The Children:

One major study from cited by HelpGuides.com offered many different cases for children reacting to parental drug abuse. For example, sometimes children act far ahead of their age in trying to help the addicted parent: they become almost “surrogate spouses” for the father or mother. This is incredibly dangerous in the growth of the child. Often there is no hope for the child, who keeps it entirely secret and asks no one else for help, save the other parent. This becomes dangerous and mentally problematic. In later years, the child is more prone to abusing drugs themselves, even dropping out of school. Children need to be able to act their age, learning as they go with help from parents. Children acting themselves as “super heroes,” trying to help their own parents, should be seen as a major warning sign for child development.

The Teens:

Teens with drug addicted parents come in many forms, but are often prone to mental problems during this stage. Depression may hit them sooner, and reacting to it they may try drugs like marijuana or do underage drinking. Like children, teens will often go through stages of denial and anxiety over their father or mother abusing drugs. The real answer here is to catch the problem early, while at this stage the relationships between the teen and parent may become dangerous. Teens are still not adults, and still shouldn’t be forced to handle such problems and expect to come out of sound in mind.