10 Signs Your Kid is Using Drugs!

Kids will test your patience, your knowledge and your trust when it comes to drugs.

If your kid is not being honest with you, there's a good chance he or she is either doing drugs, having sex (most parents only worry about this if the child is a girl), stealing or skipping school.

Children’s lies may be completely innocent and a phase they’ll outgrow, but it’s probably not a skill you want them to get good at or get away with. Worse, it may be the tell-tale sign that he or she has become involved with drugs.

10 Tell-Tale Signs that Your Kid is Lying

One way to curb this potentially bad habit is to spot the signs of lying, have your kid come clean and teach them why lying is wrong. Kids can be good liars and sneaky as ever, but it’s nothing that a mom or dad can’t fix. Here are the top 10 signs your kid is lying:

1. Limited or No Eye Contact When kids get caught in a lie, they often look away, make little eye contact, or gaze into the distance to avoid smiling or messing up their story that’s too good to be true.
2. Excessive Blinking Blinking too much can indicate a child is lying. They may excessively blink from nerves.
3. Licking or Biting Lips In an effort not to say too much or blow their cover, kids may lick or bite their lips while talking to you.
4. Wringing Hands Being fidgety, wringing hands or hiding their hands behind their back may indicate that your child is lying. This motion is said to express guilt and concern, which makes sense if they are guilty of lying and concerned about their punishment. 
5. Scratching Ear Scratching the ear when answering questions is a sign that your child may be lying. 
6. Touching Head In an effort to look anything but guilty, kids may touch their head and mess with their hair when they are lying. Thinking they’ll look confused or innocent by scratching their heads, in reality it’s usually a nervous, involuntary action.  
7. Repetition Kids often repeat themselves several times so you’ll believe them. Their pleas can be convincing, but they may be lying. Sometimes kids will mimic you or repeat what you said, so they can come up with a response during this time.
8. Talking too Much Kids are naturally energetic, talkative beings, but when caught in  a lie, they may act unusually excited and talk too much. In an effort to come up with something believable, you child may ramble on and tell a far fetched, detailed story that just doesn’t make sense.
9. Changing Tone of Voice When kids are told to spill the truth, they often speak slowly and quietly while lying. A change in tone or speed of their speech may give them away when they’re lying to you.
10. Body Position The way kids position their bodies can give away their lies. They may cross their arms, sit up straight while talking, or suddenly switch gestures when they get nervous and are lying through their teeth.  

If you can find out if your kid is telling you the truth or not, your battle is halfway won. If you are sure your child is being honest with you, don't tip-toe around, come straight out and ask if he or she is doing drugs. If they try to avoid giving you a straight answer, something is wrong for sure. And since your question was about drugs, more than likely your child is either using drugs, covering for someone who is using drugs, or even selling drugs.

Other Signs that your Kid is Involved with Drugs

Some of the other signs of your kid being involved with drugs are any one or more of the following:

• A drop in school grades
• A reduction in extracurricular activities (such as an unexplained dropping-out of sport or other activities of interest)
• Bloodshot or glassy eyes
• Lethargy and loss of motivation
• An unexplained change of friends
• Unusual or irregular behaviour
• Mood swings
• Minimal interaction with the family
• Valuable items or money missing (or, if he or she is selling, having lots of unexplainable money)  
• Changes in eating patterns
• Agitation, anxiety, jitteriness
• Sleeping problems
• Aggression

If you discover any one or more of the above signs that your kid is iinvolved with drugs, it is important that you discuss the issue with your child.

Let your child know that you are concerned and that you believe they might be using drugs. This will not be easy easily, but don't give up.

Your child may start of lying, as discussed above, but if you discover any one or more of the above signs that your kid is lying, it is important that you let him or her know that you don't believe what they are saying.

Be open with them so that they are encouraged to be open with you. Tell them that they aren't in trouble, but (again) that you are concerned and that you believe they might be using drugs. Again, this will not be easy easily, but don't give up.  Otherwise, you won't get the full story of what is going on in their life. Discuss with them what they consider to be the benefits and consequences of using drugs. This may provide the opportunity to give them new information about the risks of drug use.

Where to go for help

It is important that you are not afraid to ask for help. There is a wide range of  support and services is available to help both the person using drugs and their family and friends. Remember that you don't need to handle a drug problem on your own. There are many places in your community that can provide support.

There is also plenty of support available online, though I warn that this type of help should only be used if you caught it in time. In other words, if the problem hasn't mushroomed out of control. Online support works better for mature adults with at least some self-control.

You will find a list of organisations that can help on my Links Directory page. Also, stay tuned to Addicts Not Anonymous, as I will be touching base with more articles on this issue.

Please, let my readers an I know what's going on with a comment, or by submitting your story for publishing on the Your Stories page of Addicts Not Anonymous.

Good luck! I hope you aren't going to need it, but I wish you all the best.

Written By: Tom Retterbush