A new survey says that teenagers who do not eat dinner with their families on a regular basis are much more likely to use alcohol, marijuana or tobacco, than teenagers who do eat dinners with their families. The report, by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA) says that, compared to teenagers who have dinner with their families five to seven times each week, those who do not are twice as likely to have used tobacco, nearly twice as likely to have used alcohol, and one and a half times more likely to have used marijuana.
According to the report, seventy two percent of American teenagers believe that eating dinner with their parents on a regular basis is very important. Teenagers who have less than three dinners with the family each week are twice as likely to say they can get marijuana or prescription drugs in less than an hour. This is compared to those teenagers who eat five to seven dinners each week with their families.
"The message for parents couldn’t be any clearer," said Kathleen Ferrigno, the director of marketing for the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. "With the recent rise in the number of Americans age 12 and older who are using drugs, it is more important than ever to sit down to dinner and engage your children in conversation about their lives, their friends, school – just talk."
Ferrigno acknowledges that there is no guarantee that this will keep kids away from drugs, but "knowledge is power and the more you know, the better the odds are that you will raise a healthy kid."
