The Tribune

A parent who discovers that their child has been drinking or using drugs may feel anger before anything else. Then comes fear. How long has this been happening? Who supplied it? What do we do now?

The answer should be easier to find than it is to hide the problem.

Dr Annalese Richards, Director of Child and Adolescent Services at Sandilands Rehabilitation Centre, has said that more than half of the patients treated by her department meet the criteria for a substance use disorder. She also warned that children are being exposed to drugs and alcohol at younger ages. These are children receiving specialist care, not a measure of substance use among all Bahamian children. Even within that clinical setting, the picture is deeply troubling.

Behind every admission is a young person whose life is still taking shape, and a family trying to work out how things reached this point.

Some parents will have recognised a problem and struggled to get help. Others may have mistaken distress for defiance or believed experimentation would pass. There will also be children whose difficulties were concealed from attentive, loving adults. Blaming every parent is neither fair nor useful.

But all of us should examine what children learn from the adults around them.

We cannot treat drunkenness as harmless entertainment at family gatherings, laugh when a child takes a sip, and then expect a school assembly to undo the lesson. Nor should adults dismiss cannabis use among young people as something everybody does. Familiarity can make behaviour seem safe long before a child understands its consequences.

Parents have a responsibility to set boundaries, know where their children are and pay attention to the company they keep. They also need to make room for an honest conversation. A child who expects only humiliation may become better at hiding what is happening.

Listening does not mean approving. It means finding out enough to help.

Dr Richards has urged greater attention to the circumstances driving substance use. Adults should take that advice seriously. We should be willing to ask what a child is struggling with, rather than assuming that punishment alone will settle the matter.

Schools need a dependable route to professional support. A teacher should know whom to contact when concerned about a pupil. A parent should be able to seek guidance through a school or community clinic without being sent from office to office. Families outside New Providence deserve equally clear arrangements for assessment and follow-up.

Sandilands’ five-day training programme with the Organisation of American States is a welcome investment in the professionals doing this difficult work. The Ministry of Health and the Public Hospitals Authority should build on it by explaining, in plain language, where families can turn, how referrals work and what support is available while they wait.

Treatment must also leave a child with a future to return to. Schools should help pupils continue their education, protect their privacy and welcome them back without allowing a difficult period to become their permanent identity. Employers, churches and community organisations can give parents the flexibility and support to keep appointments and remain involved.

Adults who supply children with drugs or alcohol must face consequences. Responsibility cannot rest entirely on a young person’s ability to refuse something an older person has made available.

There is no comforting distance between these children and the rest of us. They sit in our classrooms, attend our churches and live in our homes. We may not always recognise what they are carrying.

When a child finally says something is wrong, the adult hearing it should know what to do next. We owe them more than alarm after a hospital admission. We owe them attention, boundaries and somewhere to turn while there is still time to intervene earlier.