PAC 405 Module 1 Helping Children and the Drivers of Juvenile Substance Use Example

Twelve and Already Using: The Drivers of Early Substance Use and Why Helping a Child Is Different

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Psychology and Addiction Studies Program, Aspen University

PAC 405: Child Psychology

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Month Day, Year

Twelve and Already Using: The Drivers of Early Substance Use and Why Helping a Child Is Different

Jaylen is twelve and in sixth grade in Tampa, Florida. At a family barbecue last summer, his older cousins, fifteen and seventeen, let him drink beer, and since then he has drunk with them several times. Last month a teacher found a cannabis vape in his backpack. He lives with his mother, Keisha, who is a year into recovery from opioid use, and his grandmother, Loretta, who works nights. His father has been incarcerated since Jaylen was eight. Teachers describe him as bright, funny and restless, often out of his seat. His school referred the family to Bayview Children's Counseling, an invented agency where I am a counseling intern. This paper examines what drives early substance use and why helping a child differs from helping an adult. Jaylen and his family are composites, and Bayview is invented; the research is real.

Parental Substance Use

Chassin et al. (1993) studied early adolescents whose parents did and did not have alcoholism, testing three possible pathways from parental alcoholism to children's substance use. Children of alcoholic parents used alcohol and drugs more than their peers. Part of this association ran through parenting: alcoholic parents monitored their children less, and children who were less monitored were more likely to associate with peers who used, who in turn encouraged use. Stress and negative feelings in the children also contributed. The study suggested that the risk passed from parents to children not only through genes but through specific, changeable processes in families.

For Jaylen, his mother's years of active opioid use, during which supervision was inconsistent and he spent time with cousins who drank, fit the monitoring and peer pathway. His mother's recovery may be a turning point in that process.

Adversity in Childhood

Dube et al. (2003) used data from the Adverse Childhood Experiences study to examine whether childhood abuse, neglect and household dysfunction predicted illicit drug use. Each additional category of adverse experience raised the likelihood of early initiation of drug use substantially, and people with five or more categories were many times more likely to report drug use problems than those with none. The authors estimated that adverse childhood experiences accounted for a large share of the risk of drug use problems in the population. Jaylen has experienced several categories: parental substance use, a parent's incarceration and, by his grandmother's account, a period of neglect when his mother was using.

Self-Control Across Childhood

Moffitt et al. (2011) followed about a thousand children in Dunedin, New Zealand, from birth to age thirty-two. Self-control in childhood, measured by observers, teachers, parents and the children themselves between ages three and eleven, predicted adult outcomes in a gradient: lower childhood self-control was linked to worse physical health, more substance dependence, more financial problems and more criminal convictions, even after accounting for intelligence and social class. Part of this link ran through adolescent mistakes, such as starting to smoke and leaving school early. The authors argued that interventions to improve self-control in childhood could have broad benefits.

Jaylen's restlessness and impulsivity, which his teachers notice, may reflect lower self-control or attention problems that deserve assessment, not as a label but as a target for help.

Early Exposure Itself

Odgers et al. (2008) asked whether early exposure to alcohol and drugs matters in itself or simply marks children who would have problems anyway. Using the Dunedin cohort, they found that substance use before age fifteen predicted adult substance dependence, sexually transmitted infection, criminal conviction, early pregnancy and leaving school without qualifications. Crucially, among children with conduct problems, those who did not use substances early had much better adult outcomes than those who did. The authors concluded that preventing or delaying early exposure is important even for children already at high risk.

What Jaylen Says

In his first session, Jaylen was guarded but not hostile. He said beer "tastes bad but my cousins are funny when they drink," and that he vaped because "everybody on the bus does." He did not see either as a problem and was more worried about losing his phone. When asked what he likes, he lit up talking about basketball and about drawing comic characters. These details matter. They suggest that his use is mostly social, tied to his older cousins and to fitting in, that he has interests that compete with use and that a lecture about health would mean little to him. A child's own account, however brief, gives the counselor a starting point that research alone cannot.

Drivers and Protections

Why Helping a Child Is Different

Helping Jaylen differs from helping an adult in several ways. He did not choose to come; his school and his mother did. His capacity to reflect on his behavior, plan ahead and resist peers is still developing. His use is shaped by adults, including his cousins, his mother's history and his grandmother's work schedule, more than an adult's would be. Legally, his mother must consent to his treatment, and confidentiality must be balanced with his mother's right to know about risks to his safety. And the most powerful interventions for children often work through the adults around them, such as parents, teachers and coaches, rather than through the child alone. A plan for Jaylen must therefore include his mother, his grandmother and his school, and it must speak to him in ways that fit a twelve-year-old, such as through activities and concrete goals, rather than through the extended talk that adult counseling relies on.

Conclusion

Jaylen's early use has many drivers: a mother's past addiction, a father's absence, inconsistent supervision, older cousins and his own restlessness. Chassin and colleagues show how parental substance use passes to children through monitoring and peers, Dube and colleagues link adversity to early drug use, Moffitt and colleagues show the long reach of childhood self-control and Odgers and colleagues show that early exposure itself matters. Each driver has a protective counterpart in his life, and helping him means strengthening those protections through the adults who surround him.

References

Chassin, L., Pillow, D. R., Curran, P. J., Molina, B. S. G., & Barrera, M., Jr. (1993). Relation of parental alcoholism to early adolescent substance use: A test of three mediating mechanisms. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 102(1), 3-19. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-843X.102.1.3

Dube, S. R., Felitti, V. J., Dong, M., Chapman, D. P., Giles, W. H., & Anda, R. F. (2003). Childhood abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction and the risk of illicit drug use: The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study. Pediatrics, 111(3), 564-572. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.111.3.564

Moffitt, T. E., Arseneault, L., Belsky, D., Dickson, N., Hancox, R. J., Harrington, H., Houts, R., Poulton, R., Roberts, B. W., Ross, S., Sears, M. R., Thomson, W. M., & Caspi, A. (2011). A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(7), 2693-2698. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1010076108

Odgers, C. L., Caspi, A., Nagin, D. S., Piquero, A. R., Slutske, W. S., Milne, B. J., Dickson, N., Poulton, R., & Moffitt, T. E. (2008). Is it important to prevent early exposure to drugs and alcohol among adolescents? Psychological Science, 19(10), 1037-1044. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02196.x