Underage Drinking Prevention | Intervention Tools for Parents and Caregivers
Underage drinking prevention | intervention efforts run a gamut from just say “no,” to teaching young children to drink by allowing them to drink at home, to a resigned “I drank as a teen and I’m fine; it’s just a phase all kids go through” to “the Europeans don’t have a problem because they teach their children to drink,” to “not my child!”
As one of the family program consultants at Muir Wood Teen Treatment (and please – this is not an endorsement of a particular program – simply a reference for my experience working with adolescent boys in need of substance use disorders’ treatment), I know, first hand, the importance of underage drinking prevention | intervention.
Underage Drinking Intervention | Prevention Tools Parents and Other Caregivers Can Use
To help parents and caregivers bring conversations about drinking into the everyday realm and not another “we need to talk,” I share the following suggestions:
Understand the Europeans Don’t Have it Figured Out
Every four years the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) “is conducted to collect comparable data on substance use among 15- to 16-year-old students in order to monitor trends within as well as between European countries.” The latest ESPAD was completed in 2015.
According to Table 6 (ESPAD 2015, Table 6, p. 38), students in 23 countries reported higher rates of having been intoxicated during the last 30 days than students in the U.S. This counters some of the common arguments and beliefs about underage drinking in Europe, namely they don’t have the problem we have in the United States because most European countries have a lower drinking age and families often allow their children to drink at earlier ages.
Talk Early and Often
One resource for what to say and when to talk is NIAAA’s “Alcohol Screening and Brief Intervention for Youth – A Practitioner’s Guide.” While this resource is meant for your by your child’s pediatrician, you can review it and either give it to your child’s pediatrician, if they don’t already use it, or use the information, yourself, to open the door to early conversations. To the right you’ll find a screen shot of the two question screen you’ll find on page 8 of this Guide.
Another resource is SAMHSA’s Talk. They Hear You. campaign. It includes print, radio and TV PSAs on what to say, an app that’s an interactive game to help you learn the do’s and don’ts of talking to kids about underage drinking and resources for parents and caregivers.
Understand the Dramatic Changes the Adolescent Brain Goes Through Ages 12 – 25 and Thus “Talk to Their Brains”
“Talk to their brain” means to talk to their brain where it’s at developmentally. According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s paper, “Teen Brain: Behavior, Problem Solving, and Decision Making,” (September 2016, accessed 3.15.18),
Pictures of the brain in action show that adolescents’ brains work differently than adults when they make decisions or solve problems. Their actions are guided more by the emotional and reactive amygdala and less by the thoughtful, logical frontal cortex. Research has also shown that exposure to drugs and alcohol during the teen years can change or delay these developments.
For more on this, check out my article, “Want to Get Through to Teens – Talk to Their Brain,” as well as The Partnership for Drug-Free Kids’ “Brain Development, Teen Behavior and Preventing Drug Use [alcohol is considered a drug].”
Understand and Explain the Risk Factors for Developing a Drinking Problem
Because the brain is constantly undergoing development and change – ESPECIALLY from birth through ages 22 on average for girls and 24 on average for boys – understanding that alcohol (and other drug use) disorders are developed (meaning a person is not born with them) helps parents and caregivers appreciate why they need to know the risk factors for developing a drinking problem. These include:
- Genetics, which is 40-60% of the puzzle on why one child who drinks too much develops an alcohol use disorder and another may not. It is estimated there are some 25 genes that influence a person’s predisposition to developing alcoholism, such as lower levels of the liver enzyme that metabolizes alcohol or higher or lower levels of dopamine. Just as we have genetic predispositions to eye or skin color or body type or some cancers, so, too, can a person inherit genetic predispositions to alcoholism.
- Early Use – 90% of persons who develop an alcohol (or other drug) use disorder started their misuse in adolescence. The reason for this profound impact are the developmental processes occurring during adolescence, especially development of the prefrontal cortex and the pruning and strengthening process (see image above right and The Partnership for Drug-Free Kids article linked above).
- Social environment – because the brain is wiring from birth (meaning brain cells are talking to one another and to and from other neurons throughout the body via the nervous system) and forming brain maps for the things a child (person) repeatedly does, social environment can have a significant impact on brain development.
- Mental illness – approximately 40% of persons diagnosed with alcohol and other drug use disorders have also experienced a mental illness (e.g., depression, PTSD, ADHD, bipolar) at some time in their lives. Mental illness causes chemical and structural changes in the brain, as does alcohol or other drug misuse. A person with a mental illness often uses alcohol (or other drugs) to self-medicate the symptoms of the mental illness. By the same token, alcohol (or other drug misuse) may exacerbate an existing mental illness – for example, alcohol is a depressant which can further depress a person with depression.
- Childhood trauma – verbal, physical or emotional abuse, neglect, persistent conflict in the family, sexual abuse and other traumatic childhood experiences can shape a child’s brain chemistry and subsequent vulnerability to developing an alcohol (or other drug) use disorder. Check out “ACEs [Adverse Childhood Experiences] Science 101 (FAQs)” and Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child’s “The Impact of Early Adversity on Children’s Development.”
©2018 Lisa Frederiksen
Lisa Frederiksen
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Great share Lisa. Alcohol doesn’t always destroy lives all at once. Rather, they take life by the inch. For the drinkers, it begins with a positive and desirable benefit. If they didn’t, people wouldn’t take them. But that benefit reaches a point of diminishing returns before it becomes harmful. For parents, the first step is to know more about alcohol addiction by using tools you mentioned and also attend an event.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Edwin!