How you may be enabling your teen without even knowing it

Karen Khaleghi, PhD, explains what it means to enable a teenager who is using drugs or alcohol.
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How you may be enabling your teen without even knowing it

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Parents enable adolescents by explaining away their behavior. They tell each other, "All kids party. All kids drink. It's just what they do." So they enable them by explaining away the behavior as an accepted sociatal norm. It's not the case. If their child is using, their child is using,and it's not in their best interest to continue. So you want to take a look at the stories and the lies that you're telling yourselves, and that parents tell each other, and get honest with it. You're going to be in a far better place to deal with whatever is there in the early stages, and to deal with it when you have some pull in order to require them to be in treatment, to be in therapy, to work out the issues without using.

Karen Khaleghi, PhD, explains what it means to enable a teenager who is using drugs or alcohol.

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Karen Khaleghi, PhD

Co-founder of Creative Care Malibu

Dr. Karen Khaleghi is a pioneer in the field of dual diagnosis, or co-occurring drug and alcohol addiction along with mental health disorders. As one of the co-founders of Creative Care in Malibu and co-author of The Anatomy of Addiction, Dr. Karen speaks to parents and organizations about the formation of addiction, the critical aspects of nature and nurture and the resulting disconnection between emotions and behavior as well as the genesis of addiction and the path to recovery, a process she calls "connecting the dots." 

There are many things that set Dr. Karen Khaleghi apart from others including her individualized treatment approaches and excellent treatment facility Creative Care which is filled with clinical staff comprised of professionals that offer the highest standard of care in the industry. Karen graduated from California Graduate Institute with her Ph.D in 1989 and lives in Los Angeles, CA with her loving husband and children. Dr. Karen Khaleghi has been featured on The Today Show, KCAL 9, Dr. Phil and many others!

 

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Transcription: 
Parents enable adolescents by explaining away their behavior. They tell each other, "All kids party. All kids drink. It's just what they do." So they enable them by explaining away the behavior as an accepted sociatal norm. It's not the case. If their child is using, their child is using,and it's not in their best interest to continue. So you want to take a look at the stories and the lies that you're telling yourselves, and that parents tell each other, and get honest with it. You're going to be in a far better place to deal with whatever is there in the early stages, and to deal with it when you have some pull in order to require them to be in treatment, to be in therapy, to work out the issues without using.