July 1, 2025
Alcohol. A Smart Parents' Guide to Helping Teens Take a Healthy Approach
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What do you think of this episode? Do you have any topics you'd like me to cover? More than half of kids who've drunk alcohol under the age of 15 in the UK were offered it by their parents. Alcohol has been proven to cause seven types of cancer, according the World Cancer Research. According to other research, the earlier kids try alcohol the higher the risk they'll indulge in binge drinking and any alcohol-related harm. Parents don't want to harm their kids, so why are they giving them...
What do you think of this episode? Do you have any topics you'd like me to cover?
More than half of kids who've drunk alcohol under the age of 15 in the UK were offered it by their parents.
Alcohol has been proven to cause seven types of cancer, according the World Cancer Research. According to other research, the earlier kids try alcohol the higher the risk they'll indulge in binge drinking and any alcohol-related harm.
Parents don't want to harm their kids, so why are they giving them alcohol?
According to research done by Community Alcohol Partnerships, parents often assume their kids are going to drink so they would rather it happened at home.
To help us understand the issues, I invited Director of Community Alcohol Projects, Kate Winstanley, to talk through what we should be thinking as parents.
PRACTICAL TIPS:
- Encourage sports, hobbies, clubs and social activities that keep your kids active and fulfilled.
- Teenagers say boredom is a reason for drinking. Encourage them to get a holiday job or volunteer.
- Establish routines, like mealtimes, that mean you can spend some time together and talk to each other. This helps your child to feel they can come to you if they have a problem.
- Know the facts and laws about alcohol and can talk in a balanced and constructive way about the pros and cons of drinking.
- Talk and listen to your teenager. It is important that they hear your views and that you hear theirs.
- Use everyday opportunities, for example a storyline in a TV programme, as a prompt.
- Make sure the ground rules are clear. Have consequences for breaking rules and enforce them. READ MY BLOG ON CONSEQUENCES - https://www.teenagersuntangled.com/blog/whats-going-on-when-our-boundaries-and-consequences-dont-seem-to-work/
- Know where they’re going and who they’re with.
OTHER RELEVANT HELP:
PARTIES: https://www.teenagersuntangled.com/parties-for-teens-and-tweens-invitations-gatecrashers-and-alcohol/
ALCOHOL: https://www.teenagersuntangled.com/2-alcohol-how-to-discuss-it-and-staying-connected-should-we-be-letting-our-teenagers-drink-and-w/
CAP: https://www.communityalcoholpartnerships.co.uk/parents-carers/busting-the-myths
TALK ABOUT TRUST: https://talkabouttrust.org/parents-carers/
RISKS OF UNDERAGE DRINKING:
- Immediate risks such as injury, violence, suicide, risky sexual activity, and other substance use;
- Developmental risks for the brain, liver, skeleton, and endocrine system. In particular adolescence is a critical period in brain development and the effects of alcohol can lead to permanent consequences;
- Social risks, including an association with future involvement in crime and lower educational outcomes.
- Worse future drinking patterns: earlier drinking
Thank you so much for your support.
Please hit the follow button if you like the podcast, and share it with anyone who might benefit. You can review us on Apple podcasts by going to the show page, scrolling down to the bottom where you can click on a star then you can leave your message.
I don't have medical training so please seek the advice of a specialist if you're not coping.
My email is teenagersuntangled@gmail.com
My website has a blog, searchable episodes, and ways to contact me:
www.teenagersuntangled.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teenagersuntangled/
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/teenagersuntangled/
You can reach Susie at www.amindful-life.co.uk
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Rachel, hello and welcome to teenagers.
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Untangled the audio hug for parents going through the teen and tween years. I'm Rachel Richards journalist, mother of two teenagers and two bonus daughters. Now, found when it comes to parenting, we want to definite this is how you do it, but there's rarely a right answer, and it's more of a haggle with your partner, with your own past and the current society we live in. So don't beat yourself up if things have gone off track. It happens a lot each week, I offer something to help us think, maybe question the way we're doing things and hear what the experts say, and there's always something we can learn. Now it's a few years since I chatted with Suzy about how we can discuss alcohol with our teens, and I'll put a link to that episode in the podcast notes, but I was really thinking it might be time to update it when I saw a report looking into the issue of parents supplying their kids with alcohol, and it caught my eye, because as a parent, I have really grappled with the issue because of the way society sets things up. Now my generation seems to have a heavy drinking culture. I'm not a fan. I've talked with my kids at length about the problems with alcohol, but then, who wants to be the killjoy? So to help us navigate this topic, we've been joined today by Kate Winstanley, Director of Community alcohol partnerships.
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Firstly, Kate, what does your organization do?
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Thank you for having me on the programs.
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Community alcohol partnerships helps to set up local partnerships across the UK to help to prevent underage drinking. And the way we do this is to make sure that schools within each of our community alcohol partnerships are delivering high quality alcohol education to children, making sure that retailers are doing everything in their power to prevent under 18 from from buying alcohol. And also, because a lot of our partnerships are in quite sort of economically deprived areas, we will make sure that there's lots for kids to do that doesn't involve alcohol. So sporting activities, arts activities, and we always consult with young people. We've set up around 340 of these partnerships right across the UK, and they've got a really good track record of success. So the police love them because anti social behavior goes down. Schools love them because kids are safe and kids who are not drinking do better at school, but they're also their health improves. So it's a, it's a kind of win,
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win. So So we hear that alcohol is harmful for children. This is something that we sort of know, but what do we have in terms of facts that say we really shouldn't be giving kids alcohol?
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So the science is really, really clear, and it's sort of we keep getting more and more. So there is absolutely no health benefit whatsoever. Children's brains bodies are still developing, you know, until, certainly they're about 18, and any amount of alcohol is incredibly harmful to that kids. Teenagers have have a whole sort of cocktail of hormones going on and adding alcohol to that mix, you know, makes them take risks and do things they're also sort of experimenting, becoming social beings, navigating relationships and add alcohol into that mix, and it's really easy to make bad decisions, sexual risk, taking, doing things that they later regret, making them more prone to get into arguments. It's a whole range of things, but I just come back to the facts and the science. The clear advice is that an alcohol free childhood is safest and best, and that alcohol is harmful to developing bodies and brains,
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yeah. And actually, I think the science on alcohol and its impact has been developing, and you know, someone who's had breast cancer, and I've researched an awful lot about its connection with cancer, and it's really not good, even for adults. So, but we're gonna, we always leave it up to listeners to make their own decisions. I'll put in the podcast notes, some of the information, so that they can actually then think about it than for themselves. I know that by age 15, more than half of those have had it supplied by their parents, which kind of surprised me, although I don't know that it should.
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The good news is that drinking by young people and young adults has been on a steady downward trajectory. So we used to be much worse than we are now. Interesting. So yes, whereas at 37% of 11 to fifth and have ever had a drink, according to latest stats, into years ago, that was that was more like 70% so it's almost half, which is good, it's still, we still have that, that binge drinking culture, and we still, compared to other countries, there was a recent study the health behavior of school aged children, where England had the highest rates in a league table of 40. So we were top of the leader board of shame for 11 year olds having, you know, drunk alcohol and sort of binge.
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Drinking is, is a, you know, it does seem to be a marker of how we drink, which is incredibly, you know, it has, has incredible, a lot of a lot of risks. And I think that sort of early introduction to alcohol, and as you alluded to, most children and young people, the way they get hold of their alcohol is actually adults, their parents giving it to them, willingly, thinking they're doing the right thing. But early introduction of alcohol much increases the risk of binge drinking. It doesn't protect against it. It actually accelerates the risk of Bin binge drinking, and also the risk of later problematic drinkings really drinking in excess of the guidelines, so that early introduction has a very high correlation with problematic drinking, be it binge drinking or drinking in ways that are, you know, not necessarily at addiction levels, but higher levels that are likely to cause harm. Brits drink is a bit of a drinking to get drunk culture, not everywhere, not not amongst all people, but it's certainly compared to other countries there. Whereas, you know, I've lived in Spain, I've lived in in France, I've lived in those countries, and it's seen as really shameful to be drunk.
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Whereas I think there's an element of it's quite funny. You can let your hair down. Oh, they did that because they were drunk. Ha, ha, ha. So we do have that sort of get out for drunkenness, which other countries don't have. So it's a social that is,
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yeah, so interesting. That really is interesting to me, because my daughters have said that that there's a tendency to get drunk just so that you can excuse certain behavior, or that it's supposed to be very funny, and the idea that that might seem shameful in some cultures, it's certainly not in the UK or not among teenagers. And I love what you're talking about in terms of what's going on in the home, because I really want to address that, because I know that having talked with other parents, and also having dealt with other parents with my own kids, where I've been to someone's house, we're all sitting around the table having a lovely lunch, and the parents will start pouring alcohol for my young daughters, and I say, Oh no, that they don't drink. And they'll turn to me and say, you've got to train them. You know, just a little bit. It's much more. It's much better for them to get used to it at home. This is still very prevalent. So exactly, what would you say to parents if they hear that, or if they're saying that to their kids? Oh, the French do it. This is how they train them.
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Yeah, it's, it's a real myth that actually that protects or that you can, you can train children to drink responsibly because, because, actually, any early introduction is, is not a good idea. It's not going to teach them to drink responsibly. The very best thing a parent can do is to very firmly but gently explain why any amount of alcohol is is really not safe. It's better to wait until you're an adult. And I think if it's if it's another parent bringing their own norms.
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I think you can just say that, you know, in our family, we've agreed that we're going to wait until 18, that any amount of alcohol is is not okay. I mean, it's quite a difficult thing if you're in that situation at a dinner, very difficult to navigate, very difficult to navigate. So it's, I think it's probably best to, you know, start off with you and your you and your children having some clear rules about no alcohol and the reasons why you're keeping them safe. I think what we would like to see is something to address that. So, working with schools, working through schools, to actually educate parents that the best and safest thing is no alcohol. That it's a myth that French introducing alcohol early teaches them, and actually, I think just come back to the science, which is that the earlier the introduction, the more likely that there will be harmful drinking. So the best and safest way is no alcohol.
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Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? Because parents don't intend to harm their children. So Is there research about why parents do offer their kids alcohol, other than they think that they're trying to help them?
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Yes. I mean, we've just conducted a really comprehensive research study, and it unpicks some of the motivations parents are coming from a position of love. They think that this is the best thing, this will safeguard their children. This will protect their children, either from getting it elsewhere, not with them, present which they see as a greater danger, or if they provide it, it might prevent them from doing things which are considered more harmful, be it taking drugs, or, you know, any of those things. In fact, you know the complete opposite is true. So parents introducing early will actually encourage or increase the likelihood of children accessing it from other sources. So getting it from other interested children or older adults. So actually, it's not stopping them from getting it from other sources. It's.
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Increasing that there's also a correlation. So there's an increased likelihood of, you know, smoking, taking drugs, all of those other behaviors that parents fear. Why introducing alcohol? So all of those things are myths, that it'll stop getting from elsewhere, that it'll stop taking drugs, and actually, it won't teach them to drink sensibly introducing alcohol before the age of 15 increases by four times the likelihood that somebody will have a problem in adult life, and the longer a parent can delay the introduction. The ideal is 18, but the guidelines say between 15 and 17, the odd glass at the odd occasion with an adult is okay. It's not the ideal, but it's okay. So the advice is, the longer it can be delayed and put off the introduction, the better for against binge drinking, against later problems. And the other thing is that I think parents are often think that all other parents are doing this. How interesting. All other parents are allowing their children to drink and they're not so actually, it's a minority who do that. So, you know, I think, but I think our baseline from when we were young, when teenage drinking was much more normal, when binge drinking and just general drinking was much higher. Things have changed, and actually it's minority behavior.
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Most parents don't supply alcohol, but we're, we're stuck in a time warp. Our beliefs haven't caught up with what's happening today. So there's, there's absolutely no reason to do it. The other factor to consider is, I think parents fear that if they say no, their children will rebel, and actually, all the evidence shows that parent that children like boundaries. They actually need their parents to say no, and if their parents do say no, they will respect that.
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I remember listening to a talk by Dr Eric Sigmund, years and years ago, well before my kids were anywhere near the drinking age.
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And he said in all the research they've done, kids who are told by their parents, I don't like you, smoking, doing drugs, drinking, any of these things, parents think that the kids are more likely to do it, but the opposite is true. They are less likely to do it, and if they do do it, they will consume less.
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So actually, it really does have an impact. I think also being in the house of people who drink makes a difference. What's interesting for me is that, you know, from personal experience, my husband came from a home where alcohol was freely available, and it had been very normalized, and he used to drink a lot more. I would drink with him just to sort of keep him company, but I didn't particularly like it. And I think as my kids got a bit older, and then I got cancer, and I said, Right, I'm not drinking, he started to ease back. And now we pretty much don't drink at home, and we'll drink occasionally at a party or something. I think it really has an impact. We've been able to have discussions with our kids about why we made those choices, and it's most certainly had an impact on how they view drinking alcohol. So I do think that that we as parents, we can always self correct, we can always change the habits we've been brought up with, and then have those conversations with our kids and be open about it.
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Yeah, I agree with that. I think openness is really important, and I think, I think the ideal is to sort of model the behavior, and if you, if you can't, or you're struggling to get help, be open about it and talk through it, but, but certainly, what how parents drink does have a big impact on Yes, and I think it could
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be difficult, because different parents will have different attitudes. So you sometimes get a bit of a negotiation between two parents.
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Before we came on, we were talking about the the experiences we've had, and I recorded the original alcohol episode where my daughter was just around 13, I think she was just over 13, and she'd gone to a new school, and the experience I'd had was that she had gone out with her new friends, cos she said, Oh, can I meet them at the park? And I said, Yes, of course. And I was trying to enable this relationship she was building with these girls I didn't really know. And it turned out that one of the girls was the ringleader who decided they needed a bottle of vodka. I won't tell the whole story. You can listen to it in the old episode. But what was amazing was my daughter didn't drink.
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And the reason she didn't drink.
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When I asked her, I said, Why would you only the person who didn't drink? And she said, Because you told me not to drink, and you told me how to say not to drink, and she had encouraged the other girls to go and get some food. And I said, why was that? And she said, Because you told me never drink without eating. And I think what we need to do is we need to be giving the kids this information well before the situation arises, so that they have a script that they can defer to, because if they don't already have the script available to them, they will be forced into a corner and have to deal with a situation they're not prepared for. I do, and I think you had a similar experience,
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didn't you? I did, and I think that's brilliant. Right? I mean, I think, I think it's really important to talk about these situations before your teenager is forced into them, and I think definitely before the age of 13.
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So I think the the average age of a first unsupervised drink, so not with adults in the UK, is 13 and a half. And yes, it is young. So well before that that age, start having those conversations and also make sure. And I did exactly the same thing. I explained to my two girls what the risks are, why it's not a good idea, and why it's okay to say no and not go along with if there is some peer pressure. We almost role modeled at how to say no. And my kids, also, who are now in their early 20s, look back and say, I'm really pleased that we had those conversations that I didn't go along with it. And you know, they've seen some of their peers sort of doing things they regretted. You know, whether it's being sexually pressured into things, getting drunk, ending up in in sort of having their stomachs pumps, which is what can happen, you know, with children drinking in in parks, yes, and they said, you know, thank goodness I wasn't there.
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In fact, I was the one who could help my friends. And I've always been that, that person, and I think that our children need us to give them those those tools.
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And I think parents also need not to feel scared, because if you want to safeguard and, you know, support your children, it's really important that you have those open discussions and make sure that they know it's coming from a position of love, and you want them to have fun, and you're not stopping them from mixing, going to parties, going out socializing. You want to enable them to do all those things that it's really important for children to do, but you also need to make sure that that they know and that you know that they might come across these situations, yes, and this is how to navigate them say yes.
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And my daughter once said to me, mommy, I don't know what to say. If someone says, Go and have a drink, come on. You really want one. And I just said to her, my best defense is they don't really care if you're drinking. They just don't want to be shamed for drinking. So the best defense I found is to just say, oh, you know what I really fancy right now is a coke. You just deflect.
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You just choose something else.
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I'm desperate for some water.
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I'm just I'm so thirsty so that you're not actually saying No, yours. It doesn't become a difficult, awkward situation.
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And then they'll just move on every time. And if they're judging you for not drinking, they're not really your
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friends. I think that's a brilliant way you've explained it sort of, you know, positive I want this or I want that. And I think the other thing that parents probably need to navigate around the age of, you know, 1415, is home parties and having that conversation about, you know, whether there's alcohol or not. And I think you can plan with your teen on exactly what drinks? You know, you can have really, really cool drinks. There can be a really exciting food and drink menu and choose the music. And parents can just be be in the background, but let them to it.
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But it's really important you to plan for these things. Yeah, and I think another thing is your children will be going to sleepovers or parties at other parents houses. And I think it's important to have some sort of communication about, you know, I don't want there to be alcohol offered to my my child, just just to talk about these things openly and all come to a kind of a parent agreement on and rules about bad alcohol. So think planning and open communication and agreements are key.
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We've been talking about alcohol use in front of the kids, setting rules, yeah, talking to them so they're primed, ready for any difficult situations. Are there any other things that you top tips you can give parents about how to support their kids so they don't end up underage drinking.
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I do think those are the, the absolutely key things. And I think I think, you know, I think communication stands out as probably the top one. And sort of it needs to be phased and it needs to start, you know, early, and then develop as your child gets gets old. I think another top tip, maybe, is to make sure that your kids are getting involved in sort of group activities, if sport is a great one, or, you know, whatever floats their boat, so that they are pursuing an interest that sparks them and helps their social development.
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And that's a really strong protector against just falling into drinking to be the cool one to express yourself. It's just channeling them into ways that help them as a person, yeah, develop their social sort of you know, their standing with their peer group.
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Great tip, Kate. Thank you so much for joining us. If people want to find out more about you and your. Organization. Where do they come
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so we do have a website, so community, alcohol partnerships.org.uk, and we've got a whole section on there which has got top tips for parents. Our section for parents gives a lot of the information that we've talked about, but in kind of bite sized chunks. Yes, nice. So I'd encourage parents to take a look at that and and
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there are similar organizations in Australia, America, yes.
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So Australia is really at the forefront of campaigns to to help parents to So Western Australia in particular, has got my child and alcohol. Think again, and I need you to say no, is another of their great campaigns, sort of, anybody who's listening in from Australia, you've probably seen this because they're way ahead of us. They're doing TV adverts, radio adverts. There's also, yes, I mean, they've, they've done big campaigns through school, because, you know, they've recognized that parents need support. Actually, parents are a key to reducing underage drinking. So if anything, we look to Australia. In America, there have been some really good campaigns. There was one called mysteries Max and me, but they're quite small and quite localized, but they've got some really good elements in them, like parent, child agreements, contract, which is a great idea.
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And we've actually had a look at a lot of these worldwide campaigns, and we're going to be ransacking all of this mag
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good stuff.
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Learn from each other. This is what we're here for, yes,
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and pulling together something that we're going to pilot in the UK at the end. Amazing. Yeah. And from that, we'll have a template, we hope for something that we can scale up.
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That's amazing.
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Thank you so much, Kate. If you found this useful, please send it to somebody else who might benefit. You can find more details on my website. It's www.teenagersuntangled.com I've put stuff in the podcast notes.
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I always like to give you information and link to the website of Kate Winstanley in the podcast. Notes, you can email me at teenagers untangled@gmail.com and that's it for now. Have a great week.
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Big hug from me. Bye, bye. You.
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