Addiction Parents should practice alcohol handling with their children

If young people come into contact with alcoholic drinks for the first time, it often has serious consequences. Because they can not yet assess the effect, nausea and vomiting are not uncommon after drinking - but in case of emergency, the evening can end in the hospital. Therefore, parents should speak openly with their children about alcohol and practice proper handling of drinks such as beer and wine.
Teenagers can not assess the effects of alcohol
When teens start the first "drinking attempts", it often ends with a night over the toilet bowl and a heavy hangover the next day. No wonder, because the effect of beer, wine and Co. on your own body is still unknown at this age. "How should the young people know how to deal with the legal drug alcohol, if no one teaches them?" Says Professor Klaus Hurrelmann, Educational Scientist at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, in conversation with the news agency "dpa".

Talk to children about alcohol and its dangers. Image: patrickjohn71 - fotolia

First drinking experiences often already with 13 years
According to the expert, a rethink must be made to learn how to handle alcohol properly. Because many parents would rely on prohibitions and the youth protection law, according to which beer, wine or sparkling wine only from 16 and high-percentage alcoholic beverages (spirits) are only allowed from the age of 18 years. With sentences like "That's nothing for you" or "Let's get away, you're not feeling well", many mothers and fathers try to keep their children away from drinking. But according to Hurrelmann this is unrealistic, because alcohol is available everywhere and many young people would already have the first experiences today at the age of 12, 13 years. "We have to move away from prohibition and taboo, because experience shows that nothing can be done with it," says the expert.

Girls try earlier than boys
Often teens try alcoholic drinks first with friends, with girls starting earlier than boys, explained Jörg Kreutziger from the early intervention project HaLT further towards the "dpa". The unpleasant consequences of the "party run" would often be accepted, because many young people are about to try out and compete with others, says Johannes Lindenmeyer, search experts and founder of the project "Dear clever than blue". If parents do not address the topic of "alcohol" at home, they would therefore, according to Hurrelmann, ignore their pedagogical task of helping the child to handle it properly.

According to Lindenmeyer, drinking alcohol is similar to cycling: "Of course, you can just put a bicycle up to a child and let it experiment with it for so long, until it learns to drive on its own." Even if the worried parents warn again and again that it could overthrow, the child would therefore still drive, "so we give children support wheels and crash helmets, so we should keep it while drinking alcohol," the search expert continues.

Stay in conversation with the child
But what can parents do to "train" their child's handling of alcohol properly? According to Klaus Hurrelmann, a question that is generally difficult to answer, because while one child shows interest early on, beer and wine leave others completely cold. Therefore, parents should try to find the right time and talk to their child. If it becomes clear in the conversation that the friends already have contact with alcohol, according to the experts, it is absolutely essential to react.
However, "practicing" should not be misunderstood here, because giving a teenager alcohol and saying "Let's go!" Is not the right way. Instead, apply the right frame, such as to choose the birthday of the grandma, so that children learn that alcohol is drunk on special occasions and in society. Under the supervision of parents, even teenagers under the age of 16 could already have a glass of sparkling wine or drink an alster for dinner. It is important, however, "in advance to talk about it and to clearly limit the amount," continued Hurrelmann. In general, it is also important that the parents act as a role model and at the celebration itself only to a limited extent to wine, beer or similar. grab, emphasizes Jörg Kreutziger.

Clarify teens factually about possible consequences
Of course, children who do not want to drink alcohol would not need to practice it. Otherwise, parents who do not drink can not ignore the topic. "Of course you can always tell the adolescent that you refuse alcohol", but the danger that this gains in attractiveness, should not be underestimated, the expert continued. Instead, attention should be paid to education about possible consequences, because many teenagers would not know could suffocate from his vomit while sleeping as a result of the "coma run". If parents address these concerns objectively, children would accept them and even if the first "crash" has already been experienced, parents would still have a great deal of room for maneuver.

"With understanding and severity should then be clarified: So not." If the child has not lost interest in alcohol, then it should be shown how it "at least with a bright mind" drink. For this one could let the teen have something to drink in the common get-together and afterwards, e.g. Math exercises to demonstrate how even small amounts of alcohol act. According to Hurrelmann, such a training is "the best prevention for a total frenzy." (Nr)