Today my dad was at Dairy Queen with my little brother, when a fellow parent sat down to chat with him. They got to talking and this parent brought up a scandal going on within their circle of friends. One of their friends children was doing drugs; specifically smoking weed. This parent was deeply concerned and wanted to tell the parents of the child, who were oblivious. When my dad got home he told me this story and it made me wonder if telling those parents is an ethical decision.
Drugs are a big problem among teenagers in our society. I myself have been asked more times than I can count to smoke weed or a cigarette or some other substance. With constant peer pressure surrounding them, many teenagers succumb and try these drugs. They don't always become hooked, but even smoking once can damage your lungs, esophagus, and other parts of your body. Because of this danger, is it ethical to inform the parents of their child's choices? I don't think so.
First of all, you would be getting involved in issues that don't involve you. If these issues don't personally affect you, it's not your place to insert yourself into their family's business. Second of all this parent had only heard rumors of this child doing drugs. They had no concrete proof. Even if they were right, they have no evidence to provide the parents with. Because of this, if they told the parents, it would seem more like gossip and like they were attacking their child.
Another debacle this parent faces is that they most likely believe that they would be protecting the child in question. However this leads right back to the fact that this parent would be getting involved in another family's issues, which is not their place. If this parent were to tell the child's parents about their drug use, it would come across as immature and like the parent did not know their place.
It would be easy to justify going to this child's parents, but it would still be unethical. The parent would be meddling in another family's problems without any proof or evidence to support their claim. Therefore, I believe, that should they inform the parents of the child's choice to use drugs, that it would be a completely unethical decision.
It is indeed a problem. You could almost pull a Schrodinger's Cat paradox here: we'll never know if the kid is taking drugs unless we invade, but at the same time we don't want to make any assumptions or come off as nosy, or even tell the other parent something they already know and make them feel worse. I say the only way to know would be to ask, as there's no harm in asking.
ReplyDeleteI like the Schrodinger's Cat comparison! That really makes sense!
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