Counseling Children of Parents With Addiction:
What to Know and How to Heal
Children of parents with addiction need informed counselors, which is crucial for the one-in-four children growing up in these families. This presentation provides information on how children are affected by trauma and chronic stress so that counselors can fully understand the reality of their lives. Counselors may not know there is addiction in the family, as stigma, family secrecy rules, and fear of not being believed can make identification and intervention challenging. The trauma field provides key research that offers a better understanding of the neurobiological effects of the traumas these children experience, which can lead to diagnoses of PTSD. Lifelong consequences may be relational, social, cognitive, academic, attachment, and/or behavioral. Targeted intervention can lead to prevention of the child’s own use and their ability to express feelings, learn trust, feel less isolated, and relieve the shame and stigma of parental use, all of which are necessary for healing. Services are limited for all children, whether individual or in groups. Poverty, parental incarceration, systemic racism, and other forms of discrimination further affect availability. Assessing needs and nurturing strengths and resiliencies is crucial.
Participants will be able to:
- identify traumatic adverse effe cts of parental addiction on children's cognitive, behavioral, physical, and social-emotional development.
- discover how children experience stigma and avoid talking about addiction.
- apply understanding of children's resiliencies to appropriately guide them in developing effective coping skills to heal.
Wendy Wade, PhD, LPCC, CADC-1
Dr. Wade received her bachelor’s degree from Stanford University, master’s degree from Santa Clara University, multisubject teaching credential from San Jose State University, administrative credential from Santa Clara University, and doctorate from Pacifica Graduate Institute. She began conducting educational support groups with children of parents with addiction in the 1980s before serving as coordinator of the Children’s Program at the Betty Ford Center in the 2000s. She served as a faculty member and administrator in numerous elementary schools and worked with children and families in community mental health clinics, including Santa Cruz County Children’s Mental Health, where she coordinated the family program and was a counselor in inpatient addiction treatment. Dr. Wade also volunteered as a weekend camp counselor bi-monthly for four years at Camp Mariposa for Children of Addiction and began making presentations on this cohort of children, primarily at conferences. In 2016, Dr. Wade began presenting webinars for NAADAC and NBHAP, and she is also an assistant professor at Palo Alto University.
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