Giving alcohol to teens at home fuels binge drinking, parents told

Source: The Telegraph
Henry Bodkin
25 JANUARY 2018

Children given alcohol by parents in the belief it will foster responsible drinking are more likely to become binge drinkers, a major new study has found.

The six-year analysis of nearly 2,000 12 to 18-year-olds revealed there were “no benefits” to introducing alcohol to teenagers at home and that doing so only encouraged them to seek it elsewhere.

Writing in The Lancet, the researchers say that despite a widespread folk belief that a parentally-supplied glass of wine over Sunday lunch or a quiet beer in the evening promotes a stable attitude to drinking, there is in fact no reliable evidence to back this up.

Instead, they show that the chances of binge drinking, alcohol-related harm or displaying symptoms of alcohol use disorder are all higher in children provided alcohol by parents.

Experts have said the study’s findings “strongly refute” the current wisdom.

“While governments focus on prevention through school-based education and enforcement of legislation on legal age for buying and drinking alcohol, parents go largely unnoticed,” said professor Richard Mattick, from the University of New South Wales, who led the research.

“Parents, policy makers, and clinicians need to be made aware that parental provision of alcohol is associated with risk, not with protection.

“We advise that parents should avoid supplying alcohol to their teenagers if they wish to reduce their risk of alcohol-related harms.”

The analysis found that, on average, 62 per cent of teenagers who were not given alcohol by their parents went on to binge drink – described as four or more drinks in one session – compared to 81 per cent who were.

Meanwhile teenagers supplied with alcohol by only their parents one year were twice as likely to access alcohol from other sources the next year.

Previous studies have shown that in the UK middle class children were those most likely to have tried alcohol before they reached their teenage years, with 35 per cent of those with professional parents having had a drink compared to around 18 per cent across all economic groups.

“These data tell us that in the long-run, supplying alcohol to our adolescent children is not a great idea,” said Professor Melissa Norberg, from Macquarie University.

Also: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5313225/Kids-likely-booze-parents-let-drink.html