Underage Drinking Hits Grade School

(WebMD)  The prime time to prevent child alcohol use is when kids are in fifth grade, according to a new report on underage drinking.

"Substantial numbers of children do in fact have experience with alcohol," warns researcher John Donovan, Ph.D., of the University of Pittsburgh.

Donovan notes that while most children don't use alcohol on a regular basis, the number of children who use alcohol rises between grades four and six.

"This would suggest that primary preventive interventions for child alcohol use would be best targeted in fifth grade to reduce or delay this pattern of early onset," Donovan writes in September's edition of the journal Prevention Science.

Donovan gathered data from four U.S. surveys on children and alcohol ranging from the 1990s until 2005. The most recent survey, conducted from 2004-2005 and including about 25,000 students, shows that about 7 percent of fourth-graders, more than 8 percent of fifth-graders, and about 13 percent of sixth-graders had drunk beer, liquor, or wine coolers in the past year.

An earlier survey from 1998 shows that among some 1,500 sixth-grade students, 62 percent of boys and 58 percent of girls said they had ever tasted alcohol.

About a third as many children reported having had "more than a sip" of alcohol in other surveys from the 1990s. Few children in any of the surveys reported having any alcohol within the past month.

The surveys don't show the context in which those children drank alcohol. For instance, some kids may only have sipped wine in religious services or tasted alcohol at a wedding or during a family dinner.

But the take-home message, says Donovan, is not to wait until children are teens to talk to them about alcohol use.

There is a "misperception that few children drink ... hopefully, this review serves to dispel this perception," writes Donovan.


By Miranda Hitti
Reviewed by Louise Chang
©2007 WebMD, Inc. All rights reserved

[Violet_Petran]

This is such a sad story to read about the frequency of underage drinking with grade schoolers!I think that there is and should be tremendous leeway for how parents want to raise their children and what they want to expose them to. That being said, I don?t think that parents should condone underage drinking- especially when it involves kids other than their own. The bottom line is that it is illegal and to knowingly allow for minors to partake in it makes them just as much of a law breaker as their children. In the end, it is the parents and not the teenager that is the biggest loser in these types of cases and that should be something these parents keep in mind when they throw a party with alcohol. I recently blogged about the level of blame that should be shifted to the parents when it comes to underage drinking...http://legalmatch.typepad.com/criminallaw/2010/07/should-we-blame-parents-for-drunk-kids.html

[michellem99-2009]

Parents/caretakers. They are the blame. Kids have drank for ages.The parents/caretakers are the blame. I was at a church affair and they had 2 bowls. One for Adults with booze in it. And a kiddie bowl. I don''t drink. A child wanted the adult one. I told her I am a grown up and I would rather have a glass from the kiddie bowl and I did. I told her that I don''t drink. I feel the drink adults send the wrong message to children. Adults drink and they say no to the child. Child sees Mum drinking and said you do Mum. Mum is on the spot. Children/teens should not drink. I hate the taste of booze/beer and don''t drink it.

[ampsanne]

I agree with justfacts2, the problem is with the parents. They should be the role models in the first place. But first and foremost I look at it this way, they make the kids grow up too fast nowadays. They don''t give them time enough to have a childhood. Reading to your child when it''s still in the womb, etc. When I was growing up we had no preschool or kindergarten and we survived. Next thing you know they''ll have them married or going off to college before they''re even out of the womb. It''s know wonder kids of today expect the world with a fence around it.

[oleander8]

This poll/survey/study is so broad and all inclusive that it is junk - and it will scare a lot of people unnecessarily.

[tburzio]

So what? Let them drink. Hasn''t hurt the French, except for loosing all those wars. Hey, maybe that''s why we can''t win a war any more? Is underage drinking turning us into Frenchmen?

[justfacts2]

I am sorry but the blame lies with the parents. There are numbskulls out there that have the stupid idea that it is better for their kids to drink at home, with adult supervision. I guess these same said parents also buy their kids drugs and allow their kids to use them at home as well. This is dumbest idea that parents today could come up with, and then these studies wonder why grade school kids are drinking? The blame lies with the parents, and not with the ads or any other media source.