drug testing your teen...

fishbob said:
My comments are not generalizations. They are my observations.
I live on the wrong side of the tracks.
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A critically thinking person realizes his "observations" are only one perspective and is appropriately humble about expressing them.
 
John Bentley said:
It would take a high degree of suspicion, and getting the runaround and evasions from talks, but I wouldn't hesitate if I thought it necessary.
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If the test returns positive, you were obviously right to do it. I just think that the damage to the mutual trust and self-responsibility you try to instill in your child are such that you shouldn't do a test if there's a reasonable probability of a negative. And if the outcome is negative anyway, you need to sincerely apologise for your unfounded lack of trust.
 
Say the kid tests positive, then what?

My sister did the whole rebellious drug taking thing as a teen. My parents used other methods - impromptu searches, listening in on phone conversations, etc. It never had an effect, and probably just made things worse.

I'm not arguing that parents shouldn't intervene, especially if the kid is doing something dangerous like heroin or freebasing coke. But I do have a deep cynicism about what a parent can really do in those cases, having lived through it myself, and having been my sister's confidante. If I was a parent I'd be at a complete loss at how to handle the situation.
 
marksman said:
That's it? There is no middle ground between "people" and "chattel"? It's not possible that adolescents might fit into some fuzzy area in between fully functioning members of society and slaves?
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Of course it's possible, but you'll have to convince me that they way you describe the situation is really how it is. I see the existence of anti-gay "re-education" concentration camps for fundy parents to send their kids, I see that parents are allowed to have their kids kidnapped and taken to remote islands to "scare them straight" with abusive methods, I see that parents can brainwash their children effectively robbing them of their right to think and I see that parents are allowed to mutilate their children's genitalia (aka "circumcision"). That parents are legally allowed to subject their children to this kind of treatment leads me to believe that, legally, kids are not more than chattel. Don't get me wrong, random and forcible drug testing isn't as extreme as any of these, but it's based on the same assumption.
 
Kids are not chattel but they should be treated as chattel.
 
Tony said:
Of course it's possible, but you'll have to convince me that they way you describe the situation is really how it is. I see the existence of anti-gay "re-education" concentration camps for fundy parents to send their kids, I see that parents are allowed to have their kids kidnapped and taken to remote islands to "scare them straight" with abusive methods, I see that parents can brainwash their children effectively robbing them of their right to think and I see that parents are allowed to mutilate their children's genitalia (aka "circumcision"). That parents are legally allowed to subject their children to this kind of treatment leads me to believe that, legally, kids are not more than chattel.
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Do you deny the existence of child endangerment laws? Child abuse laws? Do you deny that these are in fact enforced, that children in every State in the Union forcibly removed from their parents care if they violate these laws?

Just because the line on abuse is not drawn where you would like does not mean they are not there. Children are not chattel, no matter how much your blood pressure raises when you see the law allowing parents to treat children in a way you subjectively think inappropriate.

Don't get me wrong, random and forcible drug testing isn't as extreme as any of these, but it's based on the same assumption.
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No, it's not. It's based on the assuption that parents have some rights to dictate how their children can be raised, not that they have unfettered rights.
 
egslim said:
If the test returns positive, you were obviously right to do it. I just think that the damage to the mutual trust and self-responsibility you try to instill in your child are such that you shouldn't do a test if there's a reasonable probability of a negative. And if the outcome is negative anyway, you need to sincerely apologise for your unfounded lack of trust.
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If my kid's grades are slipping, he/she is hanging out with a suspicious crowd, is unwilling to let me know where they are going or who they are with, hasn't showered in 3 days, either sleeps constantly or never sleeps, is treating the other family members like poop, etc, etc., and can't give me a reason why, then they are getting tested. That type of behavior negates my trust in them. It is a two way street. If they are negative, then they still owe me an explanation for their bizarre behavior.

Say the kid tests positive, then what?
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Now that's the hard part. I'd have to get some help, then. Whatever it takes. But if worse comes to worst, you boot them out before they bring the whole family crashing down with them. I've had close up personal experience with unrepentant druggies ruining their entire family's lives, and continuing to do so even after supposedly moving out. I'll probably be raising my niece due to that scenario.
 
marksman said:
Do you deny the existence of child endangerment laws? Child abuse laws? Do you deny that these are in fact enforced, that children in every State in the Union forcibly removed from their parents care if they violate these laws?
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This has nothing to do with what I wrote.

Just because the line on abuse is not drawn where you would like does not mean they are not there. Children are not chattel, no matter how much your blood pressure raises when you see the law allowing parents to treat children in a way you subjectively think inappropriate.
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Neither does this. Are you going to address any of the evidence I presented? You seem to be saying "yeah, so, they're still not chattel" while ignoring the fact that such treatment is a characteristic of chatteldom.

It's based on the assuption that parents have some rights to dictate how their children can be raised, not that they have unfettered rights.
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I never said that parents don't have "some rights", I said that children aren't the parent's property, and random drug testing is, atleast partly, to blame for that idea.

So far, you have yet to address anything I brought up in that post.
 
Tony, it's directly relevant. You cited circumcision, gay propaganda camps and, apparently, drug testing as evidence that children are chattel. but chattel has no rights. In order to counter your argument, I merely have to show that the law recognizes that parents' rights ot raise children is not unfettered, which I did by reference to child endangerment and child abandonment laws.

Thus, children are not chattel, unless you are operating under a different definition of chattel than I.

I have no interest in discussing reeducation camps or circumcision in this thread. I am only interested in discussing your contention that children are chattel.
 
John Bentley said:
If my kid's grades are slipping, he/she is hanging out with a suspicious crowd, is unwilling to let me know where they are going or who they are with, hasn't showered in 3 days, either sleeps constantly or never sleeps, is treating the other family members like poop, etc, etc., and can't give me a reason why, then they are getting tested. That type of behavior negates my trust in them. It is a two way street. If they are negative, then they still owe me an explanation for their bizarre behavior.
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The problem that I see is that the drug testing doesn't actually do anything here except prove to all parties that you don't trust your children.

If your child's grades are slipping, &c,. then there is a problem.

Do you need to test for drugs to know that there's a problem?

Do you need to test for drugs in order to know how to handle the problem?

How will the results of the test influence your behavior one way or another?
 
John Bentley said:
If my kid's grades are slipping, he/she is hanging out with a suspicious crowd, is unwilling to let me know where they are going or who they are with, hasn't showered in 3 days, either sleeps constantly or never sleeps, is treating the other family members like poop, etc, etc., and can't give me a reason why, then they are getting tested. That type of behavior negates my trust in them. It is a two way street. If they are negative, then they still owe me an explanation for their bizarre behavior.
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However, if the test returns negative then you still have no idea what's going on. Worse, you just proved you don't trust your child, so he/she is far less likely to tell you what actually is wrong.

Assuming you want to help your child, it's irrelevant wether they owe you an explanation, the question is will they give you one.
 
Nobody believes you if you say you've never done any drugs.

I spent three days in intensive care when I was 17 with a life-threatening condition. We never found out what caused it, because one of the possibilities was "drug use", and the doctors refused to believe me when I told them I didn't use any drugs. I explained, as calmly as I could at 17, that I had nearly died, and would really appreciate knowing why. They also told my parents, who were touchingly distraught, that they were hopelessly naive to think I wasn't doing drugs. I was 17, wasn't I? That I have a particular distrust of chemicals and won't even take a frickin' Tylenol unless I'm crying from pain didn't sway them. Or that this occurred when I was five hundred miles away from home visiting my grandparents for Easter. Yeah, in a small house with my parents and grandparents after an all-day car trip. Really the easiest place to get away with some drug use, eh? So I never found what what nearly killed me because nobody cared to go beyond their baseless suspicions.

And when I applied to the FBI (and yes, I passed through several of the initial stages...isn't that a scary thought? ME, FBI?) they gave all the applicants a nice speech where we had to admit all our drug use (they've since relaxed the rules, but at the time it was something like one use of pot in the last five years would disqualify, one use of heroin in the last fifteen, stuff like that). Since I hadn't done any drugs, ever, I thought that would be a plus. Wrong! They refused to admit the possibility that someone might never have done any drugs. I didn't get any further along the recruitment process. I don't know if their erroneous idea that I was lying about drug use is the reason why, but it quite irritated me that they would so cavalierly dismiss one possibility in a range.

The end result of the War on Drugs, in my experience, is that people are far too cynical about entertaining the possibility that some people have simply never tried drugs.
 
I drug tested my kids. They were able to correctly identify five different recreational drugs. They were able, by sight and smell alone, identify the high quality pot from the poorer quality and were even able to roll pretty acceptable joints.

They passed.

Seriously, I would not test my kids for drugs. Teens are going to drink a little and smoke some pot. If they are being responsible, attending school and getting good grades, then I'm not going to care. If I notice any downward spiral, bad grades, poor attendance, crashing all the time, not coming out of their room, then I will do something.

I have always been honest about drugs with my kids. My drug speech was something like; "Hey kids, I don't care if you drop acid, snort coke, smoke pot, drink beer or even shoot heroin just don't ever, ever touch cigarettes." I also went into serious lengths about unidentified pills. I told them if you open a beer you know it is pretty safe. Pot can be visually identified but a mystery pill might be the last thing you ever do.

I have had no problems. The girl is seventeen and the boy is twenty. I'd be surprised if they haven't smoked a little pot. I know they drink ocassionaly.
 
Nope, I wouldn't do it. Seems like the wrong way to go about the problem. If they're into serious drugs, there must be other symptoms and problems to deal with, some of which may be exacerbated by the test.
 
Wow. I feel really violated all of a sudden. circumcision=mutilation=anti-gay camps=drug testing teens=nazism?????
 
jimlintott said:
I drug tested my kids. They were able to correctly identify five different recreational drugs. They were able, by sight and smell alone, identify the high quality pot from the poorer quality and were even able to roll pretty acceptable joints.

They passed.

Seriously, I would not test my kids for drugs. Teens are going to drink a little and smoke some pot. If they are being responsible, attending school and getting good grades, then I'm not going to care. If I notice any downward spiral, bad grades, poor attendance, crashing all the time, not coming out of their room, then I will do something.

I have always been honest about drugs with my kids. My drug speech was something like; "Hey kids, I don't care if you drop acid, snort coke, smoke pot, drink beer or even shoot heroin just don't ever, ever touch cigarettes." I also went into serious lengths about unidentified pills. I told them if you open a beer you know it is pretty safe. Pot can be visually identified but a mystery pill might be the last thing you ever do.

I have had no problems. The girl is seventeen and the boy is twenty. I'd be surprised if they haven't smoked a little pot. I know they drink ocassionaly.
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I agree. Although, my brother-in-law was the opposite side of the story. His parents took a hands off approach to raising him as long as he had good grades. They knew that he drank and smoked pot. They let it go. He died of a combination of heroin and horse tranquilizers. No one had a clue till the last few weeks of his life. Intervention in a troubled persons life just might save it. It goes beyond a drug test though. You have to show a kid that they have a family that loves them as well as do what is best for them.
 
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ReFLeX said:
A critically thinking person realizes his "observations" are only one perspective and is appropriately humble about expressing them.
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That is also a very common joke relating to teenagers in general. If you don't know that most kids (any age) lie when it suits them, you either don't have kids or believe the lies.
 
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