“The road through all child stardom is strewn with carnage,” said Robert
Thompson, pop culture professor at Syracuse University.
Actors are some of the most famous people in the world and have been for the better part of the last century. For some children, acting can be a positive experience. However, this may have a damaging effect on child stars. Acting can be a bad profession for some kids to get into. Child stars can develop many problems when they get older.
Many child stars feel pushed by their parents to stardom. Sometimes they don’t think about the children and just about the money. Parents can push kids into their own dreams that failed. Kids don’t need the pressures that adults face. Where are the parents when child stars are caught with drugs and alcohol?

Child stars are also under a lot of stress. They are responsible for the success of the movie. If they don’t succeed, there are going to be many people who will not have the money they want.

In his autobiography, Jackie Cooper talks about how his director threatened to shoot his own dog if he didn’t cry convincingly enough for Skippy, his dog that dies in the movie. Cooper was nine years old at the time. Is that something you want your nine year old to hear?

Disney, who is the starting area for many stars, seems to make most of their kids into singers. Some examples are Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, Miley Cyrus, Ashley Tisdale, Emily Osment, Mitchel Musso, and the Jonas Brothers. Many of the stars can’t actually sing. This might push them into something that they don’t feel comfortable doing. On one of her recent album covers, When The Sun Goes Down, Selena Gomez has been labeled The Next Lady Gaga (Top).
Many people think that the stars of Harry Potter are all great people. Not all the stars are still successful. Jamie Michael Waylett, the actor who plays Vincent Crabbe, was charged with the possession of drugs. On his twentieth birthday, Waylett was sentenced to 120 hours of community service. He was dismissed from the Harry Potter series and not allowed to return.

Lindsay Lohan who was once the star of the Parent Trap, Freaky Friday, Mean Girls, and Herbie Fully Loaded has now been fired from many movies. In the movies, The Edge of Love and Poor Things Lohan was supposed to star in the movies, but both times she was fired. Lohan has been in rehab five times as far as the public knows, three for DUI (Driving Under the Influence) and twice for bad behavior.

Britney Spears, who once stared on the New Mickey Mouse Club, and singer of well known songs, “Oops! I Did It Again” and “….Baby One More Time”, has been a disappointment to the public. In January 2004, she married her friend Jason Alexander and then 55 hours later it was annulled. Later in October, Spears was married again and gave birth to her first child in September of 2005. In November, pictures were taken of Spears holding her child on her lap instead of putting the child in a car seat. Spears then divorced her husband after having another child and later lost custody of the kids. Spears spent many days in rehab for use of drugs and had many breakdowns with the paparazzi. Currently, Spears continues to sing and tour.
Miley Cyrus, famous child of Billy Ray Cyrus and actress on Hannah Montana, has been voted the worst celebrity role model for young girls. Miley Cyrus was caught smoking the drug, salvia in 2010. Although it is not considered a “drug of concern”, the seventeen year old was still in a lot of trouble. She also was engaged in underage alcohol consumption. “My job isn’t to tell your kids how to act or how not to act because I’m still figuring that out for myself,” Cyrus says in the February issue of Harper’s Bazaar magazine. At the 2009 Teen Choice Awards, she pole- danced for a crowd of children. Cyrus also says, “Your kids are going to make mistakes whether I do or not. That’s just life.”
Jodie Sweetin, the sweet girl from Full House just isn’t sweet anymore. Sweetin has been addicted to meth since around 2008. "I probably had two bottles of wine, and I was only 14. That first drink gave me the self- confidence I had been searching for my whole life. But that set the pattern of the kind of drinking that I would do,” says Sweetin. One night Sweetin also drove home drunk with her baby. "I wanted to prove that I could get more trashed than anyone. There were times I did so much coke, I'd be there laying there, getting sick and thinking 'I'm going to die.' But I didn't care,” Sweetin also says. At her former co-star’s wedding, Sweetin had to be carried out of her wedding. Today, Sweetin is clean of drugs.

Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, who also stared on Full House with Sweetin, have also been having some problems. Mary Kate had to seek treatment for her eating disorder.