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Drinking Parents Less Likely to Monitor their Kids' Drinking

The drinking behaviors of parents influence not only their child's drinking but also how much they monitor their children's drinking, according to a new study from the Virginia Commonwealth University.

Researchers interviewed over 4,800 teens and their parents when the teens were age 14 years and again at age 17.5.

They found that the more parents used alcohol and became intoxicated themselves, the less likely they were to monitor their children's drinking behaviors or to discipline them. That decrease in parental monitoring was linked to teens using more alcohol at age 14 and becoming more frequently intoxicated by age 17.5.

However, excessive discipline was linked to increased drinking by teens.

"Although these findings are consistent with the protective effects of parental monitoring, it is important to note that excessive discipline may actually have the unintended effect of conveying great risk for alcohol-related behaviors among adolescents as they get older and are seeking a greater sense of autonomy," according to author Shawn Latendresse.

Parental monitoring and discipline had the greatest effect during early adolescence.

This study appears in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

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