Proper handling of beer or schnapps Parental advice on alcohol concerns in children

Alcohol worries in children: experts advise parents
Although it has been shown in recent years that children and adolescents today drink less, many parents are concerned that their offspring may consume too much alcohol. Parents can get advice from experts via a telephone hotline of the health insurance DAK-Gesundheit.

Experts advise on the phone
Although excessive consumption of alcohol seems to be less popular among adolescents nowadays than it was a few years ago, it is far from over reasoning. As a representative parents' survey of DAK health has shown, one fifth of all parents in Germany worry that their children could drink too much alcohol. The health insurance company will set up a telephone hotline on March 14, to reach experts who advise on the topic.

Many parents in Germany are worried that their children could drink too much. The health insurance DAK-Health sets up a telephone hotline, advise on the experts on the subject. (Image: patrickjohn71 / fotolia.com)

Tens of thousands of adolescents were hospitalized for alcohol poisoning
As the health insurance company writes in a report, in 2015 around 22,000 children and adolescents with acute alcohol intoxication came to the hospital nationwide.

According to scientists, the alcohol consumption of minors is significantly influenced by the parents.

So what can parents do to protect their children from so-called binge drinking? And how much alcohol are mothers and fathers allowed to drink themselves in order to be considered as good role models? From when is alcohol consumption risky for your own health?

Answers to these and other questions get parents at a current telephone hotline DAK-health. Medical experts advise on 14 March between 8 and 20 o'clock. The services offered on the freephone number 0800 1111 841 can be used by insured persons of all health insurances.

Alcohol consumption influenced by parents
"With our hotline, we inform mothers and fathers how best to deal with the issue of alcohol in their families," said Andreas Storm, CEO of DAK Health.

The alcohol consumption of children is strongly influenced by the parents. With regular alcohol consumption of the parents also increases the risk of drinking their children with binge drinking. "As a health insurance, prevention is very important to us, so we want to clearly identify risks and offer help."

The advisory hotline will be supplemented by a live chat on Facebook, where Professor Reiner Hanewinkel, head of the Institute for Therapy and Health Research, will inform you about the latest study results.

"If we manage to delay the entry into alcohol consumption by a few years of life among the adolescents, that already has a positive effect," says Hanewinkel.

According to the DAK parents' survey, 34 percent of parents currently allow their children to try alcohol at the age of fourteen or fifteen.

Practice proper handling of alcohol with the children
According to some experts, parents should not simply rely on bans or legal regulations, but rather practice their drinking with their children.

What is meant here is, for example, that the offspring is taught that alcohol is drunk on special occasions and in society, says Johannes Lindenmeyer, search expert and founder of the project "Lieber schlau als blau".

The right framework for learning this would be about the birthday of the grandmother, at which even young people under 16 under the supervision of the parents could already touch with a glass of sparkling wine. (Ad)