Should parents drink with teens?

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(CBS) How do you help a teenager handle alcohol responsibly? If new research is to believed, the answer is make sure they don't touch the stuff.

"Kids need parents to be parents and not drinking buddies," the study's lead researcher, Dr. Barbara J. McMorris, of the School of Nursing at the University of Minnesota, said in a statement.  "Adults need to be clear about what messages they are sending."

That's counter intuitive to many parents, especially those in Europe and Australia, who teach teens how to drink responsibly by letting them drink small amounts in the home. But according to the study, that can lead to alcohol abuse later on.

To come to their conclusion, researchers at the Social Development Research Group in Seattle teamed up with their counterparts at the Centre for Adolescent Health in Melbourne, Australia. Each group studied the drinking habits and household rules of teens in their areas.

By eighth grade, far more Australian kids - 67 percent - were drinking with an adult present than the kids in Washington state - 35 percent. That reflects different parenting styles in each country. But the Australian kids were also struggling with alcohol at far greater rates. In ninth grade, 36 percent of the Ozzy teens reported they were not able to stop drinking, had gotten into alcohol-fueled fights or were having blackouts. That's compared to just 21percent of the American kids.

In both countries, rates of alcohol abuse went up in homes where kids were allowed to drink with adults. Around 36 percent of American teens have tried alcohol by the ninth grade, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism which funded the study with the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Previous research was mixed, with some supporting the study and others showing that parents drinking responsibly with teens could help guard against excessive drinking later.

The work is published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Should parents teach their kids how to drink or ban them from touching booze until they are of age?

[piwyou]

I think that it depends on the family environment. Each family is unique in their set of rules and behavior. Drinking at home is wayyyy safer than drinking outside and driving. Much rather prefer my son drinking with my brothers and nephews than in a club full of strangers that may rape, beat or kill him. If you teach your kids to drink up to their own resistance, and in a healthy family environment, I am sure, that they wont be alcoholics... any way, alcoholism is a disease that has it roots in the consumption, but also in the souls of the sick...and that is very important also!

[jmailbox]

Personally speaking, i prefer if children got used to a little drinking so they don't hurt themselves when they turn 21.

People who become addicted to alcohol are probaly also addicted to a lot of other things.

Do you think it should be against the law to feed big fat kids a lot of food? Do you think they got to that size without being addicted? I think not.

People need to learn moderation for everything in life, not too much but also not to little.

I do not condone the use of illegal drugs, because that causes a lot of pain and suffering for the user and their family

[cks53]

Check your facts. According to the WHO, rates of heavy drinking and total per capita alcohol consumption are higher in the US than in Australia. Allowing children to drink in moderation in the home doesn't lead to alcohol abuse, or the numbers would say so. Think before you take leaps of logic. You cannot compare American parents letting their kids drink to countries where social drinking is part of the culture. It's apples and oranges. You need to look at WHY parents are letting kids drink - parents in the US are more inclined to want their kids to "like" them and be real drinking buddies; EU and AU parents aren't doing it for the same reasons.

[mx200394]

Unlike OmegaWolf I have lived in the UK as well as America, in countries like Germany the drinking age legally is 16. The data is way to short to conclude that children become alcoholics from drinking with their parents.

I use to drink with my parents all the time when I was 14-to 18. Even when I was legally permitted to drink at 16 I did drink with them as well as my friends. From when I was 16 to about 21 I drank heavy as all children do in college or university would. It is the right of passage into adulthood any forget in noticing.

Because the data is so short the results are skewed because there is no conclusion that can draw the fact that one is alcohol addicted. Now today in my mid late 20s I hardly drink. I only drink wine when I am out on a nice holiday, as well as I will drink a cocktail when I am at a social gathering.

Please keep in mind the fact the more you say no to a child the more they do. But if you kill the fun for them now, it will be less fun for them later on in life. For Gods sake I still have a bottle of rum I bought in the fridge from last Christmas that is still half full.

[OmegaWolf747]

I think the research was skewed to conform to MADD's prohibitionist mindset. In European countries, kids drink wine from about age seven on and have no drinking problems. In the USA, it's prohibition till 21 and that causes the drinking problems.