Do you not understand that there are effective ways to deal with a teen drug issue and ineffective ways, and hiring a drug-sniffing dog to go through your teen’s room has so many components on the ineffective to counter-effective side?
I’m not saying kids with good family structure don’t get into drugs. I’m saying the level of deceit, lack of trust or respect, and potential for unintended consequences evidenced by taking this tack is a likely indicator that there are larger issues going on within that family.
I actually had to tutor a pair of kids from a family like this. They both independently confided in me that they hated their parents, especially their mother, and could not wait to move out and get away from her. The older of the two actually said that his wish was that she would die alone and unloved in a nursing home, with none of her children in attendance.
And that was before she found him with an e-cig and threatened to call the cops on him as her opening move, and he was 20 at the time.
Sad indeed. And I can just hear the parents (and have heard such parents) if the kids don’t turn out well – “Well, what can you do? We tried and tried, but some kids are just born rotten.”
What if the kid is the one mainly perpetuation the deceit, and lack of trust and respect? You’ve had the talks. You have had counseling. He/she has out right lied to your face repeatedly. Do you just give up because you don’t want to invade their privacy? Let them learn the hard less when it isn’t them but the cops that catch them? Some people will deny, deny, deny, until they get caught red handed, and then they can move forward. There are also people who do things that WANT to get caught. They are acting out.
Man, you add a lot of baggage to my posts. (ETA -fun fact, most of my posts I am generally NOT typing with one hand while twirling a gun in the other, wearing a cowboy hat, while draped in an American flag and a stick of beef jerky hanging out of my mouth.)
I don’t know how rare the exceptions are. I am saying this could be a useful tool. Is it abled to be abused? Sure. But at least it’s coming from a place of caring. If the parent didn’t give a fuck they would just let them do what ever. Who cares. I am sure there are some people like the parents in Footloose who are out of touch and authoritarian. But there are many more who are just doing their best to keep their kids safe.
I mean if you thought your child had a gun or a knife, you’re saying you wouldn’t do something to find out or not? You wouldn’t snoop to risk damaging your relationship or violate their privacy?
I think we tend to think of kids just doing weed, which isn’t great for young, still forming minds, but it isn’t like they will OD on it. But kids are also into Opioids which will kill you. Nationally more people die from drug ODs than guns and auto accidents. And this is coming from someone who would legalize weed and even other drugs, so I am not here beating the “argh, drugs bad!” drum.
The best course of action is for everyone to be open and honest with each other and have a dialog. But the world isn’t an after school special.
Drug-sniffing dogs are even in the best cases quite limited in their usefulness. Just like piss tests, they really only cover a small handful of popular drugs. Probably cannabis, cocaine, heroin, meth. It’s one of the more telling aspects of it being more a “war on some drugs”, where the main criteria are vague popularity/class/status issues rather than actual safety. There are thousands of drugs one can use and nobody would ever know unless they were present at the time, or found them and somehow knew what they were.
In my teens, my parents suspected cannabis use, and snooped around. When the therapist they sent me to insisted that me keeping weed in a locked box in my closet was “a cry for help”, my withering condescension was in full force. My mom actually vomited from the visceral knowledge that I was officially A Drug User, and my dad’s best argument was that if I was in the military I would have lost my security clearance. Nowadays, most straight people asking me about drugs would yield an answer they would not be sure how to respond to.
I had a friend whose daughter was a heroin addict and bulimic/anorexic. Before her daughter died, she moved home and my friend did everything in her power to keep her daughter alive. She had to cut her daughter’s toothbrushes in half to prevent her from using them to throw up with.
Every day her kid ate something was a victory. Every day they didn’t have to go to the ER was a victory. My friend confided in me that she prayed sometimes whether to help her daughter live or die.
My friend was no narc; in fact, I am sure that there were many people who were in contact with this woman who wished she were their parent. She was simply an amazing human being. And her kid was sadly an addict.
I don’t think that people appreciate the heartache that parenting an addict is to many parents; if you are at the point of renting a drug sniffing dog, chances are, your relationship is beside the point and you are just praying to keep your child alive.
