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Abstract
Many young people in the UK start drinking alcohol in pre-and early adolescence whilst at home with their parents. And yet, despite considerable research evidence from overseas, the influence of parents and family in the socialization of adolescent drinking has hardly featured at all in UK alcohol research and education. In this paper we report results from a study in Humberside, England, where over 4000 school pupils aged 11–17 completed an anonymous and confidential questionnaire, and in which we examined the relationship between self-reported drinking behaviour and perceived family life. We found that low family support, low family control, regular parental drinking and an indifferent parental attitude toward the respondent's drinking, were all significantly linked with higher levels of drinking as reported by young people. Interestingly, adolescents with non-drinking parents were heavier drinkers if they also reported indifferent parental attitude or low parental control. These results may have implications for preventive measures aimed at alcohol misuse; we suggest that alcohol education and health promotion in the UK may be more successful if the importance of families in the socialization of adolescent drinking behaviour were to be acknowledged and this knowledge used to inform practice.