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Children Are Introduced to Sipping and Tasting Alcohol in the Home |
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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Very little is known about alcohol use by children. Sipping and tasting reflect exposure to parental alcohol use in the home and do not reflect a proneness to engage in delinquent behavior or other problem behaviors. Most studies of alcohol use among youth have focused on drinking by children in middle or high school. Findings indicate that the introduction to alcohol occurs long before adolescence, and it is an experience that occurs in the home. "Almost all of the limited scientific literature on alcohol use in children has focused on drinking, not sipping or tasting alcohol," said John E. Donovan, an associate professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh. "Local community studies seem to show that drinking by children -- not sipping -- correlates with higher levels of disinhibition, more positive alcohol expectancies, more peer alcohol use, and lower school grades, just as it does in adolescence." Donovan, also the corresponding author for the study, added that most surveys of adolescent and child drug and alcohol use ask about ever having had more than a few sips of alcohol. "This type of question essentially ignores the alcohol experience of those who have only had sips and tastes of alcohol, which can be a substantial number of children," he said. "Nearly forty percent of children aged eight to 10 have sipped or tasted alcohol, whereas only six percent have ever had a drink of alcohol," said Donovan. Third, children in families in which the parents drink are at greater risk for having sipped or tasted alcohol as young as age eight or 10.
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