Christmas and New Year 2020 world over had Parents celebrating the festive seasons and sure comes in ‘Alcohol’ drinking. A sure fire on How kids model parental behavior and imitate. Here’s news from Reuters that says about a recently conducted survey of Alcohol and Alcoholism.
“Children aged 4–8 become increasingly knowledgeable about drinking norms in specific situations which implies that they know in what kind of situation alcohol consumption is a common human behavior. This knowledge may put them at risk for early alcohol initiation and frequent drinking later in life.”
Children may learn from an early age when it’s appropriate to drink and how many drinks are okay from watching all the adults in their lives, a Dutch study suggests.
Researchers asked 75 fathers and 83 mothers how common it would be for adults to drink in a range of situations like during a party, at work, while watching television or while driving. Then, they asked 359 unrelated children, ages 4 to 8, in which situations they thought it was common or appropriate for adults to drink.
As kids got older, they became increasingly aware of social norms surrounding alcohol consumption, researchers report in the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism. Familiarity with alcohol might make kids more likely to start drinking earlier in life or lead to more frequent drinking, the study team notes.
“Kids model parental behavior,” said Richard Mattick of the National Drug & Alcohol Research Centre at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.
“Parents who drink in front of youngsters make drinking a norm,” Mattick, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.
Fathers drank more than mothers, the study found. Men consumed about 8.6 standardized alcohol units a week, compared with 4.4 for women. One unit contains 10 grams of ethanol, or pure alcohol, and might be equivalent to one to three drinks depending on the alcohol content in each beverage.
Parents most often said drinking was common at events like a party, Christmas dinner, restaurant dinner or barbeque.
Fewer parents found drinking common at everyday dinners, or while at a picnic or watching television. Drinking was least common while driving, reading, working or eating lunch, according to the parents.
