Friday

Should Parents Make Their Kids Take The Hair Strand Test?

By Lindsay Barnes

It's not easy being a parent. From day one, you're worried about practically everything about your child: if your baby hasn't been eating well, if he or she looks a bit peaky, or is crying and crying and you've done everything you can to solve the problem--to no avail. And then your child grows up as the years pass, and you also have to contend with the issues he or she is facing, such as when he or she has trouble keeping up with classes, is unable to make friends, is subjected to bullying, or if peer pressure is a threat. You can't protect your child forever, of course, but you also want to have an idea what he or she is up to. Problems plague many parents, and one of these problems is the issue of drug use.

Teaching children about the negative effects of drugs is one way to ensure that they will keep away from them, but you can't have your eye on your child all the time. All that's left for you to do is hope that you brought him or her up with enough sense to know what's right and what's wrong.

Still, news of how drug use is constantly on the rise is bound to make any parent paranoid. When you begin to observe unusual behavior, you might come out with it and ask your child upfront if he or she is using drugs. Even if your child responses in the negative, however, that typically isn't enough to convince a parent, who will then have to resort to other means to uncover the truth.

One of the methods parents try is to have their children undergo drug testing. Getting the child's consent is difficult, of course, but there are home drug testing kits available, and these kits also include the hair strand test, which makes use of a sample of a person's hair in order to determine if he or she has been using drugs. Some people and websites advise parents to secretly conduct a hair strand test on their kids by retrieving hair samples from their hairbrushes, pillows, or combs, reasoning that if the test turns out to be negative, the parents would have at least learned the truth and the kids are none the wiser.

Subjecting one's kids to a secret hair strand test isn't the best way to make use of this type of drug testing. A home hair strand test conducted without the child's consent can only lead to distrust towards the parents. While hair follicle testing is certainly accurate, effective, and widely used, it remains to be a controversial matter when it comes to parenting and teen drug use. - 26706

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