ADOLESCENTS ALCOHOL-USE AND MISUSE - THE SOCIALIZING INFLUENCE OF PERCEIVED FAMILY-LIFE

Many young people in the UK start drinking alcohol in pre-and early ad olescence whilst at home with their parents. And yet, despite consider able research evidence from overseas, the influence of parents and fam ily in the socialization of adolescent drinking has hardly featured at all in UK alcohol research and education. In this paper we report res ults from a study in Humberside, England, where over 4000 school pupil s aged 11-17 completed an anonymous and confidential questionnaire, an d in which we examined the relationship between self-reported drinking behaviour and perceived family life. We found that low family support , low family control, regular parental drinking and an indifferent par ental attitude toward the respondent's drinking, were all significantl y linked with higher levels of drinking as reported by young people. I nterestingly, adolescents with non-drinking parents were heavier drink ers if they also reported indifferent parental attitude or low parenta l control. These results may have implications for preventive measures aimed at alcohol misuse; toe suggest that alcohol education and healt h promotion in the UK may be more successful if the importance of fami lies in the socialization of adolescent drinking behaviour were to be acknowledged and this knowledge used to inform practice.