How to Talk When You Think Something Is Wrong
When Something Doesn’t Add Up
Sometimes concern begins with things you notice yourself. Money goes missing. Unexplained possessions appear. Behaviour changes. School or work begins to suffer. New people start coming to the house. You find drugs, pills, packaging or paraphernalia that you cannot explain.
Those are the kinds of warning signs discussed elsewhere in this section of the archive. But sometimes the first indication that something may be wrong comes from somewhere completely different.
In a small community, rumours can travel quickly. A parent who has noticed nothing unusual may suddenly hear something like, “Jim’s son is selling hash.” Whether the information is true or not, hearing something like that can be unsettling, particularly when it bears little resemblance to the child you know at home.
A rumour is not proof. It may be wrong, exaggerated or based on something someone misunderstood. But not every rumour carries the same significance.
If you hear that your teenager smoked a joint at a dance, you may decide that an immediate confrontation would accomplish little. It may make more sense first to pay closer attention and consider whether any of the other warning signs are present. Are there changes in behaviour, unexplained money, unfamiliar visitors, declining school performance, drugs or paraphernalia, secrecy or other indications that this might be more than an isolated experiment?
If none of those signs are present, observation and an appropriate conversation about drugs may be more useful than immediately treating the rumour as evidence of a serious problem.
Hearing that your son or daughter is selling drugs is different. Drug dealing introduces criminal activity, other people and potentially serious consequences. Even though the rumour still needs to be treated as unconfirmed, it is serious enough that a parent should not simply dismiss it.
Before starting the conversation, go through the warning signs again. Think about what you have actually observed, what you have only heard from someone else, and what questions you need answered. Then have the conversation.
The goal should not be to force a confession. It should be to find out what is happening.
Before You Start the Conversation
Once something has raised your concern, resist the temptation to begin with an accusation. Take a little time to separate what you know from what you suspect.
Ask yourself:
- What have I actually seen or heard?
- What have I heard only from someone else?
- What am I assuming?
- Are there other warning signs that support my concern?
- Is the person sober and calm enough to have a useful conversation?
- Am I calm enough to listen to an answer I may not like?
- Is there any immediate safety issue?
- What will I do if they confirm my concerns?
- What will I do if they deny them?
- Who could I ask for help if this is more than I know how to handle?
You don’t need to have every answer before beginning. But thinking about these questions beforehand can make the difference between starting a conversation and starting an argument.
How Do I Ask?
Begin with what you have actually observed rather than the conclusion you have reached.
Instead of:
“You’re using drugs, aren’t you?”
you might say:
“I’ve noticed you’ve been coming home very late, money has been disappearing, and I’ve found some things I don’t understand. I’m worried about you. Can you tell me what’s going on?”
If your concern began with something someone else told you, be equally straightforward:
“Someone told me something about you that concerns me. I don’t know whether it’s true, and I don’t want to assume that it is. I’d rather ask you about it directly.”
Give them an opportunity to answer. Ask questions and listen rather than filling every silence with another question. The purpose of the first conversation is not to prove that you are right. It is to understand more than you did before the conversation began.
Anger, embarrassment and fear can affect both sides of the discussion. If the conversation becomes nothing more than shouting or accusation, very little information is likely to come from it.
Trust Has to Work Both Ways
A difficult conversation depends on trust, and that trust has two sides.
A parent may believe, I have always trusted my son or daughter to tell me the truth and act responsibly. Discovering something that calls that trust into question can produce anger, disappointment or even a sense of betrayal.
But the young person may be asking a different set of questions:
Can I trust my parents to listen to me? Will they try to understand my point of view? Will they believe me if I tell the truth? Will they treat me fairly? What will happen if I admit that I made a serious mistake?
Those questions can influence how much a young person is willing to say.
Trust does not mean automatically believing every explanation or ignoring evidence that something is wrong. A parent can listen respectfully while still saying:
“I want to believe what you’re telling me, but I also have to consider what I’ve seen and heard.”
Similarly, creating a safe opportunity to tell the truth does not mean promising that there will be no consequences. A parent should be careful about making promises simply to obtain an admission. It may be more honest to say:
“I can’t promise there won’t be consequences. I can promise that I will listen, try to understand what happened, and make decisions based on what I actually know.”
That distinction matters. If a young person believes that telling the truth will automatically produce an angry or disproportionate reaction, hiding the problem may seem safer. If a parent repeatedly discovers that they have been lied to, simply accepting every new explanation may no longer be reasonable.
Rebuilding trust may therefore become part of dealing with the problem. That can mean being truthful on both sides, following through on commitments, setting reasonable boundaries and recognizing that trust lost over time may also take time to restore.
The goal is not blind trust. It is to create a relationship in which telling the truth remains possible, even when the truth is difficult to hear.
If They Admit Something Is Wrong
An admission may be difficult to hear, but it also gives you information you did not have before. Try not to turn that moment immediately into punishment.
First, understand what you have been told. Depending on the situation, you may need to ask how often this is happening, what substances are involved, whether other people are involved, whether money is owed, whether there have been frightening incidents, whether they have tried to stop, and whether they feel able to stop.
The answer may reveal very different situations. Experimenting with a drug once is not the same as regularly using it. Regular use is not necessarily the same as addiction. Selling drugs introduces another set of risks. An overdose, withdrawal symptoms, threats, violence or an inability to stop can indicate that the situation requires more urgent help.
An admission can therefore be the beginning of a more useful question:
“What do we need to do next?”
If They Deny It
A denial does not necessarily prove that your concern was wrong, but neither does your suspicion prove that the denial is a lie.
Return to what you actually know:
“I hear what you’re telling me. I’m still concerned because these things have changed, and I can’t ignore them.”
You do not need to produce every piece of evidence one at a time in an attempt to force a confession. If there is no immediate danger, you can continue paying attention, maintain reasonable boundaries and return to the conversation when you have more information.
You may also discover that your original suspicion was wrong. That possibility matters. A young person who believes they have already been judged guilty may become less willing to talk to you when a real problem develops later.
Sometimes the most reasonable way to end the first conversation is simply:
“I’ve heard what you’ve told me. I’m still concerned, and we’re going to keep talking about this.”
When the Evidence Is Overwhelming
Sometimes a parent may hear a denial even though the evidence has become too strong to reasonably ignore. You may have found drugs or drug-selling equipment, discovered substantial unexplained money, seen messages or other evidence, or have several independent pieces of information pointing to the same conclusion.
At that point, continuing to argue over whether anything is happening may accomplish very little. You do not necessarily need an admission before you respond to what you know.
A parent can say:
“I hear that you’re denying this. But I also have information that I can’t reasonably ignore. I’m not going to keep arguing with you about whether something is happening. We need to talk about what happens next.”
That doesn’t mean treating every suspicion as proven. Parents should still distinguish between what they know, what they have been told and what they are assuming. But when several credible pieces of evidence point in the same direction, waiting indefinitely for a confession can allow a serious problem to continue.
The denial itself may also tell you something. The young person may be frightened, ashamed, worried about punishment, protecting someone else or simply unwilling to stop what they are doing. Rather than trying to force an admission, it may be more useful to ask:
“What is making it difficult for you to talk to me about this?”
If the evidence points to significant drug use, drug dealing, criminal activity or another serious problem, this may also be the point where the parent should seek outside advice rather than trying to resolve everything within the family.
You can still leave the door open:
“You may not be ready to talk to me about this now. When you are, I will listen. But I still have a responsibility to respond to what I know.”
What If I Don’t Know Whether They’re Telling the Truth?
You may not know.
Parents sometimes expect a difficult conversation to end with certainty: either the child admits what is happening or provides an explanation that makes the concern disappear. Real conversations do not always end that neatly.
Look at the larger pattern. Does the explanation fit what you have observed? Do unexplained money, possessions, absences, visitors or changes in behaviour continue? Are new warning signs appearing?
One conversation may be the beginning of understanding the problem rather than the end of it.
Talk About the Long-Term Consequences
A young person may be thinking about what happens tonight or this weekend. A parent may be able to see consequences much further ahead.
If the concern involves selling drugs or other criminal activity, talk about more than punishment at home. An arrest or criminal conviction can affect future education, employment and career opportunities, travel and other parts of adult life. The precise consequences depend on the offence and jurisdiction, so there is no need to exaggerate them.
This became very real in Reggie’s life. His criminal record later became an obstacle when he was trying to build a legitimate career.
A useful question might therefore be:
“Have you thought about what could happen to the life you want if you are arrested and convicted?”
That conversation may not change someone’s behaviour. In our family, warnings about consequences did not necessarily change Reggie’s decisions. But understanding the possible stakes gives a young person information they may not yet have considered.
What About Rules and Consequences?
Talking and listening do not mean that parents stop being parents.
There may still need to be rules and consequences, particularly when a young person is living at home. The important question is what those consequences are intended to accomplish.
A consequence connected to safety can have a clear purpose: not allowing someone to drive after using drugs, securing medications or money in the home, restricting access to something that is contributing to immediate danger, or requiring a professional assessment when the circumstances warrant one.
Punishment delivered primarily because a parent is angry may accomplish something different. It can turn the discussion into a battle over punishment while leaving the underlying problem untouched.
The seriousness of the response should also reflect the seriousness of what you actually know. An unconfirmed rumour about experimentation should not automatically receive the same response as evidence of regular drug use, drug dealing or immediate danger.
What If I Don’t Know What to Do?
Parents are not automatically experts in addiction, mental health or criminal behaviour simply because they are parents.
They also bring their own childhood experiences into the situation. My father had grown up with physical punishment and had been beaten as a child. Repeating that approach was not something he wanted to do. But rejecting the way your own parents handled problems does not automatically tell you what you should do instead.
Sometimes one of the most useful questions a parent can ask is:
“Who understands this better than I do?”
That person might be another family member, a trusted friend, someone who has raised a child through a similar problem, a guidance counsellor, doctor, mental-health professional or addiction professional.
My father had a brother-in-law who was a guidance counsellor—exactly the kind of person a parent might consider talking to when trying to understand how to approach a young person. In later years, other parents sometimes reached out to my father because they knew what our family had been through with Reggie. They weren’t necessarily looking for an expert. Sometimes they simply wanted to talk with another parent who understood.
Asking for advice is not an admission that you have failed as a parent. Sometimes it is the most sensible response to realizing that the problem may be larger than your own experience.
Talk to Other People Without Turning Them Into Informants
Brothers, sisters, friends and partners may know things that parents do not. Talking with them can help provide a fuller picture, but there is a difference between asking what someone knows and recruiting them to spy on another person.
Ask about what they have personally seen or heard. Distinguish that from rumours and assumptions. They may also be struggling with whether telling you would be a betrayal.
That is one reason different members of a family can each know part of a story without anyone understanding the whole situation.
If someone close to the person is carrying information they are afraid to share, see When Keeping a Secret Isn’t Protecting Them.
When Unfamiliar People Come Looking for Them
Sometimes the situation moves beyond a conversation about drug use.
Unfamiliar people may begin calling, visiting the house or asking where your son or daughter is. You may have no idea who they are or why they are looking for them. Their appearance does not by itself prove criminal activity, but repeated unexplained visits—particularly when combined with other warning signs—deserve attention.
You do not have to confront, interrogate or invite an unfamiliar person into your home simply to find out what is happening. You also do not need to disclose where your family member is if doing so makes you uncomfortable or creates a safety concern.
At that point the first question may no longer be “How do I get an answer?”
It may be:
“What do I need to do to keep the people in this house safe?”
If visitors are threatening, refuse to leave, or you believe anyone in the home may be in danger, put safety ahead of gathering information and contact appropriate emergency services.
When Conversation Isn’t Enough
Some situations require more than another family discussion.
Professional help should be considered when substance use is persistent or escalating, the person repeatedly tries and fails to stop, there has been an overdose or serious withdrawal, school or work has deteriorated substantially, significant mental-health changes are present, or dangerous behaviour is developing.
Drug dealing, threats, serious debts, violence or other criminal activity can introduce risks that a family may not be equipped to manage on its own.
You also do not have to wait until the situation becomes a crisis. Not knowing what to do next is itself a reasonable reason to ask someone qualified for advice.
Knowing how to start the conversation is only the first step. If what you learn suggests that your family needs outside help, see How to Get Help.