Key takeaway
You are getting a grandchild to school because a parent cannot, and someone is telling you to force treatment. Grandparents often become the caregivers. Steady housing, food, and school may protect a child. You cannot make an adult enter care. Do not push a sudden stop of alcohol or a benzodiazepine.
Last updated: Mon Oct 05 2026 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
You are the one getting a grandchild to school because a parent cannot, and someone is telling you to force treatment tonight. Keep the practical care: a bed, food, and a way to school. You cannot make an adult enter a program. Do not push a sudden stop of alcohol or a benzodiazepine.
If a child is being hurt, or anyone is in immediate danger, call 911. For a mental health crisis, call or text 988.
The job in front of you
When parents are misusing alcohol or using illicit drugs, the effect on children worsens, and grandparents frequently become the primary caregivers, along with financial and psychological support. Friends and neighbors sometimes do too. Patterns such as the hero and the scapegoat are in family roles. The brother or sister beside the crisis is in siblings and addiction.
Children living with grandparents because of a parent's substance use may already have a history of abuse or neglect. That history increases the risk of later substance misuse. Grandparents who offer love, support, and stable resources may be protective. The resources named are concrete: housing, food, clothing, and access to school. May be protective is the wording. It is not a promise that love erases harm.
The number of grandparents and other older relatives caring for children is significant and growing, in part because of the opioid crisis. Full-time care can also make it harder to look after your own health. Your health is part of the job, not a luxury you earn after the children are grown.
In many American Indian and Alaska Native families, grandparents already have a central role in raising children, and that presence can be a source of stability when a parent cannot provide care. Open talk about substance misuse, especially between grandparents and children, is part of what the protocol describes. How to explain a parent's treatment without handing a child the adult story is in talking with kids.
You do not appoint yourself to the treatment team
The person in care decides who counts as family. Grandparents are one example. Some people want no relatives involved. Worry does not open the chart. What staff can tell you is in family therapy. Fear of losing custody can keep a parent from services. That is a barrier to know about. Guardianship and a child-welfare case belong with a lawyer. The parent who is afraid to ask for help is the reader of parenting in recovery.
CRAFT is a structured approach, usually four to six sessions, that teaches relatives to encourage change with time together when the person is not using, rather than a confrontation. People pressed into treatment by confrontation are more likely to return to use than people encouraged through positive reinforcement. Cutting off rent, hiding medicine, or daring someone to quit tonight is not that approach. What a confrontation does is in tough love and addiction. What stays in the house, and what a child should not be asked to carry, is in setting boundaries.
Stopping a benzodiazepine abruptly, or cutting it too fast, can cause seizures. A sudden stop after chronic heavy drinking can be life-threatening. Ask for a medical assessment before anyone tries to quit those at the kitchen table.
People affected by someone else's drinking can sit with others in Al-Anon. That room does not replace a custody lawyer. If you have a substance use problem of your own, search FindTreatment.gov for your care as well as your relative's. What relatives can do during a treatment episode is in family support. Call or text (800) 653-9376 if you want help finding care for a parent, for a child who needs services, or for yourself.
Additional Resources
Sources cited on this page:
- SAMHSA TIP 39, Chapter 2: Influence of Substance Misuse on Families (NCBI Bookshelf)
- SAMHSA TIP 39, Chapter 3: Family Counseling Approaches (NCBI Bookshelf)
- SAMHSA TIP 39, Chapter 4: Integrated Family Counseling (NCBI Bookshelf)
- ACL: Supporting Grandparents Raising Grandchildren
- FDA: Boxed warning on benzodiazepines
- NIAAA Core Resource: Alcohol Use Disorder, From Risk to Diagnosis to Recovery
- SAMHSA FindTreatment.gov
- 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
Common Questions
Does every grandparent who is raising a grandchild do so because of addiction?
No. TIP 39 uses 2018 Census figures for a wider fact: about 6.0 million children under 18 lived in a household where a grandparent was the householder, and 7.1 million grandparents lived with grandchildren under 18. Those counts are not a tally of substance use. The protocol then describes a narrower group, children living with grandparents because a parent is misusing substances.
Can a grandparent make an adult child enter treatment?
No. The person in treatment decides who counts as family, and a grandparent can be named or left out. CRAFT teaches relatives to reinforce change instead of pressing someone into care by confrontation. People pressed in by confrontation are more likely to return to use than people encouraged by positive reinforcement. That is not a court order.
Will the grandchildren develop a substance use disorder?
TIP 39 does not make that prediction. A history of abuse or neglect by parents increases the risk of later substance misuse. Grandparents who offer love, support, and stable resources such as housing, food, clothing, and school may be protective. A study of youth already in Florida's juvenile justice system found a higher short-term opioid risk in grandparent-only homes. That finding is about that group.
Should I take the children to the family session?
Ask whether you were invited, and ask whether the hour is safe for them. Children should not sit in a session when there is current abuse or a risk of it. Educational programming for relatives is something programs are told to offer, with materials that fit the age. A visit is not that class.
Where do I get help for myself?
Full-time care can make a caregiver's own health harder to look after. The federal council for grandparents raising grandchildren is charged with helping caregivers meet children's needs and keep their own health. Al-Anon is a mutual-help fellowship for relatives. If you need substance use care of your own, search FindTreatment.gov. If a child is being hurt, call 911.