The silent echo : experiences of drug dependent parents

Abstract

This qualitative study aims at exploring if and how drug dependency effects parenting. It highlights the difficulties that young dependent parents may be facing, how they perceive themselves as parents and what type of parental rearing styles are being used with their children. It specifically explores the impact that dependency has had on them while they were using drugs, during their recovery and after. This study will not give importance to the legal, social, health and employment problems encountered, but will intensely explore more specific issues like parental warmth, tension, communicatfon and many others. One must bear in mind that all these parental tasks are complicated by the state of addiction. The sample consists of 10 Maltese male and female young parents attending or having attended a local drug rehabilitation programme. Their ages range from 18-25 years. The data is collected by the use of in-depth interviews and is analyzed by qualitative techniques. Gender differences are also highlighted. The data collected clearly indicates that due to the lack of parental skills, these young parents are finding difficulty fulfilling their duties as young parents. This research highlights how drug dependence effects parental styles. The family environment is characterized by unhealthy modeling, high levels of conflict, lack of warmth and inconsistent discipline that mainly stems from their feelings of guilt and shame. The dilemma these young parents faced when trying to internalize their role as a parent while in the programme and the tormenting fear described mainly by the mothers as to who will care for the children when they enter a programme are also highlighted. This research explains in detail the repercussions that drug dependence has had on the family especially the parent-child relationship versus the grandparent-child relationship. This is prevalent with the female sample. Epidemiological surveys (e.g., Anthony, Warner, & Kessler, 1994). argue that drug dependence occurs usually during early to middle adulthood when a substantial amount of the general population is parenting young children. It may often be a useless effort to just focus on the addiction, and ignore the personal skills of parenting. More interest should be given to the drug dependent as a parent and the carrying out of their parental roles, in order to anticipate relapse and the risk of perpetuating the cycle of deprivation and abuse into future generations. Drug dependent adults consistently report exposure to parenting styles linked with poorer outcomes for children (Anasagasti & Denia; Bauman & Levine, 1986; Bernardi, Jones & Tennant, 1989; Mayes, 1995). This study verifies ·the urgent need to implement professional parenting skills for the young dependent parent during and after recovery.