Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #657 On Tap? Should You Be Giving Your Teen Alcohol?

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#657 On Tap? Should You Be Giving Your Teen Alcohol? · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for.
0:07
Speaker 2: The time poor parent who just wants answers.
0:10
Speaker 3: Now, Parental provision of alcohol was generally associated with increased
0:14
Speaker 3: adolescent alcohol use and in some instances, increased heavy episodic drinking,
0:19
Speaker 3: as well as higher rates of alcohol related problems.
0:22
Speaker 1: And now here's the scars of our show, my Mum
0:25
Speaker 1: and Dad.
0:26
Speaker 3: I'm going to be honest, I'm not sure how this
0:28
Speaker 3: podcast is going to go today because you are more
0:30
Speaker 3: distracted than you possibly have ever been. As we've been
0:33
Speaker 3: recording a podcast. Kylie, there is a tiny little puppy
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Speaker 3: dog tiptoeing around. We've asked Facebook, We've asked everybody, two
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Speaker 3: hundred and twenty thousand followers on Facebook, what do we
0:43
Speaker 3: call our new puppy dog. Loads of answers come through.
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Speaker 3: We haven't filtered through them all yet. I'm sure that
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Speaker 3: there's going to be a name for this dog soon.
0:48
Speaker 3: But right now, you just want.
0:50
Speaker 1: To watch the dog. You don't even want a podcast.
0:53
Speaker 2: It's so cool watching her explore her new surroundings. She's
0:57
Speaker 2: looking my toes right now, the extension card for the
1:03
Speaker 2: podcast desk, Podcast Desk, and she's looking at like it's
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Speaker 2: an alien.
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Speaker 3: But she's also like, I wonder what will happen if
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Speaker 3: I chew on that it's going to be fun. So
1:12
Speaker 3: today we've got a conversation that I think is a
1:14
Speaker 3: really important one, and it has to do with kids
1:16
Speaker 3: and alcohol, and it's important for a handful of reasons.
1:20
Speaker 3: Before we talk about why it's important, can I just ask, now, now,
1:24
Speaker 3: both you and I come from families where we don't
1:27
Speaker 3: have alcohol in our home, and neither you nor I
1:31
Speaker 3: are drinkers ourselves, So this is not an issue that
1:33
Speaker 3: we are confronting in our home in any any kind
1:37
Speaker 3: of serious or significant way. We just we don't drink
1:40
Speaker 3: our parents, so the kids grandparents don't drink. Makes the
1:43
Speaker 3: whole alcohol thing kind of really easy. But I know
1:46
Speaker 3: when I was a kid, I remember my grandpa used
1:49
Speaker 3: to take me to the pub in his old I
1:52
Speaker 3: think it was an old Holden eh or something like that,
1:55
Speaker 3: and he would buy me a shandy.
1:56
Speaker 1: And I was like five or six years old and
1:58
Speaker 1: he's giving.
1:58
Speaker 3: Me a shandy and I'm sitting out of the car
2:01
Speaker 3: drinking a shandy or a lemonade or whatever he brought me.
2:03
Speaker 3: And I also remember when I was a bit older
2:05
Speaker 3: watching my grandpa giving my, like my.
2:08
Speaker 1: Two year old sisters SIPs of beer.
2:11
Speaker 3: I'm like six years old and I'm watching him let
2:14
Speaker 3: my two year old sisters sip from his beer cup.
2:16
Speaker 3: And there's that that thing where people say, oh, that's right,
2:20
Speaker 3: just get the kids used to it. Were you force
2:22
Speaker 3: fed alcohol when you were a kid.
2:24
Speaker 2: So I've got a couple of pictures of me, as
2:28
Speaker 2: I would say, probably a two year old sitting on
2:32
Speaker 2: a picnic rug, and I've got a beer bottle in
2:35
Speaker 2: my like literally, I've turned it upside down. But my
2:38
Speaker 2: parents assure me that it was an empty.
2:40
Speaker 3: Bottle that I was once you'd finished it.
2:43
Speaker 2: So I have no recollections whatsoever of being introduced to
2:47
Speaker 2: alcohol in any way, shape or form. I was surrounded
2:50
Speaker 2: by it. A lot of our extended family were drinkers,
2:53
Speaker 2: so it was. It was around, but I was never
2:57
Speaker 2: I was never offered.
2:59
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:59
Speaker 3: Interesting, The reasons complicated and detailed. For the reasons you
3:06
Speaker 3: and I don't have alcohol on our home, Part of
3:08
Speaker 3: it is for religious reasons. Part of it also, your
3:11
Speaker 3: dad is an alcoholic. Before he gave up alcohol and
3:15
Speaker 3: walked away from it, he had an alcohol problem and
3:17
Speaker 3: he hasn't touched alcohol for what like forty years or
3:20
Speaker 3: something like that.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I was three by the time he made a
3:23
Speaker 2: decision to stop.
3:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
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Speaker 3: And we have had a in my extended family, tragically
3:30
Speaker 3: we've had I had an uncle who was absolutely addicted
3:34
Speaker 3: to alcohol and he got himself into some significant problems
3:39
Speaker 3: with violence, and one night he also beat down my grandparents' door,
3:43
Speaker 3: beat them up for money, and the next day he
3:46
Speaker 3: took his life as he grappled with the enormity of
3:50
Speaker 3: how far alcohol had taken him down a path that
3:54
Speaker 3: he didn't want to go. So really heavy kind of
3:56
Speaker 3: stuff in our families when it comes to alcohol, in
3:59
Speaker 3: addition to our our personal values and belief which is
4:01
Speaker 3: why we have just kept it out of our lives.
4:04
Speaker 1: But we're a little bit of an anomaly from that
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Speaker 1: point of view.
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Speaker 3: I mean, you can barely be called Australian and not
4:11
Speaker 3: have alcohol in the house, not be a drinker. So
4:14
Speaker 3: today our conversations really about what do you do with
4:16
Speaker 3: the kids around Christmas time?
4:17
Speaker 1: Is it okay for the kids to have a sip?
4:19
Speaker 3: When do you start introducing alcohol to the kids. I mean,
4:22
Speaker 3: a lot of people have got adolescents who are thinking
4:24
Speaker 3: it's summer. At summer holidays, everyone's a bit more relaxed.
4:26
Speaker 3: There's barbecues happening, there's beers in the ski, there's so
4:30
Speaker 3: much more opportunity, I guess for kids to be engaging
4:33
Speaker 3: in alcohol related behavior, whether it's endorsed by parents or not.
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Speaker 3: So our conversation today is what do we do about it.
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Speaker 3: Should we help our kids to drink responsibly by exposing
4:43
Speaker 3: them to it early, or are we better off keeping
4:45
Speaker 3: them as far away from it as possible.
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Speaker 2: Most people would recognize if they've been following you for
4:51
Speaker 2: a long time. We're pretty stickler to the rules. You know.
4:54
Speaker 2: Social media has guidelines around what age kids should be engaging.
5:01
Speaker 1: Online various platforms.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and we stick to those rules. And I think
5:05
Speaker 2: that they're there for a reason. And you know, it's
5:08
Speaker 2: illegal for children to have access to alcohol before the
5:12
Speaker 2: age of eighteen, and so for me, it's just a
5:15
Speaker 2: no brainer. This is an adult experience and it should
5:19
Speaker 2: be left for adults to experience.
5:21
Speaker 3: So that's an uncommon response, and it may be because
5:25
Speaker 3: of our other biases and our other background issues. There's
5:29
Speaker 3: a study that was published this year in a journal
5:31
Speaker 3: called BMC Public Health.
5:33
Speaker 1: This is quite a prestigious.
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Speaker 3: Journalist, it's very well recognized and has been around for
5:37
Speaker 3: quite a long time. And they were looking at parental
5:40
Speaker 3: alcohol consumption and alcohol related behavior in relation to adolescent
5:46
Speaker 3: alcohol use. This is based in England. The culture around
5:49
Speaker 3: alcohol there is probably a little bit different to the
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Speaker 3: Australian culture, but it's still one of the western nations
5:54
Speaker 3: where we're fairly consistent across the board with a lot
5:57
Speaker 3: of these things. And what the research is basically found
5:59
Speaker 3: is that a lot of parents, they look at whether
6:02
Speaker 3: or not there drinkers or not, they also have a
6:04
Speaker 3: look at on balance, is alcohol acceptable in the broader environment.
6:10
Speaker 3: And the research is pretty much found that parents are
6:13
Speaker 3: aware of the risks and consequences of alcohol use and
6:17
Speaker 3: the wide range of influencers that are shaping drinking behavior,
6:20
Speaker 3: and they generally express, I guess you'd call it a
6:23
Speaker 3: loose level, a light and loose level of disapproval of
6:27
Speaker 3: alcohol use among young people. However, they also see our
6:32
Speaker 3: adolescent alcohol use as inevitable and it's something that happens
6:37
Speaker 3: within a drinking culture that's quite tolerant. And that's the
6:40
Speaker 3: same with Australia, right, we've got to I said it before.
6:43
Speaker 3: Are you even Australian if you don't drink? That culture
6:46
Speaker 3: is so tolerant, so there's an expectation that you will drink.
6:49
Speaker 3: And the research therefore showed that parents chose a reluctant
6:54
Speaker 3: acceptance kind of approach, which pretty much said that they said, well,
6:58
Speaker 3: we don't really approve of you drinking, but you're part
7:01
Speaker 3: of this wider culture and we drink a little bit
7:03
Speaker 3: of ourselves, and we want you to make some decisions
7:05
Speaker 3: for yourself, and we're not going to get you in
7:07
Speaker 3: trouble for it. You're pulling a funny face at me
7:09
Speaker 3: while I'm saying that what's going on? Oh no, oh,
7:13
Speaker 3: the dog's are eating one of the plants. I'm in
7:15
Speaker 3: the middle of something really important. We've got to finish.
7:17
Speaker 3: Let me finish this and then we'll fix up the
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Speaker 3: dog and we'll press pause and record again. So basically,
7:21
Speaker 3: parents are saying, kids, you decide for yourself. Just don't
7:25
Speaker 3: don't overdo it. You can't have this conversation in more,
7:27
Speaker 3: can you? You really have to go and rescue the
7:29
Speaker 3: plant from the dog. We are experiencing dog related technical difficulties,
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Speaker 3: please stand by. There we go, So we've pressed pause
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Speaker 3: and then we're pressing record again. I think that the
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Speaker 3: message has gotten through there, and what it's basically saying
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Speaker 3: is that parents don't like their kids drinking, but they're
8:00
Speaker 3: kind of reluctantly accepting of it, and in some cases
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Speaker 3: they even start to gradually introduce their kids to it
8:08
Speaker 3: with what's called boundary provision. That is, you can do it,
8:11
Speaker 3: but only in this circumstance and only when I'm providing
8:13
Speaker 3: it for you and I'm kind of here to keep
8:15
Speaker 3: you safe. That's what the twenty twenty two data suggests.
8:20
Speaker 2: Obviously, we've acknowledged that this is an issue that we're
8:23
Speaker 2: dealing with at all, But as a parent who can
8:26
Speaker 2: see the risks risks associated with it, I really struggle
8:33
Speaker 2: with that mentality because would you not want to keep
8:36
Speaker 2: your children as far away from it for as long
8:38
Speaker 2: as possible. I'm actually struggling to find words because I
8:44
Speaker 2: really have seen so much devastation occur as a result
8:50
Speaker 2: of misuse of alcohol right over the years, whether it
8:55
Speaker 2: be you know, lives taken themselves or involved in accidents.
9:00
Speaker 3: But there's the violence issue, and there's also the sexual
9:03
Speaker 3: harm well and.
9:04
Speaker 2: Understanding how children's brain development and how this impacts not
9:08
Speaker 2: only its development but the way it responds.
9:10
Speaker 3: It's just the biophysiological change that occurs. Let me go
9:13
Speaker 3: through a couple of other pieces of data, because I
9:15
Speaker 3: think this is a super interesting conversation. So a piece
9:19
Speaker 3: that was published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol
9:21
Speaker 3: and Drugs in twenty fourteen by some researchers by the
9:24
Speaker 3: name of Kanak Winters, Caciola, Kirby.
9:27
Speaker 1: And Aria said this.
9:29
Speaker 3: In their paper, they said, parental provision of alcohol was
9:32
Speaker 3: generally associated with increased adolescent alcohol use and in some
9:37
Speaker 3: instances increased heavy episodic drinking, as well as higher rates
9:41
Speaker 3: of alcohol related problems. And I said, this is a
9:43
Speaker 3: really important study because a lot of parents say, I'm
9:46
Speaker 3: going to reluctantly accept it, and I'm going to have
9:48
Speaker 3: this boundary provision. I'm going to give it to you
9:50
Speaker 3: so long as you only drink it in safe spaces
9:52
Speaker 3: where I'm giving it to you and I don't know
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Speaker 3: how much you're drinking, and it's just happening around the
9:55
Speaker 3: dinner table or down in the rumpus room or out
9:56
Speaker 3: in the backyard. There's that kind of attitude. It's known
9:59
Speaker 3: as the meta training and effect. There's this belief that
10:01
Speaker 3: people in Mediterranean countries model responsible drinking and therefore their
10:05
Speaker 3: children don't grow up to have alcohol problems.
10:07
Speaker 1: Now there's no data to support that is actually a big,
10:09
Speaker 1: fat lie, But.
10:10
Speaker 3: People find that a narrative that therefore justifies their behavior
10:14
Speaker 3: here in Australia or the UK, or the US or
10:16
Speaker 3: New Zealand in providing alcohol to their kids. But this
10:19
Speaker 3: twenty fourteen paper says, when you do that, parental provision
10:24
Speaker 3: of alcohol is associated with increased adolescent alcohol use and
10:28
Speaker 3: in some instances, increased heavy episodic drinking that's what we
10:32
Speaker 3: call binge drinking, as well as higher rates of alcohol
10:35
Speaker 3: related problems. Data in support of the view that provision
10:40
Speaker 3: serves as a protective factor in the face of other
10:43
Speaker 3: risks were equivocal. In other words, it's not really their
10:46
Speaker 3: fascinating study. Let me add one more to this conversation.
10:49
Speaker 3: This one was published in the journal known as Alcoholism
10:53
Speaker 3: Clinical and Experimental Research. This is a twenty seventeen paper
11:00
Speaker 3: says age of alcohol initiation and progression to binge drinking
11:03
Speaker 3: adolescence a prospective cohort study, and these researchers basically found
11:08
Speaker 3: that initiating alcohol use earlier in adolescents, whether parents are
11:11
Speaker 3: providing it or not, is associated with an increased risk
11:15
Speaker 3: of binge drinking and higher quantity of consumption in late
11:19
Speaker 3: secondary school, supporting an argument for delaying alcohol initiation for
11:23
Speaker 3: as long as possible to reduce the risk for problematic behavior,
11:26
Speaker 3: problematic use, i should say, in later adolescents, and the
11:29
Speaker 3: alcohol related harms that may accompany this use. Research out
11:33
Speaker 3: of the University of New South Wales and Sydney shows
11:35
Speaker 3: the same thing. When you give your kids alcohol or
11:38
Speaker 3: when they have access to it with your reluctant acceptance,
11:41
Speaker 3: they see it ultimately as parental endorsement exactly, and they say, oh,
11:44
Speaker 3: I can do whatever I want, and I'm going to
11:46
Speaker 3: do it, Whethermum and Dad are giving it to me
11:47
Speaker 3: or not, and they tend to drink more and tend
11:49
Speaker 3: to drink heavier, and therefore the risks and the harms accelerate.
11:53
Speaker 2: Well, there's also a level of confidence that is associated
11:58
Speaker 2: with that because they feel like they are equipped. Mum
12:01
Speaker 2: and Dad have been teaching me how to drink responsibility,
12:04
Speaker 2: so I therefore I'm safe. I can do this. I've
12:09
Speaker 2: done it with my parents. I know what I'm up for.
12:11
Speaker 2: But when you think about your teenagers and you think
12:13
Speaker 2: about some of their most annoying traits, now, I'm going
12:16
Speaker 2: to say, spontaneity and an inability to think through the
12:20
Speaker 2: consequences of decisions is probably at the top of the
12:24
Speaker 2: least when it comes to our girls at least.
12:27
Speaker 3: So in the psychological terms for that are impulsivity and
12:31
Speaker 3: emotional and behavioral regulation.
12:34
Speaker 2: That's without alcohol. Yes, with that, we understand what happens
12:39
Speaker 2: to our inhibitions when we partake of alcohol.
12:44
Speaker 3: So we become disinhibited, we become more likely to move. Well,
12:48
Speaker 3: what we actually have, This is fascinating to me. We
12:51
Speaker 3: become myopic. What that means is we become shortsighted. We
12:55
Speaker 3: pretty much just see what's in front of us.
12:57
Speaker 2: Right in that moment, In that moment, talk about living.
12:59
Speaker 1: In the the moment's all that matters.
13:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so for me, looking at what is already
13:07
Speaker 2: difficult to navigate as a parent with a teenager, adding
13:11
Speaker 2: alcohol to the mix, it feels like a recipe for disaster.
13:17
Speaker 1: So the data is all over the place.
13:18
Speaker 3: It shows really clearly consistent with our bias, which I'm
13:22
Speaker 3: I'm really cautious, and I wanted to put that up front.
13:24
Speaker 3: I don't want people to think that we're wowsers around this.
13:27
Speaker 3: We know that it's inevitable that most kids are going
13:29
Speaker 3: to want to consume alcohol because it's so embedded in
13:32
Speaker 3: the culture, it's so much a part of Australian living
13:36
Speaker 3: and Western living generally. But the more we can delay,
13:40
Speaker 3: the more we can reduce parental provision, the better it
13:44
Speaker 3: is for kids.
13:45
Speaker 2: You talk about picking your battles, I feel like this
13:47
Speaker 2: is a battle you want to actually and this is.
13:49
Speaker 3: One that you want to really go to war on,
13:52
Speaker 3: like absolutely stand your ground and let the kids know.
13:55
Speaker 3: Once you're eighteen your choice. But until you're eighteen, we
13:58
Speaker 3: really want to discourage in every way.
14:00
Speaker 1: And here are the reasons why.
14:02
Speaker 3: Now, I think we also need to give some parents some.
14:04
Speaker 1: Tips as we wrap this up.
14:06
Speaker 2: Well, what's your number one?
14:07
Speaker 3: Number one, The results of all of the research show
14:10
Speaker 3: that not offering your teen or your baby, six year old,
14:13
Speaker 3: or your eight year old or whatever it is, not
14:15
Speaker 3: offering your child alcohol is best.
14:17
Speaker 1: So that's the first tip.
14:20
Speaker 3: The second thing that I would say is if you
14:22
Speaker 3: don't think it's realistic, or if you already know that
14:25
Speaker 3: it's happening, or you kind of feel like you're fighting
14:29
Speaker 3: a losing battle and you're not willing to die on
14:30
Speaker 3: this hill because you've.
14:31
Speaker 1: Got other more important battles to have.
14:33
Speaker 3: Like you and I think that this is a really
14:34
Speaker 3: important one, but not everyone's going to agree with on that.
14:37
Speaker 3: What we know from research is that young people who
14:40
Speaker 3: are not supplied alcohol, or who are only supplied minimal
14:45
Speaker 3: amounts under the age of eighteen, I'm talking a sip
14:48
Speaker 3: that kind of stuff, they're the ones that have the
14:50
Speaker 3: lowest risk of binge drinking. They're the ones that have
14:53
Speaker 3: the lowest risk of experiencing alcohol related harms. They're the
14:57
Speaker 3: ones that have the lowest likelihood of reporting symptoms of
15:00
Speaker 3: alcohol abuse or alcohol dependence and alcohol use disorder in
15:04
Speaker 3: early adulthood. So we know that adolescence is often a
15:08
Speaker 3: time of experimentation. But this aligns with all the previous
15:12
Speaker 3: research that says just don't allow alcohol before the age
15:15
Speaker 3: of eighteen, that's the best way to reduce binge drinking risk,
15:19
Speaker 3: physical psychological, social problems due to alcohol.
15:22
Speaker 1: And it does.
15:23
Speaker 3: Align with current Australian alcohol guidelines.
15:27
Speaker 2: Have you got any other tips for parents?
15:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, just a couple of others.
15:31
Speaker 3: First off, research shows that young people who receive whole
15:35
Speaker 3: drinks from their parents earlier in adolescents, so we're talking
15:38
Speaker 3: maybe thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, or were mainly supplied alcohol by
15:43
Speaker 3: their peers, drank more heavily during adolescents. They were also
15:48
Speaker 3: much more likely to binge drink and report symptoms of
15:51
Speaker 3: problem drinking and experience alcohol related harms in early adulthood.
15:57
Speaker 3: So if you are going to provide SIPs, against our
15:59
Speaker 3: better judgment and advice, do it under supervision. Make sure
16:03
Speaker 3: that it's at home, and make sure that it's a
16:04
Speaker 3: sip of yours and they're not sculling the can.
16:07
Speaker 1: In front of you or something like that.
16:09
Speaker 3: You also, you want to know who your teens are
16:11
Speaker 3: friends with and if they're going to go out, you
16:14
Speaker 3: want to make sure that you have some idea of
16:17
Speaker 3: where they're going to be, who they're going to be with,
16:18
Speaker 3: if they'll be home late. They need to know that
16:21
Speaker 3: you want to be involved in a monitoring conversation. I'm
16:24
Speaker 3: not saying track them, because even if you're tracking them
16:25
Speaker 3: on the phone, You can't guarantee that they're going to
16:28
Speaker 3: be making healthy choices, but you want to be monitoring,
16:31
Speaker 3: having an interest asking the questions. I think also you've
16:36
Speaker 3: got to let them know if there's going to be alcohol,
16:39
Speaker 3: or if they're worried for their safety or for their friends' safety,
16:42
Speaker 3: you are safe to call.
16:44
Speaker 1: You're not going to blow up, you're going to lose
16:45
Speaker 1: the plot.
16:46
Speaker 3: You don't endorse any of that behavior, but if they
16:49
Speaker 3: need help, they know that you are going to be
16:51
Speaker 3: there for them. I think other than that, you want
16:54
Speaker 3: to just limit access to alcohol at home.
16:57
Speaker 1: Have some pretty clear alcohol specific rules.
16:59
Speaker 3: For instance, you say no alcohol from friends, or you
17:02
Speaker 3: can only drink it if I'm there to supervise.
17:05
Speaker 1: And you really also want to model positive alcohol behaviors.
17:10
Speaker 3: Make sure that they know, for example, that you don't
17:13
Speaker 3: drink much at all, and you always make sure you've
17:16
Speaker 3: got food in your belly, and that you're in a
17:19
Speaker 3: safe place.
17:20
Speaker 1: While you're doing it.
17:21
Speaker 3: Those kinds of things I think are also going to
17:22
Speaker 3: be really helpful, especially at this time of year when
17:25
Speaker 3: there's a lot more alcohol flowing a little more freely
17:28
Speaker 3: than it normally does.
17:30
Speaker 2: Well, I think that's a Wrapp for Today.
17:31
Speaker 3: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
17:34
Speaker 3: Bridge Media.
17:34
Speaker 1: Craig Bruce is our executive producer. For more of.
17:37
Speaker 3: Vogue about making your family happy, visit happyfamilies dot com
17:40
Speaker 3: dot au, and if you'd like more information about the
17:42
Speaker 3: things specifically in this podcast, check the show notes. We've
17:45
Speaker 3: added links to a range of different websites and studies
17:48
Speaker 3: that can tell you more about why we've taken the
17:50
Speaker 3: stand we have