Drinking Education

[bennyboy]

I think the best way is just treat the 18 year-old like an adult. Have dinner, ask them "Would you like a beer?" Then drink it slowly while you eat dinner and talk. Let a drink be seen as an accompaniment to other activities, rather than a central event of a coming-of-age ritual. I think this is best-- if you don't set an attitude toward drinking within the family, then her first exposure to drinking attitudes is likely to come from frat boys-- urkh!

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That's right. You can't prevent her from abusing alcohol, but the science would suggest that having her drink at home in preparation for "the real world" is ineffective at best, and at worst makes the risk factor for alcohol abuse greater.

In this case, correlation fails. The correlation you really need is the "introduced to drinking in a mature, adult way." The correlated group you are talking about includes alocholics and neglectful parents, I'm guessing, though they might not describe themselves that way in a survey. While the article says they are "well-meaning" parents, we don't have any good details about how the parents acted, what they said, and how they taught their children.