Alcohol Abuse Advice

How to curb teenage drinking

We should all be under no illusions – alcohol can be extremely dangerous for children and teenagers, and you are right to be concerned if you think that your child is drinking. While a single glass of wine for a 16-year-old at a family dinner can help your children to understand the boundaries of social drinking, illicit binge drinking, especially of spirits, is damaging to a child’s health, can be life-threatening and can lead to extremely risky behaviour.

Figures vary depending on where you look, but it is estimated that up to 80 per cent of early sexual experiences occur under the influence of alcohol and the vast majority of these are subsequently regretted.

So what can you do to protect your children? The first thing is to understand if your child is drinking at all and to do this you need to be aware of where your child is at all times. If they are out with friends, always make sure that you see them on their return, and engage them in conversation. If they smell of alcohol, or strongly of mints, or of a different perfume, then you are right to be suspicious.

Changes in behaviour

Keep them talking and you’ll be able to see if there is a difference in their behaviour – are they more sparkling, or more volatile than usual? If you are worried that you don’t know if what your child is drinking is too much or not, then remember this: the safest approach to take is that any unsupervised alcohol is too much.

You’re right not to be naïve about parties, even those supervised at home by other parents. Children – teenagers especially, and even the most law-abiding and delightful ones – need to try to break the rules, and are extraordinarily ingenious when it comes to doing so. Drink can easily be smuggled in to houses in bags, and innocent-looking water bottles can easily contain vodka. Parties with sleepovers usually mean that parents go to bed before their charges, and it is then that the hidden stash of wine or spirits can appear.

Share your concerns

Share your concerns with the people supervising the party, talk to your sons to set out your expectations, and follow this up afterwards. If you are in any doubt about a party, put your foot down – hard though this will be – and weather the storm (but replace it with something else amazing with you and your family).

Talking to your children about alcohol is really important, and – like talking about sex – is best introduced from an early age as a part of an ongoing conversation about what is right and what is wrong in life. Expressing disapproval or concern over drunken behaviour is a good way to start to get the message across to young children that alcohol can lead people to do things that make them look silly.

Learning experience

As children grow older, the key to effective discussion is an open relationship where you allow your child or teenager to talk comfortably to you – easier said than done, admittedly, but the secret to this is to listen, listen, listen, and help your child reach conclusions by talking through their thoughts. They are going to make mistakes – statistics show that they are likely to try alcohol and over-indulge before the age of 18 on at least one occasion, and if this can be turned into a learning experience, then this is all to the good.

Of course, you are an extremely important role model for your children. They need to see sensible behaviour from you in this respect if you are to have any chance of guiding their actions – they will do as you do, not just as you say …

Don’t be afraid to seek help if you suspect that your child is drinking too much, and if you want to know more, a useful starting point is www.drinkaware.co.uk, which has an excellent section on the facts of alcohol, as well as a really useful page on how to introduce the topic with your children, and follow it through.