At-Home Drinking Leads Teens to Drink More Away from Home

Interesting study coming out of the Netherlands:

A parent seeking to teach their teen how to drink responsibly may be misguided if they believe allowing the drinking to happen at home is a good move. Science Daily recently posted a report which examined a new study of 428 Dutch families which found adverse results from at-home drinking policies.

his study showed that the more teenagers were allowed to drink at home, the more they were likely to drink outside the home as well. In addition, those teens who rank under the watchful eye of parents or on their own were at a greater risk for developing alcohol-related problems.

Such problems related to drinking include trouble with school work, missed days from school and getting into fights with other people. Teens also experienced other problems as well.

In the Netherlands, many experts recommend that parents drink with their teenagers in order to teach them how to drink responsibly. The goal is to limit the amount of drinking teens will do outside the home, but the advice is based on reasoning and not scientific evidence.

“The idea is generally based on common sense,” says Dr. Haske van der Vorst, of Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands and lead researcher on the study. “For example, the thinking is that if parents show good behavior — here, modest drinking — then the child will copy it. Another assumption is that parents can control their child’s drinking by drinking with the child.”

In a study of 428 families with two children between the ages of 13 and 15, researchers found that the more teens drank at home, the more they tended to drink elsewhere. At the same time, out-of-home drinking led to more drinking at home.

Makes sense to me. My parents thought a little glass of wine would teach me to drink responsibly as I got older. However, I was so enamored right off the bat with alcohol and everything it seemed to represent (adulthood, mystery, social comfort) that it was only a matter of time before I started abusing the stuff.  Doesn’t it give tacit approval to drink if you are actually serving it to your kids?  It certainly lifts any sort of basic prohibition by simply saying we think you are mature enough to do this, as long as it’s at home with us.  Kids quickly forget the “as long as it’s at home with us.”