Authoritative Parenting & Increased Alcohol Use
Clear Boundaries and Consistency Lower Drinking
Authoritative parenting refers to a style of parenting first described by Diana Baumrind. It is a parenting style which carries the qualities of setting high expectations of performance and achievement by teenagers, keeping amounts of free time and activities negotiable and punishing in a non-punitive, educational way. It may be thought of an attempt to resolve conflicts between parents and children in win-win scenarios.
Authoritative parenting also holds the value of trust between parent and teenager as of being of paramount importance. Trust is established through the willingness on the part of the parents to admit past faults and to readily express their love and acceptance of the adolescent.
The Flaw in Authoritative Parenting
If parenting were politics, the authoritative approach would be akin to a democracy. The teenager is given a vote and encouraged to participate in debate. Teenagers would have the right to earn privileges including in how they wish to spend free time.
However, there seems to be a flaw in the style, which may result in increased use of alcohol among teenagers. Elain Barowski in "Parental monitoring, negotiated unsupervised time, and parental trust: the role of perceived parenting practices in adolescent health risk behaviors" [Journal of Adolescent Health, 2003] examines the reality that too much unsupervised free time, regardless of how it has been earned, often leads to alcohol experimentation on the part of the teenager.
This appeals to common sense. Teenagers, no matter how well-behaved or how much they have done to earn the right to the free time, still need supervision. Teenagers, it seems, will be teenagers. Their curiosity and the drive for new experiences are developmentally essential and are very hard to overcome.
Parents Need to Modify Parenting Style to Include Absolutes
Parents do not need to radically change the approach to parenting. Most studies show the outcomes of authoritative parenting to be quite positive. Placing high expectations on adolescents and negotiating over the requests of the teenagers result in better academic performance and better life satisfaction scores for both the parents and the teenager, as shown in Marjory Gray's "Unpacking Authoritative Parenting: Reassessing a Multidimensional Construct" [Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1999].
Parents do need to set some absolutes which remain non-negotiable throughout an adolescent's teenage years. Absolutes need to include the total abstinence from alcohol and drugs. This absolute needs to be conveyed to the teenager often by the parent, with consequences coming swiftly. A good way to set forth the absolutes are to introduce a contract for behavior.
From the studies examined in this article, the following parental duties seem to have the most powerful impact on teenagers avoiding experimental with alcohol. Parents need to:
- Have and express high expectations of the teenager.
- Develop a sense of trust between the adolescent and the parent. Parents also need to state their trust in their teenager.
- Allow only limited unsupervised free time.
- Be able to answer the who, what, where, when and why of what teenagers are doing.
- Have teenagers check in regularly, especially when they are away from home. Hourly checks are a perfectly acceptable demand.
Trusting teenagers to do the right thing in every situation is an unrealistic ideal. The teenager is fighting their drives for new experiences which are developmentally necessary. However, whatever new experiences come, parents need to be involved enough in the teenager's life to limit opportunities for alcohol experimentation.
Alcohol continues to be dangerous on many levels. Not only is it a gateway drug, it holds potential for almost immediate addiction. Mothers Against Drunk Driving has extensive information on the dangers of alcohol use. It only takes one bad experience with drinking to create a lifetime of problems. Parents have an obligation to help teenagers avoid experimentation by providing supervision and absolutes.
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