Alcohol and parenting

Here we look at some of the most common questions parents ask about alcohol and young people, and try to help you work out some answers that work for you.

In the UK, no one under the age of 18 can buy alcohol, and adults can’t buy it for them. Thanks to a historic law, any child aged 5 or older can have an alcoholic drink at home or in any private house – although we certainly wouldn’t recommend it!

The UK’s Chief Medical Officers say that an alcohol-free childhood is best. That means no alcohol until at least 15 years of age; only very small amounts between the ages of 15 and 18, and never more than once a week. The main reason for this is that young people’s bodies are continuing to grow and change, and so alcohol can cause serious and long-lasting damage.

One reason parents sometimes give for drinking in front of their children is that they’re showing them how to drink sensibly. It’s a common-sense approach – we teach children how to do all sorts of things by doing them ourselves. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple with alcohol.

For starters, different parents will have very different ideas about what sensible drinking looks like. When researchers have asked parents about how they demonstrate sensible drinking to their children, parents don’t tend to talk about teaching children how to drink moderately. They talk more about the importance of not behaving badly or becoming embarrassing – how to be drunk without being annoying.

That’s one way of thinking about drinking. An alternative way is to think seriously about how much we’re drinking and why. That could raise a much trickier question for us as parents. If we want to show our children how to use alcohol safely and healthily, are we willing to change our own drinking habits – to drink less or drink less often – in order to set them a good example?

Britain sometimes seems to have a binge-drinking problem that our European neighbours don’t share. So, do we need to be more like parents in places like France and Italy, where (we are told) it’s more normal to introduce children to alcohol at an early age? Unfortunately, once again, it might not be that simple.

For one thing, the amounts of alcohol given to children in the wine-drinking countries of Europe are very small. It’s more a matter of adding a little bit of wine to some water, rather than the other way around. The aim is to introduce children to the colours and flavours of wines without the intoxicating effects.

Another all-important factor is that children in much of Europe learn about wine as part of an overall moderate drinking culture. Alcohol is enjoyed at mealtimes and being drunk is unacceptable. The situation is the UK is very different, and there is a real risk that by introducing children to alcohol we are simply assisting them to join in with British drinking culture rather than our Continental ideal.

And finally, it’s only fair to ask why we want to introduce our children to drinking. Research has shown that, when parents in the UK give alcohol to their children, it’s often the parents’ idea, not the children’s. Could it be that some of us are encouraging our children to try alcohol because we think that drinking is ‘normal’?

As more young people turn their backs on alcohol, it’s quite possible that more parents will be challenged by their children about why they’re drinking.

The ready-to-drink cocktails known as ‘alcopops’ have been getting bad press since they first appeared in the 1990s. Many people worry that because they are so sweet, they offer an easy route into drinking – unlike traditional drinks like beer and wine.

We need to be cautious about singling some drinks out for blame. The alcohol in alcopops is the same chemical that’s in all other alcoholic drinks. And they don’t tend to be particularly strong – around the same strength as beer and much less alcoholic than wine.

That said, there are a few things it is worth parents thinking about before letting young people have alcopops:

There are various alcohol substitute drinks available, similar to full strength alcoholic drinks in terms of taste and packaging. These are usually used by adults to reduce their overall consumption of alcohol, by swapping out full strength products for alcohol-free or low-alcohol (no/low) drinks.

There have been concerns from alcohol charities and public health experts that no/low drinks could act as 'gateway' products, getting children and young people used to the taste and feel of alcohol, and making them start drinking alcohol at younger ages. At population level, younger generations have been consuming less alcohol compared to older generations, so no/lows could be used by the alcohol industry to attract a new generation of customers.

However, a study commissioned by Alcohol Change UK found that:

At least for the moment, no/lows don’t seem to be having much impact on children and young people, because they’re not particularly interested in them. While our study shows no/low alcohol drinks might not yet factor too much into the equation for young people or their parents, we expect the growth in this market to continue, and the researchers advise caution as we don’t know what impact they might have as the market grows.

The truth is that helping young people have a healthy relationship with alcohol doesn’t always have much to do with alcohol itself. Self-confidence and a sense of self-worth are what matters most. That comes in large part from young people having good relationships with the adults around them. So often the best things parents can do include:

Family members can feel isolated, anxious and even guilty when a loved one is experiencing drinking problems. There will be many other people in a similar situation, and help is available for you and your child, whether they are under 18 or an adult. Charities such as Adfam, DrugFam, Al-Anon and Nacoa exist to provide advice and support.