Allowing underage teens to drink alcohol at home can “normalize” drinking, making them more likely to develop alcohol dependency and other unhealthy habits around drinking when they’re older.
“Many parents believe it to be an effective harm reduction strategy because it provides an opportunity to supervise drinking,” a study in the journal Addictive Behaviors says. However, “parental provision of alcohol and permission to drink increases in future alcohol-related harms.”
“Even sipping/tasting in early adolescence … is predictive of heavy drinking and alcohol-related harms in young adulthood,” the study says.
It also didn’t matter what age kids were allowed to experiment with alcohol: “A robust relationship was found between parental permission to use alcohol during adolescence and increased alcohol use frequency and quantity, alcohol use disorder symptoms, and alcohol-related harms in young adulthood.”
Stock image of young people drinking alcohol.
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“It’s not the harm reduction approach we thought it is,” Dr. Lisa Damour, clinical psychologist and author of The Emotional Lives of Teenagers told CBS News. “There are plenty of families that let their kid have a taste of their drink and that child does not have problems in the moment or down the line. But on balance, what the data tells us, is that this is not necessarily the right choice.”
“What it can do,” she says, “is it can normalize the idea of underage drinking, which is not something we want to do.”
Damour said that while it is “safer” to drink at home than with your friends, “it’s also safer to not drink at all, under age.”
While parents may think that children will be “more measured” with alcohol if they experiment at home, the data says the opposite: “Kids who drink under supervision at home go on to drink more, to drink more frequently, and to have more trouble with alcohol.”
Stock image of a teen holding a bottle of beer.
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“Even sips” count, Damour said, “enough to be statistically significant.”
Instead of letting kids get comfortable with alcohol, it’s better for parents to model “a healthy relationship with alcohol,” Damour said. “We don’t use it for coping, we use it in moderation, and we also make it clear: You can have a good time without drinking.”
She also said it’s important to remember that “kids make mistakes” and that you need to keep open lines of communication with kids — so while they may drink while underage, they should feel safe enough to call home.
“We might have quite the conversation in the morning,” Damour said, “but call me.”
