Parents have a significant influence on the alcohol consumption of minors

Parents have a great influence on whether and how much alcohol their children drink
There are many people in the world who like to go around the houses on weekends and consume some alcoholic beverages. In Germany it is often simply sociable to drink beer or wine with acquaintances. It becomes problematic when adolescents are also motivated to drink alcohol due to our careless handling of alcohol. Researchers have now found that parents have a massive impact on how much their child drinks and how much they drink through their own coping with alcohol and their education.

Adolescents like to drink alcohol, especially in their youth - more often than they would actually be good for them. Researchers have now discovered in an investigation that parents have a major impact on whether and how much their child drinks. Today's stricter educational measures have apparently led to young people drinking less alcohol. The physicians of the "Institute of Alcohol Studies" published their findings in a press release.

When minors have problems with alcohol, parents are often to blame for the situation. More stringent education has resulted overall in a decline in teenage alcohol abuse. (Image: Klaus Eppele / fotolia.com)

Education influences how much alcohol our children drink
Most adults are aware of the consequences of excessive alcohol consumption from their own lives. As a teenager, they were invited to a party, drank far too much, and spent the next day with headache, nausea, and vomiting. But what does it really matter how well we treat alcohol as a teenager? Experts have found in a recent study that their parents' handling of alcohol and the methods of parenting used have a major impact on how our children handle alcohol. Perhaps this is the explanation why people in Germany drink more than average alcohol.

When teens drink a lot, parents are usually not innocent
If teenagers drink a lot and often, it can quickly become a problem. The parents are also partly responsible for this. For example, they have shown a poor role model in coping with alcohol or did not do enough to affect their child. Stricter use of alcohol can keep children from drinking too much alcohol at an early age, say the doctors.

Problems with drinking minors aged eleven to 15 years
From which age teenagers are allowed to consume alcohol is different in many countries. For example, in the United States, the legal age is 21 years. Of course, many young people already make their first experiences with the intoxicating drink. In the UK, for example, there has been a problem with drinking teenagers between the ages of eleven and fifteen, for example, the experts say.

Stronger education leads to a decrease in drinking among adolescents
In 2003, UK figures showed that about 61 percent of eleven to 15-year-old adolescents had already drunk or were even more likely to drink alcohol. By better and stricter educational strategies, this number has now nearly halved, say the authors. In 2014, the value was only 38 percent. Scientists from the Institute of Alcohol Studies have now attempted to pinpoint the causes of the drastic decline in their investigation.

Possible reasons for the decline in alcohol consumption
There could be several reasons for the decline in teenage alcohol consumption. For example, the sharp rise in alcohol prices may prevent teens from buying alcohol and getting drunk, the doctors say. Or young people reject alcohol because they have already experienced the negative consequences of their parents' consumption. Most scholars, however, support the theory that, above all, stricter education has led to this massive decline.

It is important to prevent a reversal of the positive trend
The study is another important step in understanding why underage drinking has declined, explain the physicians. It is important to build on the encouraging progress made in recent years and prevent a reversal of the trend, emphasizes Katherine Brown, Director of the Institute of Alcohol Studies. Whatever the reason, it's nice to see that underage minors could come to a full stop over the next few years, the expert adds. (As)