Parenting and Alcohol: Educating Our Children

This is a sponsored post that I believe in and think all parents should educate their children on. 

If you drink around your children responsibly, that is great, but it is more about educating your children about the risks of alcohol than the physical act of drinking. After all, drinking is a big part of many peoples social lives, but it is ensuring that our children are aware of the dangers from a young age. Education is the key.

Photo taken from Roy Batty – thank you!

This article provides a quick run through of the risks of alcohol consumption in children:

The Risks

It is important to understand that alcohol affects children differently to adults, so it is essential that you realise that alcohol misuse is far more dangerous to young children and can ultimately affect both their behaviour and their health.

It affects young people differently as their bodies are still maturing and growing. The consumption of alcohol can interfere with this development, and potentially cause long term damage to their health.

Some of this damage is so suffer it could last a life time, and extremely affect their chances in later life. Alcohol consumption has the potential to cause:

• Liver cirrhosis and heart disease
• Cancer of the throat and mouth
• Brain development
• Sexual and mental health problems

These conditions are just the tip of the iceberg, potentially other conditions and diseases have yet to be identified.

Young people have an unhealthy attitude to drink, research and reports suggest that those people who are dying from liver diseases and complications in their early twenties actually drank quite heavily during their teenage years. So, it is important to start educating them at an early age.

Alcohol can also be a premise to risky behavior, including experimenting with drugs and sexual encounters. Research also suggests that more girls are willing to have sex once they have consumed alcohol. It is their loss of inhibitions which makes the whole thing a lot more scary for both the young person as well as the parents.

Alcohol consumption in young people can also lead to anti-social behavior. This happens as the alcohol interferes with how they think, as well as their judgement. This makes them act far more carelessly. Fighting is more common place to following alcohol consumption. You will find that young people become more aggressive when they have been drinking. Admissions to A&E have increased dramatically with the admission of young adults that have consumed alcohol and the accidents they have gotten themselves in to during having alcoholic drinks. In some extreme cases, this has even led to death.

Education

The risks above outline some of the potential problems alcohol consumption in young people can cause. They are just the tip of the iceberg, with time spent with the police, and school attendance and attainment dropping being the other two significant issues that young people and parents face.

The next step is to educate. An alcohol free approach, for any childhood, is probably the best way to approach it. Alternatively you can always educate and introduce them to other beverages and non alcoholic drinks. Why not visit Jim’s Cellars from non alcoholic wine & beer ranges. This all starts at home, with the parents. If you have a healthy attitude towards alcohol, there is a good chance you can pass this on to your children too. It is more important than ever to be as open about alcohol and its affects with your children. Remember, it is not about scaremongering but about educating them early on in their lives.