What Can Parents Do to Prevent their Child from Overdosing on Fentanyl?

Parents have a lot to worry about these days while raising their children. One of the scariest things for any parent to confront is the prevalence of drugs in our current society. A person used to have to work pretty hard to get a good drug connection. They would have to know someone who knows someone, meet them, gain their confidence, and start spending a lot of money on their product. But today, all you need is a credit card, smartphone, and Wi-Fi connection.

Drugs are everywhere, and fentanyl has been to blame for the thousands upon thousands of overdose deaths in the country, and the people who are most prevalently dying are our children. When it takes only two small grains of a drug to kill, casualties will lie in its wake.

The reason drug abuse and addiction are so widespread these days is because it’s been made way too easy to escape from overwhelming schoolwork, a stressful job, and even one’s own family. Your daily reprieve will be at your door in 3-5 business days, or within the next few minutes if the kid across the street re-upped his supply.

New addictions are formed every single day around the United States and parents have much to fear beyond overdoses. They have to fear each day being a struggle with an addict living in their house. They have to worry about keeping up appearances during family functions. They have to damage control the holidays, lost jobs, and broken relationships. They fear each time the phone rings and their son or daughter isn’t in their bed. They have to fear the Narcan not working. There’s more to fear than just death.

Fentanyl strikes terror in the heart of most every person out there and there are a few things every parent can do to ensure their son or daughter doesn’t overdose on fentanyl and become a statistic of the drug crisis.

Educate Your Children

Education is the key to handling this drug epidemic. While kids are going to make their own choices regardless of what anyone says or does, at least let them have good, correct information about drugs before they’re faced with one of the most life-altering decisions possible. The decision to try drugs for the first time can be a decision that forever changes the life of the user and the lives of everyone around them. It’s almost a 50/50 shot whether they’re going to get hooked or not.

Parents need to educate their children early in life about not only the dangers of drugs and drug abuse, but they also need to give them factual information about what each drug can do to you. Children also need to know how to properly handle a situation where they’re faced with the choice to get high for the first time. Parents can role play with their kids so they’re prepared for when that happens. The fact of the matter is, it’s not going to necessarily be some seedy-looking man who traipses up to them and offers them drugs. It’s going to be the kid who sits next to them in English or math class, their older brother or sister, and even possibly their own doctor.

Give your kids the information that will help them make the best possible choices for their own survival.

Honesty

Teach children the value of being honest rather than lying. Teach them that being caught in a lie is always worse than telling the truth to begin with. Honesty is one of the only ways we grow as individuals and get forward in life. Not too many people gotten very far by lying, and those that have more than likely live miserable existences. Had some addicts been honest with their families when confronted about their budding drug problem, maybe they wouldn’t have had to go to six rehab centers before getting sober. Maybe they wouldn’t have put their families through some of the toughest times of their lives. Maybe they wouldn’t have overdosed and died.

Maybe…

Having open and honest communication with your children is one of the most valuable things you can have. If your child feels safe talking about these types of issues with you and understands the importance of doing so, many addictions can either be avoided or handled immediately before they progress too far. And remember, if you want your child to be honest and open with you, you need to return the favor and be open and honest with them.

Practice what you preach. If you want your child to be truthful and they catch you in lies, it’s game over.

Set a Good Example

Drinking in excess in front of your children, smoking weed, eating edibles, popping prescription drugs or doing anything else to normalize drug use is going to cause major problems. Children will do as you do, most of the time. Don’t do drugs if you want to have drug-free children. It’s impossible to get their compliance to not get high if you get high, yourselves.

Know How to Use Narcan

Narcan is the brand name of the drug, naloxone. It’s an opioid-reversal drug that can pop a person out of a fatal overdose. It stops the action of opioids on the nervous system and allows a person to regain consciousness and start breathing again. Narcan is now an over-the-counter drug in most states and a family can not only walk into most local pharmacies and get a few injectors of Narcan, but they can also receive no-cost training to learn how to use it.

It’s unfortunate that we need to carry Narcan with us, but that’s where our society is at these days. If everyone learns how to use Narcan and takes it with them wherever they go, many overdoses can be stopped, and deaths can be prevented. It’s an extremely easy device to learn how to use and it’s a completely life-saving measure.

There are many things a family can do to prevent overdoses on fentanyl. It’s such a prevalent problem in our world that it’s absolutely necessary that parents teach their children to be honest, that the parents set a good example, and learn how to use life-saving drugs in the case of an opioid overdose.

Start now, it’s never too late to prevent your child from becoming an addict and overdosing on fentanyl.