Teenage Drug Abuse Symptoms and Signs - What to Pay Attention For Parents

There are also physical signs that can tell you if something is wrong with your child. Abnormal weight loss can be a very good sign that there might be an issue concerning your child. Illegal drugs are mostly psychoactive, that is, they affect the brain and mind of the child, thus causing odd behavior. Drugs are addictive, so your child will desire nothing else but to experience getting high on drugs over and over again.

This is a precursor to having depression, because the child will not feel happy until he is able to use drugs. A dependency is characterized by desire to obtain and use drugs to get the desired effect. Learning and social skills are also affected by drugs, which could quickly end your child's bright future.

They say that an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure, so taking this into consideration, stopping drug abuse in its tracks starts from preventing it from ruining your child's life in the first place.

Anti-drug education programs are prevalent in most high schools, among them the D.A.R.E. initiative, to educate your children on the dangers of drug addiction. You could also set an example by not taking drugs, and educating your child yourself on just how dangerous drugs can be and how they can ruin lives.

However, if worse comes to worst, and you discover that your child is already a drug user; you should know what to do to save the life of your child. It may be hard to turn in your own child to the authorities, but you have to know that it's for the best: if you leave your child alone, he or she will most likely ruin his or her own life because of drug addiction.

You could also do your child a favor and turn him or her in for rehab, so that the addiction can be cut off and your child's life will be saved from drug dependency.