A study on how parental drug use affects the psychosocial development of children

Abstract

Background: Various studies have confirmed that children of mothers exposed to multiple drugs before childbirth, i.e., during the prenatal period, have weaknesses in physical and psychosocial development due to various effects. Parental drug abuse is also risky for other stages of child development. Accordingly, this study was conducted as a descriptive research under the qualitative research methodology, based on the research question, "What is the impact of parental drug use on the psychosocial development of children?", using selected cases related to Colombo and Kalutara districts . Method: Under purposeful sampling, 08 drug-using families were used for the sample, and data were collected through in-depth interviews under the case study method. Qualitative data were analyzed according to thematic content analysis. Results: According to the findings of this study, parental drug use is a major risk factor for child development, and it has increased the risk of drug problems among those children during adolescence and young adulthood, and interpersonal relations and behavioral problems have increased during the child's personality development. Due to the problems faced by children in a family that uses drugs, the negative life experiences received there affect attitude development, and the growth of broken families has affected the child's personality development. In particular, the care, love, kindness, attention, and age-appropriate recognition that the child should receive from within the family have decreased. It was revealed that due to parental drug use causing economic problems in the family, children tend to skip school education, children turn to illegal activities to earn money, and even community health problems such as children becoming malnourished. Also, the rejection of the child's potential in a broken family background built due to drug use causes low personality traits in later life. Conclusion: In the study, it was identified that instead of making social development good and qualitative, such as giving love, acceptance, and helping to maintain social relations, to the children in the drug-using family, there was a loss of such factors. Accordingly, it can be concluded from the findings of the research that parental drug use has had an impact on the development aspects of children's personality development, attitude development, social development, and emotional development.