In yesterday’s W$J, psychologist Stanton Peele makes the case for allowing minors to drink alcohol with their parents. According to Peele, allowing children to drink alcohol in the home with their families reduces the likelihood of binge drinking and related problems. On the other hand, allowing minors to attend unchaperoned parties may be setting them up to be binge drinkers.
n societies where children drink with their parents, this typically means giving a kid a small amount of wine or other alcohol, often watered down on special occasions or a family dinner. Many European countries also lower the drinking age for children when they are accompanied by parents. In the United Kingdom, for example, the legal age is 18, but for a family at a restaurant it is 16. In France and Italy, where the legal age is 16, there is no age limit for children drinking with parents.
But what might all of this mean for teen drinking problems in America?
Several studies have shown that the younger kids are when they start to drink, the more likely they are to develop severe drinking problems. But the kind of drinking these studies mean — drinking in the woods to get bombed or at unattended homes — is particularly high risk.
Research published in the Journal of Adolescent Health in 2004 found that adolescents whose parents permitted them to attend unchaperoned parties where drinking occurred had twice the average binge-drinking rate. But the study also had another, more arresting conclusion: Children whose parents introduced drinking to the children at home were one-third as likely to binge.
“It appears that parents who model responsible drinking behaviors have the potential to teach their children the same,” noted Kristie Foley, the principal author of the study. While the phrasing was cautious, the implication of the study’s finding needs to be highlighted: Parents who do not introduce children to alcohol in a home setting might be setting them up to become binge drinkers later on. You will not likely hear this at your school’s parent drug- and alcohol-awareness nights.