I hope
everyone reading this article had a safe Purim. In a recent article, I
suggested several approaches parents might take to help their kids make it
safely through Purim, including: 1) educating teenagers about alcohol effects
and safe drinking, 2) reaching out to hosts about their plans to supervise
drinking and provide transportation, and 3) remaining “on call” to drive kids
home as needed. The point was that some teenagers will drink on Purim with or
without our permission, and a pro-active approach may mitigate harm.
I
received a call from a good friend who read the article and thought that I did
not go far enough. I highly respect him and his opinions. He argued that the
best method for preventing alcohol-related harm is through direct parental
supervision, allowing a child to drink at home, whether on Purim or any other
day. He described two ways that this plays out in his family. In the first, he
occasionally drinks privately with his teenage children, sometimes using that
time to provide guidance on drinking safely. His second approach is to allow
his kids to invite friends to the house to drink under his supervision. This
tactic is often called “social hosting.”
We
have previously discussed in the WWW
the issue of drinking privately with our children on Shabbat. For example, a
teenager may prefer wine to grape juice for kiddush. This presents few problems
because of the relatively small amount of beverage that is consumed and because
it is being used for a religious ritual. Even if the teen wants to drink more
wine during the seuda, a parent might
agree, with the caveat, “You can drink wine here, but not on your own because
it is illegal and harmful to your health.” Parents can also use these situations
to explore what their kids know about drinking and its effects, both acute and
long-term. While teenagers may ultimately choose to drink outside of the home,
they know that they have parents who worry enough about their health to caution
them about excessive alcohol consumption.
While
I do not support the second approach of social hosting, I appreciate what it is
trying to achieve, which flows from the fact that some of our children will
choose to drink despite our best intentions. In many ways, social hosting
allows us to better protect the safety of our kids. When teenagers consume
alcohol only at home, we would worry much less about them drinking and driving
or getting alcohol poisoning, two of the common adverse effects of teenage
drinking. As a social host, we could also become more acquainted with our
children’s social circle, and by monitoring the entire group during drinking
occasions, we might be able to prevent aggression or other unwanted
consequences that can occur when kids are intoxicated. The net effect might be
that teenage drinking would no longer be sneaky but would instead be a social
behavior that could be discussed and addressed openly. Social hosting, at least
for some teenagers, cannot be easily dismissed.
Yet
even with these significant virtues, social hosting does not feel to me like a
good practice. I am mostly swayed by the evidence that parental attitudes
toward drinking have a strong impact on a teenager’s drinking behavior. While
it is not a perfect correlation, parents who speak to their children about
refraining from drinking have children who drink less and experience less
problems from drinking. Parents who engage in social hosting to some degree
relinquish this positive influence.
In
addition, some of the advantages of social hosting are predicated on the belief
that most teenagers drink. The data suggest that there is less teenage drinking
than what we might expect. A recent NIH national survey showed that, while
about 60% of 12th grade students report some experience with
drinking, less than 30% reported drinking over the past month. In fact, rates
of teenage drinking have actually declined in our country (though, sadly, part
of this reduction may be due to increases in vaping).
Social
hosting might work best if all (or at least most) of the teenager’s drinking
occurs at the home. This might not be a fair assumption. There are too many
factors that influence teenage drinking that are difficult for parents to
control, including peer pressure, alcohol availability, and the ups and downs
of adolescence. Motivated teenagers can find an infinite number of places to
consume alcohol outside of the home.
We
also know too much about the dangers of teenage drinking to feel good about
permitting it under any circumstances. We now understand, for example, how
drinking impacts brain development and cognitive functioning. We also know that
the earlier that kids begin drinking, the more lifetime problems they will have
with alcohol, including the development of substance use disorders and other
mental health concerns. Teenage drinking is also strongly connected to use of
other substances, most often nicotine (through vaping) and cannabis.
I
also worry about helping teenagers engage in illegal behavior. I wonder if kids
who are allowed to break the law under one set of circumstances will be more
likely to break it under different conditions. We can argue whether 21 is a
good minimum legal age for drinking, but it is the law for a good reason. A
considerable amount of research shows that raising the drinking age (from 18 to
21) resulted in less teenage drinking, less teenage violence, and less deadly
car accidents. I know this law is unpopular among teenagers. But there is no
rule that a law needs to be popular to be effective.
While
I am not a legal expert, my guess is that social hosts incur considerable
liability for any harm that comes from serving alcohol to minors. Estimating the
level of intoxication is hard because teenagers are so adept at tolerating the
sedating effects of alcohol. It may also be difficult to monitor everything
that is going on in the house. Drug use, which often accompanies drinking, may
be especially hard to monitor effectively. Finally, some of the teenagers who
are being hosted may have parents who would be alarmed to find them drinking at
another adult’s home.
Because
the effectiveness of social hosting is essentially an empirical question, I was
interested in what the scientific literature has to say. It turns out that
there is a large body of longitudinal research that has come out over the last
decade on this topic. These studies followed kids over many years to evaluate
the impact of parental supply of alcohol to teenagers. Taken together, findings
consistently show that alcohol provision by parents is associated with more
teenage drinking, more drinking outside the home, and more alcohol acquisition
from other sources (peers, other adults, stores). The only problem with this
excellent research is that most of it has been conducted in Australia (!), a
far distance from Baltimore and our Jewish community.
Putting
all of this together, I can accept that most (though not all)
parents who engage in social hosting have good intentions. They are trying to
be effective parents, not drinking buddies. They also have the strongest
appreciation for their own kid’s strengths and weaknesses, and what might work
best for them over the long-term. Parenting is difficult under any
circumstances, and most of us are just trying our best to do the right thing.
At
the same time, I don’t think social hosting would be an activity that I would
feel comfortable pursuing or endorsing. There is no doubt that teenage drinking
at home is far safer than drinking outside of the home. But drinking at home is
not the only option for teenagers, who can just as easily drink in a variety of
settings. Available research seems to confirm this. I would also worry about
communicating a message to our kids that it is acceptable to drink and break
the law. Teenage drinking has too many costs, while abstaining or restricted
levels of drinking has considerable upsides for physical, cognitive, and
emotional development. Social hosting is not supported by any of the major
organizations that conduct research on teenage drinking or provide resources
for treatment of alcohol or other substance use problems.
I
think that this is an important topic because social hosting may be quite
popular in our community. I wish there was more research to guide our thinking
about it. In the meantime, I favor a more conservative approach that
discourages teenage drinking though parental modeling of safe drinking, good
parent-child communication, and the provision of education in homes, schools,
and shuls to help teenagers make good decisions about their health.
