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Researchers have suggested some useful parental strategies to significantly reduce adolescent alcohol consumption.

A growing number of adolescents and teenagers are indulging in alcohol consumption worldwide today. As a result, there has been a rising concern regarding the increase in preventable damages that are attributed to the consumption of alcohol by children globally. This increasing concern has stirred up medical as well as political debates pertaining to the control of adolescent alcohol consumption for as long as possible.

Most teenagers who give in to alcohol are more likely to consume it at higher risk levels, in turn holding themselves at an increased risk of severe physical injury and unsafe or unwanted sex. Alcohol consumption has been found to be linked with an increased teenage mortality rate. In addition to that, alcohol consumption at a young age raises the risk of acquiring alcohol-related issues later in life. In countries like Australia and United Kingdom, encouraging young children to avoid alcohol is now included in their new national guidelines for alcohol consumption. The said guidelines in both the countries advise that children under the age of 18 should avoid the initiation of alcohol consumption and prolong it as far as possible. There are also strict guidelines that children below the age of 15 years should not drink any alcohol at all. It demands a tremendous cultural shift in the societies of both the countries for these recommendations to be widely followed.

A recent research aims to bring out specific parental strategies on things they can do to prevent alcohol consumption in their young children.The study came out with as many as 289 parenting strategies that were endorsed as significant in reducing teenage alcohol consumption by more than ninety percent members of the research panel. The strategies were divided into eleven categories for easy understanding.

Some of the primary questions that the research answers include: What are the things that the parents should know about alcohol consumption by adolescents? How to delay children's introduction to alcohol and the benefits of doing this? How to talk to your children about alcohol? How to set up family rules and monitor your children when they are without supervision? How to prepare your child to handle peer pressure and explain the benefits of not giving-in to this habit? What to do when your child has been indulging in alcohol consumption without permission? How to establish and maintain a good parent-child relationship? The strategies endorsed by the panel members of the research team are available for parents in the form of a suitable document.

The researchers’ state that the study has its own share of limitations of including: the strategies identified in the study may only be applicable for children in Australia, as the research panel members were exclusively from Australia. This study also does not key out parental strategies that might be appropriate for families from ethnically and linguistically diverse minority sections of the society within Australia

Nevertheless, in spite of the stated limitations, the study has chalked out well defined recommendations for parents on specific strategies they can employ to help prevent or at least reduce their child’s alcohol consumption. The researchers hope that the strategies brought out by the study provide practical support to parents in implementing the recommendations to avoid alcohol consumption by young children.

Reference:
Parenting strategies for reducing adolescent alcohol use: a Delphi consensus study by Siobhan M Ryan, Anthony F Jorm, Claire M Kelly, Laura M Hart, Amy J Morgan from Orygen Youth Health Research Centre, University of Melbourne, Austrailia and Dan I Lubman from Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre, Eastern Health and Monash University, Australia. For more information, please visit: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/11/13

Disclaimer: This article is written by a non-medical professional.