Picture Credit- 25 Rules For Mothers With Sons.
Living with someone who is struggling with addiction can be hard. Whether a person struggles with substance abuse, gambling or shopping addiction, close family members often feel confused and helpless as they watch their loved one struggle. This can be especially true for children who may lack the verbal skills and life experience that it takes to help a loved one to overcome their problems. Therefore, the following tips are provided in order to offer some ways that families can help their child to learn how to cope with a parent’s addiction.
1. Be honest-Often, children have already witnessed many of the effects of substance abuse or other addictions. Hiding the problem can often lead to further confusion and fear. Therefore, parents should explain in simple terms that the parent has an addiction that is like a disease and requires hard work to overcome.
2. Eliminate blame-Because young children are egocentric, they may believe that they have done something to cause their parents addiction. For this reason, it is important to reassure children that they have not done anything to make their parent struggle. Letting them know that being good or bad does not affect the parents recovery can offer children of an addicted parent relief.
3. Find a support group-Children who live in a home with addiction often feel as if they are the only person who struggles with this problem. For this reason, many support groups have been developed with the specific goal of helping children who are learning to cope with their parent’s addiction. Finding others who also have the same problem can offer children an important resource for support.
4. Keep communication open-For many parents, talking about addiction and their recovery can be difficult due to the many emotions that arise when the topic is broached by others. However, children need to know that they can ask questions at any time in order to ease their concerns. Therefore, parents should try to remain open so that their children can turn to them for advice.
5. Share milestones-Each day of battling addiction is full of triumphs and setbacks. Make children a part of celebrating milestones during a parent’s recovery so that they can see how hard their parent is working to overcome their addiction. Allow children to help mark off on a calendar each successful day of a parent’s recovery, and celebrate with a special treat at the end of each week or month of sobriety.
Because addiction affects the entire family, it is important to help each member of the family to learn how to cope with their loved one’s addiction. Children, especially, benefit from living in an open environment that encourages communication and offers support so that they can find ways of dealing with the effects of their parent’s addiction.
Author Bio:
Paul and his wife Julie both spend quite a bit of time coming up with ideas, blogging, and researching all things related to childcare. They take care of all the necessary information related to “babysittingjobs.com/”. He personally thinks his blog will help finding information on all things related to a babysitter.
Source: · http://addictionrecoveryhope.com/archives/helping-children-to-cope-with-a-parents-addiction
No comments:
Post a Comment