The Temporal Effects Of Parental Divorce On Youth Substance Use

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Substance use
For most children, during this horrible life event, they reach out for help from friends. Since no peace resides at home beside disappointment and sadness, children spend most of their time with peers. This social relationship can be helpful, but at the same time dangerous. Children may find comfort and love among their fellows, who cheer for them that they have the strength to overcome this trial. However, at the age of 10 to 12, children do not completely understand who they should spend time with and who they should avoid. Due to the lack of supervision from both parents, some children befriend with wrong peers and do bad things later when they enter adolescence stage.
Besides, some teenagers, especially teenage boys, often look for the help of alcohol to deal with the trauma. Since the truth is hard to face with, they choose an easier way, to temporarily shirk
…show more content…
This study accesses the use of alcohol, cigarette and marijuana from 1975 teenagers who suffer parents’ break-up, by interviewing them every year since 1997. As a cohort research, it also observes pre – divorce and post- divorce conditions to determine the correlation. The study shows long-term effects of divorce on children’s decision on substance use as the following:
While the results vary for the different measure so fuse for a given substance, they indicate that youth from families experiencing a divorce are already at an increased risk of engaging in alcohol use at least 2 to 4 years before the divorce. After the divorce, youth are more likely to engage in alcohol, marijuana, and other drug use, with the effect generally persisting as time passes from the divorce. Thus, the effects of the divorce process on youth substance use are not temporary. (Subst Use Misuse Substance Use & Misuse,

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