Growing up with a heroin-addicted parent exposes children to a variety of detrimental experiences before the age of 18 and new research indicates that girls are four times more resilient than boys in overcoming such adverse events.

In addition to having a heroin-addicted parent, these experiences include family mental illness, having a parent jailed, family violence, being a victim of abuse and having a parent die, and the study found 70 percent of the children were exposed to two or more of these events. In addition, 62 percent had three or more adverse experiences and 22 percent reported four or more. By contrast, just 3 percent reported no adverse experiences other than having an opiate-dependent parent.

"These are very high-risk kids with at least one parent who is addicted to heroin," said Martie Skinner, a research scientist with the University of Washington's Social Development Research Group and lead author of a new study. "What we mean by resilience is a reasonable transition to adulthood by working or being in school, avoiding substance abuse and staying out of trouble with the law in the past five years. These seem like ordinary expectations, but only 30 of the 125 young adults we studied met them."

Women were more likely to be resilient, primarily because males were more likely to have had criminal charges, she said…