Parental provision of alcohol to adolescent children and peer influence linked to subsequent alcohol harms

Newswise — Parental supply of alcohol is a relatively common practice in Australia, believed by some parents to be an effective means of teaching their children to drink responsibly. New research shows that family and peer factors each play a role in the development of excessive and risky drinking in early adulthood and associated harms. These results and others will be shared at the 46^th annual scientific meeting of the Research Society on Alcohol (RSA) in Bellevue, Washington.

“In Australia, the average age at which adolescents start drinking alcohol is around 16 years,” said Tim Slade, a professor at the University of Sydney. “The legal age for adolescents to purchase alcohol in Australia is 18 years. Evidence is building to suggest that parental provision of alcohol before the legal age is associated with subsequent risky drinking and alcohol-related harms … what was missing was an understanding of the mechanisms that might underlie this link.”

Slade will discuss his research findings at the RSA meeting on Tuesday, 27 June 2023.

Data were drawn from the Australian Parental Supply of Alcohol Longitudinal Study, comprised of 1,906 participants who were roughly 13 years of age when they were initially recruited into the study and have now been followed up annually for six years.

“When thinking about potential mechanisms, we focused on family factors, including the extent to which parents monitored the activities of their adolescent, and the leniency in parent-enforced rules around the consumption of alcohol,” said Slade. “Peer factors included how much alcohol was being supplied by peers, the extent of alcohol use in the peer group, and how much an adolescent’s peers approved of the use of alcohol.”

Slade’s findings provide support for a causal link between parents providing alcohol to their adolescent children and subsequent alcohol-related harms, specifically, binge drinking and negative alcohol-related consequences by age 19. However, it appears as though most of this effect is explained not by the direct provision of alcohol to adolescents but through other means – most notably by providing a family environment in which adolescent alcohol use is acceptable, if not the norm, and rules around adolescent alcohol use are lenient.

It is clear that we need a multi-pronged approach to the prevention of alcohol-related harms in young adults,” said Slade. “Until now we have evidence that encouraging parents to hold off on the supply of alcohol might be of benefit. However, with these new findings we have further targets for intervention – by focussing on both families and peers. For parents, this might involve teaching them how to set alcohol-specific rules or addressing norms around the acceptability of alcohol use during adolescence.”

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Slade will present these findings, “Family and peer-related mediators of the relationship between parental supply of alcohol and subsequent alcohol-related harms among Australian adolescents,” during the RSA 2023 meeting in Bellevue, Washington on Tuesday, 27 June 2022. More information can be found at RSoA on Twitter @RSAposts. The author can also be reached on Twitter @proftimslade.