Allowing your teenager to drink alcohol with you may actually backfire as an approach to teaching responsible drinking, according to a study in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.
- Dr. Haske van der Vorst studied 428 Dutch families.
- He found that the more teenagers were drinking at home with the parents, the more they drank outside of the home.
- The study also found that teens who drink with their parents or on their own increase their risk for developing alcoholism.
"The thinking is that if parents show good behavior -- in this case, modest drinking-- the child will copy it. Another assumption is that parents can control their child's drinking by drinking with the child," said Dr. van der Vorst. However, he said, the results of his new study and several previous ones indicate that the opposite is true.
Dr. van der Vorst advice to parents is that they should try to postpone the age at which their children start drinking.
Labels: parenting tips, alcohol
Posted By: Jane St. Clair