Underage drinking: What do we know?

Underage drinking is a problem in all communities, including Mountain Brook. Parents continue to express a range of opinions about how to parent regarding this issue. Some parents are uncompromising in making it clear to their teenagers that they won’t turn a blind eye to any drinking. Others advocate some variation on “supervised drinking,” usually with the idea that a gradual introduction to alcohol use may help prevent problems down the road.  

We have to consider the risks associated with drinking, particularly (1) to excess, (2) when young, with a still-developing brain and (3) especially when not of legal age. The commonality of underage drinking sometimes obscures the fact that it is always illegal and the illegality, in and of itself, is a major risk.

It is probably true that underage drinking contributes to the deaths of more teenagers than any other cause. Consider that the top three causes of death among teenagers are accidents, suicide and homicide. Motor vehicle crashes remain the leading direct cause of teenage deaths, but, of course, many of those accidents are alcohol-related. Alcohol and drugs are a common contributing factor to suicide and homicide.

Longitudinal studies demonstrate that good parenting practices are related to decreases in teen alcohol and drug use. What are good practices? Parents should remember that their influence over their teenagers’ choices remains powerful. Peer influences strengthen during the teen years, but that doesn’t mean that parental influence goes away. As parents, we need to decide based on good information what our expectations of our children are regarding alcohol and drugs, and we need to communicate these clearly and frequently.

Our best reading of the research is that parents do best by prohibiting the use of alcohol in their teenagers. This is opposed to the not uncommon approach one hears, often expressed like this: “They’re going to drink anyway, so I want them to drink in the safe environment of our home.”

The first problem with this approach is that it is simply not true that all teenagers drink. In Mountain Brook, where we have said for years we have a problem with underage drinking, it is still not true that all teenagers drink. In our last anonymous survey of Mountain Brook students for grades 10-12, 52 percent said they had engaged in some underage drinking in the last year. That’s too many. We have a problem. But it is useful, from time-to-time, to look at those numbers and recall that almost half of our students say they have engaged in no underage drinking in the last year. That’s very different from “they all drink.”

Putting that aside, my best reading of the research is that it is a risky practice to permit underage drinking in a “supervised” setting. I believe the best evidence is that supervised drinking leads to more unsupervised drinking, not less. Furthermore, we know that we tend to see, later on, more trouble related to alcohol use — including alcoholism — among those young people who start drinking earlier.

We also persist in recommending parents consider what they are modeling for their children in the adult patterns of alcohol use in the family. Ask yourself these questions: First, is there always, or almost always, alcohol when adults get together socially in your home? What message does that convey? Do your kids see you use alcohol to escape or to relieve stress? What message does that convey?    

Dale Wisely, Ph.D. is Director of Student Services at Mountain Brook Schools and has been a child and adolescent psychologist for nearly 30 years. Dr. Wisely welcomes your questions for future columns; email jennifer@villagelivingonline.com to submit yours.