Should you ever tell other parents when you learn their kids are into hard drugs?

[Anonymous]

If I were the other parent, I would be forever grateful to you for telling me and would keep your confidence regarding the source.

I have been in your position and it is tricky when you don't know the other parents and how they will react. School counselor as PP suggested is a great option. Anonymous email is ok but I would phase it much more kindly than the other pp did. Something that sounded confrontational would get my back up and make it less likely that I'd credit it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would encourage your daughter to act responsibly, but i would not tell the parents over her objections. That would destroy your relationship with your daughter.

I have known many people that experimented with hard drugs - coke at least - and emerged none the worse for it. Of course, some people emerged screwed up, but generally that is a very long process. It is not up to you to solve all the problems of the world.

Agree with this. Be sure your daughter understands the signs of addiction and realizes which drugs are an immediate concern, eg, heroin.

[Anonymous]

I'd send an anonymous letter. I did this when a student told me a 14 year old classmate was pregnant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would approach the parents and tell them that you are helping them to save their child's life but you don't want to risk the relationship with your own child. I would tell them to keep your daughters identity confidential, it's not an important factor anyway.

This, OP, this.

Don't let your daughter's teenage reasoning influence you to keep silent, OP. Your daughter is naïve (be glad she is, in this case) because she seems to feel that she doesn't need to tell an adult since these kids are "just messing around" so far. She is trying to give her friends room to experiment and she's trying not to be a narc, but honestly, she's a kid, and will have zero idea if someone's "about to OD." She won't be there with them when it happens. She likely won't know if a friend is dealing, unless that friend tries to deal to her or starts flashing cash. And she won't know what addiction really looks like, or how well some addicts can hide addiction from their friends.

I would not say these things to your daughter, because she'll feel insulted that you're basically saying, you're a kid and don't know what you're doing here. There is no point right now in getting her mad and having her clam up and stop telling you things.

But think on it yourself -- you know that just messing around is reason enough to tell the parents.

It only takes one time of messing around to end up dead. That's not just a scare-tactic statement. A girl from our area ended up dead in someone's yard after her very first try with heroin killed her and her "friends" panicked, drove her body back to her town and dumped her. Not suburban legend; it was all over the news. With hard drugs, one time can be all it takes. Imagine if one of these friends ends up dead and you knew something you didn't ever tell the parents while the kid was still alive to be helped?

I totally get the idea that you don't want to betray a confidence, but this is a potential life or death situation.

[Anonymous]

Yes. Think of how you would feel if you learned she was dead of an overdose OR if you learn in a few years that her life is seriously off-course due to addiction.

[Anonymous]

Hard drugs? Hell yes.
-a former kid who tried a lot of stuff and has a lot of dead friends from high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please tell me if my child is doing hard drugs. Please.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hard drugs? Hell yes.
-a former kid who tried a lot of stuff and has a lot of dead friends from high school.

Me again. Actually, I'd encourage your daughter to do the telling. She's drawn herself a boundary (ODing or dealing), which is good, but if it were me I'd like to think I'd encourage her to draw that line in the sand a little closer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hard drugs? Hell yes.
-a former kid who tried a lot of stuff and has a lot of dead friends from high school.

Me again. Actually, I'd encourage your daughter to do the telling. She's drawn herself a boundary (ODing or dealing), which is good, but if it were me I'd like to think I'd encourage her to draw that line in the sand a little closer.

Me one more time. And then if she didn't, I would.

[Anonymous]

I understand not wanting to betray your daughter's trust, so approaching the parents in a way that allows for her to find out is out. Can you write an anonymous note to the parent, detailing times, places and types of drugs?

[Anonymous]

So here's the other side--I've been your daughter. When I was 16, one of my oldest and closest friends (his mother and mine were best friends) started using heroin. He had been getting high for a while but when it became more hardcore I tried hard to get him to stop and get help for the stuff was driving him into that sort of coping mechanism. He'd hear me out but ultimately he just found life easier to deal with when he was using. I confided in my mom and at her urging, I went to his mother.

It was a total sh*tshow. His mom was convinced I was trying to get her son into trouble (she was the sort of person who couldn't have a child LIKE THAT) and couldn't hear me through her defensiveness, despite all the signs right in front of her. It damaged her relationship with my mom for years. Ironically, my friend wasn't pissed at me, he understood why I did it although he told me he wished I had just kept my mouth shut. At the time, so did I.

In retrospect, I'm glad I told. The worst happened with my friend, he died at 23 years old of an accident related to his drug use. I miss him all the time and I'm sad my kids will never know him because he was a remarkable and loving person. But I know, and he knew, that I tried to help him, and that gives me some comfort. I think if I had known what he was doing and not tried to get him help, it would eat me up.

[Anonymous]

Good God YES!

[Anonymous]

OP, I'd tell your daughter exactly what you told us. That you do not want to betray her but that you believe her friends are in serious danger and that you absolutely have to tell the parents. She may be mad but I think if you tell your daughter on the front end, it will not damage her relationship with you or will damage it less than otherwise. Tell her you've thought about it hard but that you can't in good conscience let those kids use hard drugs knowing they could die without at least telling the parents.

Please, please tell the parents. It may not help, they may already know but you have to at least try.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would approach the parents and tell them that you are helping them to save their child's life but you don't want to risk the relationship with your own child. I would tell them to keep your daughters identity confidential, it's not an important factor anyway.

This will not work. I once told a friend that her husband was cheating on her, and asked her not to tell the husband the source of the information. What did she do? She promptly told him, and it caused considerable problems for me.

In the heat of the moment, this parent will tell their child who told them, and the takeaway for your child will be to not tell things like this in the future.

It would be better to call the school counselor and tell them what you suspect. See if they would be willing to talk to the student and possibly the family. That would take you, and your child, out of the mix.

[Anonymous]

Another option is for your DD to talk to the kids in question and offer to accompany them to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. Most are open, so non-users can attend. No one needs to say anything at the meetings. But there is socializing before and after and members will approach new comers to see if they can help.

NA members know a lot more about dealing with addiction than almost any parent. And DD's friends are at an age where they need to take the first step and not have it imposed by their parents. This approach also keeps the issue among the kids, at least until they are ready to say they have a problem and need help.

Your DD's plan to not say anything until a friend ODs or starts dealing is unrealistic. An OD can be deadly and in my experience heroin dealers usually are not users themselves. Not sure about other drugs except marijuana, for which dealers do tend to be users.