The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has released the statistics from a study that sheds shocking light on how parents were facilitating underage drinking.
6% of American kids aged between 12 and 14 years of age have had at least one alcoholic drink in the last one month and from among those, almost one third said that this drink had been given by a parent or other adult relative to them.
Forty four thousand youngsters were polled in a survey conducted by the National Household Surveys on Drug Use and Health which led to experts issuing warnings about a higher likelihood of developing drinking problems among those kids who started drinking early in life.
However there is a counter view here that says that the correlation between early drinkers and alcohol abuse later is incidental and hinges more on parents’ alcohol consumption patterns and poor supervision of kids.
If fact this view says that those teens who drink with their parents, have fewer alcohol problems that other children. This refers to drinking with teens at meal times or in the religious context rather than facilitating any other kind of drinking for the children. This bears out findings that suggest that when alcohol is consumed in a family setting rather than in bars, people go on to have fewer drinking problems.
