How to Determine if Your Child is Using Drugs

Video Transcript

"Hello. Have you ever wondered how to determine if your son or daughter is on drugs? Well, I'm Dr. Felicia and I would like to give you a few tips on how to discover that. For instance, most parents will see a very abrupt change in behavior. Very abrupt change in attitude. Now you may say that's common in adolescents anyway, so how do I tell the difference when it's drugs? Well that change and abrupt changes is much quicker than normally happens in a adolescents. For instance you may see a very studious child all of a sudden not want to study the books at all and be failing all subjects. That's a drastic change. The other thing you look for is appearance. They may let themselves go. Become disheveled, grow hair longer than others, be indoctrinated in to the drug culture so to speak. You can certainly tell by looking at their eyes if they are using marijuana. Or you can tell if it's cocaine and they become more speeded up in their activities and not sleep and become very restless. Now many kids will explain this way, "Oh Ma, school is getting so stressed out, I can't handle it." So parents are probably more than willing to go into denial and say, "Well that's not my child. Not on drugs anyway." Please be very alert to these signs. The dishevelment in appearance, change, abrupt change in attitude, new class of friends. Friends you've never heard of before. People that you may not like who they associate with and certainly decline in school grades and neglect of maybe quitting a job that they might of have. So please pay attention to all these signs. If you really feel that you're suspecting drug use, don't be afraid to look through their belongs and look for drug paraphernalia as well as remnants of different drugs. And in a most extreme cases, you would can actually follow your child to see where they're going out. Many parents don't like to do that. They feel it's an invasion of privacy. But none the less, it's your child's life that's on the line so you must take any measures that you can to help them protect them from that incident. The longer they stay on drugs, the harder it will be to get them off. So please stay alert and that's how you determine if your child is on drugs. Good luck with this serious matter. Dr. Felicia signing off."