Don’t let your kids see that you’re drunk

Child development expert Nathan Wallis believes a lot of teens have seen their parents get drunk – and that needs to change. Shabnam Dastgheib reports.

West Auckland mother Rebecca Slight wants her two teens to be sensible with alcohol.

Her 16-year-old son and 19-year-old daughter have grown up around occasional social drinking at home and alcohol has never been a taboo subject.

Slight said she tried to model responsible drinking at home and show the kids that they could have fun without drinking alcohol as well.

‘‘I don’t think the zero tolerance thing works because, when they do go out, they are going to binge because they don’t know the boundaries, they don’t know the limits,’’ she said.

Her son started to show interest in alcohol around the age of 14, she said.

‘‘They have had just a small amount at home with us. If we say no, it will become taboo and they will get trashed and not tell us.’’

Slight said her own parents had the same approach to alcohol and she remembered having small beers now and then at home with her dad.

Slight’s daughter lives on the same property in a separate house and now that she is legally allowed to drink has had a few parties and a few hangovers.

Slight said she taught her kids to be sensible and not drink excessively. Her daughter, in particular, was taught to watch her drinks.

Another West Auckland mum, who wanted to remain anonymous, said alcohol at parties started at around age 16 for her daughter.

Permission slips, texts or phone calls advising the hosts that their child was allowed to drink had been the norm since then.

‘‘At parties, the parents of the kids hosting it don’t supply alcohol but, if you send your child along with drinks, you need to sign a letter, text the parents, or speak to them on the phone that you give your permission.

‘‘Then the host parents share out the alcohol themselves. If you want a drink, you go and see them,’’ she said.

She said she wanted to be an understanding mum and not bury her head in the sand when it came to her 17-year-old, even if she didn’t agree with the amount her daughter sometimes drank.

At 18th-birthday parties, it was normal for those who were either 18, or underage but allowed to drink, to wear wristbands, she said.

Neuroscience educator and child development expert Nathan Wallis said if it was a realistic message to delay drinking until after a teen’s 18th birthday, then that was the ideal situation.

‘‘Most of the damage done to your brain that’s going to last a lifetime is done before the age of 18,’’ he said.

Wallis said if parents could get away with a zero-tolerance approach, then those teenagers who followed those rules would have the biggest memory capacity later in life and the bigger advantages neurologically.

‘‘Alcohol does have a huge impact on the teenage brain. An adult male can drink eight units an hour without any damage, while a teenager can drink one unit an hour,’’ he said.

But Wallis also said that delaying drinking was not a realistic message for all children.

The kids who had never seen their parents abuse alcohol were the best placed to never abuse alcohol themselves, he said.

‘‘But unfortunately, New Zealanders have a warped sense of what alcohol abuse is. A lot of teenagers have seen their parents get drunk.’’

Letting teenagers have a drink or two at home needed to be placed in a cultural context.

Wallis said this attitude might work well in countries like France that didn’t have the binge-drinking society that New Zealand had.

‘‘When we have a beer with our children, it’s a safer thing to

do in France than here in New Zealand.’’

Wallis said drinking a beer or two a day in front of children wasn’t as bad as getting drunk in front of them, but was still modelling a dependence on alcohol in a cultural context of a society that binge drinks.

‘‘We need to model good behaviours, even if that means parents kicking up their heels only when their kids are away.’’

Wallis advised parents who were choosing to supply their teens with alcohol to only give them beers and not stronger drinks like RTDs.

He said negotiating the number of drinks allowed and curfews was important, as it engaged the decision-making part of a teen’s brain and then they also felt like they were being treated like a responsible

‘‘We need to model good behaviours, even if that means parents kicking up their heels only when their kids are away.’’

Nathan Wallis, right

person with a voice. ‘‘Be a safe space, be the parent that the kids feel safe to ring at 2am, even though it’s frustrating being used as a taxi service, it’s good to be that parent.

‘‘Go and pick them up, but be pleasant about it, so it’s a nice experience. Don’t nut out. If you want to nut out, do it the next day,’’ he said.

The Health Promotion Agency also advises that the safest option for teenagers under-18 is no alcohol.

The government-funded agency states that those under-15 are at the greatest risk of harm from alcohol, and not drinking at that young age is especially important.

Any 15-17-year-olds who do drink alcohol should be supervised, drink infrequently and at levels below adult daily limits.