Should You Drug Test Your Child?

Remember all the things we were told as kids that weed will kill us or that it’s a gateway drug? Well, we grew up, and realized that the things we were told about weed weren’t necessarily true. And guess what? Kids nowadays know that too.

Drug use is increasingly getting more screen time through entertainment media, which is accessible to children and teens. Music videos featuring music stars with mountains of snow on a mirror, or a guy that’s in love with, what we initially thought, was cocoa. We as adults know better, or at least we’re supposed to, but these things stick like honey to a kid’s brain.

It’s only natural that you want to protect your child, and spare them the world of pain that drug use might inflict. Most parents feel that drug test might discourage their children from experimenting with drugs, and prevent it entirely. But it that true? What if it does more harm than good?

Does it smell like teen spirit?

Being a parent isn’t easy. And though we may think differently, being a kid or a teen isn’t easy either. The average teen is exposed to and suffers more stress and anxiety than psychiatric patients did during the 1950s.

Couple that with the pure pressure of modern social dynamics, in which the teens are pressured by their peers to try drugs. At least once, everybody’s doing it.

More than 80% of teens admitted to having the opportunity to try an illicit substance, and 40% actually experimented with drugs. 9% of teens admitted to everyday drug use.

Alcohol, weed, and tobacco are the most commonly abused substances by teens. When it comes to drug use, marijuana is the most widely used drug among teens, followed by pharmaceuticals, ecstasy, and cocaine. And though it isn’t harmful to adults over 25, long-term marijuana use in teens may lead to short-term memory loss or poor cognitive functioning.

Should you drug test your child?

Parents test their children for two possible reasons: preventive or investigative measures. Both of these measures are seemingly effective in helping you prevent drug use. However, the truth is much more complicated, and things aren’t always what they seem.

Let’s say you want to prevent drug use by letting your children know they’re going to be tested, either regularly or randomly. Or you already suspect drug use, by noticing changes in your child’s behavior, and you want to confirm your doubts.

For whatever reason, you can easily test your kid with a home drug test kit. Still, the question remains: should you test your child? You might think you’re keeping your kids safe that way, when you are, in fact, doing more harm than good.

According to pediatricians, physicians, and social workers, you shouldn’t test your child by yourself, and for multiple reasons. One of those reasons is the foundation of every meaningful human relationship – trust. Asking your teenager to pee in a cup might be perceived as a betrayal of trust, an excellent way to ruin your relationship with your child.

Besides breaching the trust barrier, at-home urine drug tests can be fooled. Synthetic urine is becoming widely available at local headshops and online. Your child might switch the sample for a synthetic one, and trick you and the test.

Watching your child produce a sample, or in other words, watching them pee (yes, some people did that), will only make the situation much worse. It might be an effective way of preventing them from tampering with the sample, but it’s just an awful parenting method.

You can opt for a saliva test, which is much less invasive, though less accurate also. Drugs stay in saliva for a shorter amount of time, and by the time you conduct the test, your child’s saliva might be already clean.

What can you do?

Parents are authority figures, and due to the “power differential,” many teens have a guard against their parents. Don’t allow yourself to make your child’s feeling insignificant– that can be damaging to your relationship and your child.

Instead of testing them, talk to your children about drugs. But don’t barge into your kid’s bedroom yelling: “Are you doing drugs?!” from the top of your lungs. Take things slowly, be respectful and considerate, learn their interests, and figure out how much they actually know about drugs. Remember, still waters run deep.

If you do want to test your children, don’t do so without reasonable doubt. Testing them in secrecy can be done by collecting a hair sample, and sending it to a hair testing lab, or by taking your child to a trained professional.

Conclusion

Even though you are in your full rights to test your child, that doesn’t mean you should, and we strongly advise against it. Instead, employ conversation about drug abuse as a measure of prevention. However, as investigative methods, we would advise you to resort to hair follicle testing, as it can be done covertly.

Please keep in mind that drug test alone isn’t an adequate measure of prevention and intervention. If you suspect drug abuse, please consult with a trained professional about taking the necessary steps to help your child.