Home Environment and Adolescents’ Substance Abuse: Implications for their Educational Achievement

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume III, Issue VI, June 2019 | ISSN 2454–6186

Home Environment and Adolescents’ Substance Abuse: Implications for their Educational Achievement

Dr. Sunday Aja Nwambam and Daniel Igba Igba (PhD)
Ebonyi State University Abakaliki, Nigeria

Abstract: – This paper reviewed the influence of home environment on adolescents’ substance abuse and how it affects their educational prospects. The paper identified those substances adolescents usually abuse to include: Indian hemp (marijuana), cocaine, morphine, heroin, tobacco, ephedrine, volume five, Chinese capsules, kola nuts, coffee, Viagra and alcohol. The review noted that substance abuse had been linked to the rising cases of promiscuity, rape, maladjustment, school dropout, examination misconducts and health hazards with the attendant poor academic achievement of students involved in substance abuse. The review showed that home environment represented by the family influences substance abuse among young people. Finally, the review explores and appraises interventions aimed at using the family to control substance abuse among young people. These include direct prevention, early identification and timely treatment which could be facilitated through developing positive family functioning, improved parent-child relationships and expanding/increasing family encouragement to adolescents’ resilience to substance abuse.

Keywords: Home environment; family; adolescent; substance abuse; adolescents’ educational achievement.

I. INTRODUCTION

Apart from the orphaned child, most people grow up in families in which, from birth onward, they learn a way of life that gives meaning to their very existence. For most of us, the word home carries more than just casual memories of a time and place where we spent our childhood; it was the first society from which we learned about life itself. It is within the confines of home that everyone first experiences the repertoire of human emotions and observes how others respond. We learn the meaning of sympathy, empathy, and caring from home through our parents and reference groups. It is within the home environment that we absorb family and cultural values, and measure our commitment to those values by how others respond to them. The home is where love is first defined by the care and attention we receive, and become the place where security is gained, lost, or possibly, never obtained.

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