate in upbringing more than fathers do. So if the relationship between mother and child is bad there is a danger of addiction. (Kandel Denise B., 1980) Taking into account everything that was said above it is possible to conclude that family plays the most important role in relapse prevention among youth. The proper upbringing is aimed to form a responsible, independent and kind personality. Parents should be interested in their child’s surrounding and the indicators of addiction in order to avoid negative results. Moreover the issues of harmful addiction are to be discussed in the families. Such discussions should have a regular character. With the time the parents’ control is substituted by the self-control. That is an ideal variant of relapse prevention. To improve the situation with relapse prevention among young people the following measures should be taken: 1. Parents have to be supplies by the information about pedagogical and psychological skills; 2. The following information have to be delivered: The danger of narcotism and alcoholism; Discussions necessity; The topics for discussions; The information about the drugs that exist nowadays; The symptoms of drug taking and alcohol addiction; The danger of communication with people who have an experience of drug-taking. 3. The instruments of educational establishments and Mass Media have to be widely used in order to prevent relapse among young people. References Brenna H. Bry, Richard F. Catalano, Karol L. Kumpfer, John E. Lochman, and José Szapocznik, Scientific Findings From Family Prevention Intervention Research http://www.hawaii.edu/hivandaids/Scientific%20Findings%20From%20Family%20Prevention%20Intervention%20Research.pdf Daley Dennis C., Marlatt G. Alan, Overcoming Your Alcohol or Drug Problem: Effective Recovery Strategies Therapist Guide , Oxford University Press, USA; 2 edition (2006) Factors in Successful Relapse Prevention Among Hong Kong Drug Addicts, Journal of Offender Rehabilitation , 2003 Kandel Denise B., Drug and Drinking Behavior Among Youth, Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 6, 1980 (1980), pp. 235-285 Preventing Substance Use Problems Among Youth: A Literature Review and Recommendations, The Journal of Primary Prevention Springer Netherlands, Volume 20, Number 1 / September, 1999 Putting Promotion Into Practice: The African Americans Building a Legacy of Health Organizational Wellness Program Health Promot Pract, July 1, 2006; 7(3_suppl): 233S - 246S. Tucker Jalie A. , Donovan Dennis M. , Marlatt G. Alan, Changing Addictive Behavior: Bridging Clinical and Public Health Strategies, The Guilford Press; New Ed edition (2001) Washton Arnold M., Cocaine Addiction: treatment, recovery, and relapse prevention , W. W. Norton & Company, 1991 Read More