Balanced Parenting Can Reduce Risk of Teen Binge Drinking

Any parent of a teenager knows it is not possible to control all of a teen’s actions. New research indicates that although parents can’t do much to stop teenagers from trying alcohol, a balanced approach to parenting can go a long way toward preventing binge drinking among teenagers.

Researchers from Brigham Young University surveyed over 5000 teenagers about their use of alcohol and about their parents’ styles of dealing with them. Specifically, the researchers were interested in two variables of parenting style: parents’ levels of accountability and their levels of warmth.

Accountability refers to the extent to which parents keep track of where their children are and who they are with, while warmth refers to affection and closeness. It turns out that parents who combine high scores on both of these accounts have children who are at the lowest risk for binge drinking.

Parents who think they might be erring on the side of caution–those who combine high scores on accountability with low scores on warmth–have children who are twice as likely to indulge in binge drinking.

Parents who try the opposite strategy, who may think they are cultivating a relationship of friendship and who therefore score high on warmth but low on accountability, nearly triple their children’s risk of binge drinking.

The researchers say that previous studies of the influence of parents on teen drinking behaviors has indicated that parental influence is low. This study took a different approach by differentiating between alcohol use and binge drinking. Indeed, this study seems to confirm that parenting style doesn’t have much influence on whether or not teens ever drink.

The big news, and the good news, is that a combination of careful monitoring of teens’ whereabouts and activities with a close, warm relationship can result in reduced risk of the most dangerous teen drinking behavior, binge drinking.

Although the influence of peers is important, Dr. Stephen Bahr and his co-author Judith Hoffman note that teens whose parents scored high on accountability and warmth were more likely to have friends who did not drink.

Bahr and Hoffman’s report on the study will appear in the July issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.