A new study says that parents who attempt to teach responsible drinking by allowing their teenagers to have alcohol at home are just plain wrong. The study of 428 Dutch families appears in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.
Researchers discovered that the more teenagers were permitted to drink at home, the more alcohol they consumed when they were away from home. The study also found that these teens had an increased risk of developing problems with alcohol. These problems include trouble with academics, absences from school and engaging in fights with others. The study questions the practice of parents drinking with their children hoping they will drink responsibly and reduce the amount of alcohol they use when not at home.
That advice is common in the Netherlands, but is based more on experts’ reasoning than on scientific evidence, according to Dr. Haske van der Vorst, the lead researcher of the study. Based on this and earlier studies, van der Vorst says that he would "advise parents to prohibit their child from drinking, in any setting or on any occasion."
