Start Talking Before They Start Drinking

You Are the Most Powerful Influence on Your Child’s Behavior

Underage drinking can have serious consequences. You can protect your children from the risks associated with drinking by maintaining open communication and expressing a clear, consistent message about alcohol. Building a close relationship with your kids will encourage them to come to you for help in making decisions that impact their health and well-being. This guide provides facts and practical advice on how to talk with your children about underage drinking. It helps you create household rules to support your values.

Society gives children mixed messages about alcohol. Make sure that your children get their information from the best resource available.

What You Need to Know

Underage Drinking

Many kids start drinking in middle school.¹

• One out of every two 8th graders has tried alcohol.²
• More kids use alcohol than use tobacco or illicit drugs.³
• More children are killed by alcohol than all illegal drugs combined.⁴
• Children who begin drinking alcohol before the age of 15 are 5 times more likely than those who start after age 21 to develop alcohol problems.⁵
• The chances of becoming dependent decrease by 14% for each year of delay in the onset of alcohol use.⁶

Alcohol and Judgement

The teenage brain is still developing. Alcohol can impair the parts of the brain that control the following:⁷

• Motor coordination. This includes the ability to walk, drive and process information.
• Impulse control. Drinking lowers inhibitions and increases the chances that a person will do something that they will regret when they are sober.
• Memory. Impaired recollection and even blackouts can occur when too much alcohol has been consumed.
• Judgement and decision making capacity. Drinking may lead young people to engage in risky behaviors that can result in illness, injury, and even death.⁸

Risks

Alcohol use among youth is strongly correlated with
violence, risky sexual behavior, poor academic performance and other harmful behaviors.¹⁰

Violence

• Children who start drinking before age 15 are 12 times more likely to be injured while under the influence of alcohol and 10 times more likely to be in a fight after drinking, compared with those who wait until they are 21.¹¹

Sexual Activity

• Alcohol use by teens is a strong predictor of both sexual activity and unprotected sex.¹²
• A survey of high school students found that 18% of females and 39% of males say it is acceptable for a boy to force sex if the girl is high or drunk.¹³

School

• Teens who use alcohol have higher rates of academic problems and poor performance than non-drinkers.¹⁴
• Among eighth-graders, higher truancy rates are associated with greater rates of alcohol use in the past month.¹⁵

Illicit Drug Use

• More than 67% of young people who start drinking before the age of 15 will try an illicit drug. Children who drink are 7.5 times more likely to use any illicit drug, more than 22 times more likely to use marijuana, and 50 times more likely to use cocaine than children who never drink.¹⁶

Driving

• When young people drink and get into a car, they tend to make poor decisions that impact their safety.¹⁷
• Traffic crashes are the number one killer of teens and over one-third of teen traffic deaths are alcohol-related.¹⁸

Family Influence

“What parents may not realize is that children say that parental disapproval of underage drinking is the key reason they have chosen not to drink.”