When Will Your Child Start Drinking? Ask His Best Friend

If you have ever worried about how your child’s best friend might influence his behavior, you probably had a good reason.

A new study done at the University of Iowa found that teens who get their first drink from a friend are more likely to drink sooner in life.  Previously established research suggests that the earlier a child starts drinking, the more likely he is to abuse alcohol later in life. Best reference of best Convertible Cribs

 

When should you worry? The study, reported in the Journal of Pediatrics, found that one-third of eighth-graders say they have tried alcohol. A separate study was conducted by a research team at the University of Michigan in 2011, consisting of 20,000 teenagers. This study suggested that by 10th grade, more than half of teens say they’ve had the first drink. That percentage shot up to 70 percent by their senior year.

 

The University of Iowa study looked at many variables associated with the age that a child is most likely to start drinking. They found that the best predictor of early drinking was whether a best friend had access to alcohol. The researchers suggest that access is the most important variable when young teens start to drink, while family history plays a more important role in older teens and young adults.

 

So lock up your liquor cabinet, and suggest the same to the parents of your child’s friends.  Don’t forget to talk about your concerns over dinner. Studies repeatedly show that teens who eat dinner with their family more frequently have fewer problems with drugs and alcohol.