Blindingly Obvious, or What?

Apparently what parents do influences their children. Whodathunkit?

Children who see their parents drunk are twice as likely to regularly get drunk themselves, a survey of young teenagers has suggested.

Poor parental supervision also raises the likelihood of teenage drinking, said the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

The Ipsos MORI survey found the behaviour of friends is also a powerful factor in predicting drinking habits.

As a child, I never saw my parents drunk. They were always moderate social drinkers who liked a bevy or two on special occasions, but that was about it. When I was around 10 years old they allowed me to experiment under supervision. As a consequence, I adopted their approach to alcohol –  one of moderation. I eventually stopped drinking altogether because, frankly, I didn’t like it that much, but that’s besides the point, I was heavily influenced by my parents. This is nothing new. I don’t need a survey to tell me this.

Apparently teenagers experience peer pressure, too.

The more time teenagers spend with friends, the more likely they are to drink alcohol, it suggested.

These folk at Ipsos MORI are making an industry out of discovering what we already knew decades ago. Someone, somewhere is paying for this tosh.

In a survey of 5,700 children aged 13 to 16, carried out for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, researchers found one in five claimed to have been drunk by the time they were 14.

All I can say is, the Rowntree Trust has more money than sense. But, then, this “progressive” organisation has an agenda to push and this survey of the blindingly obvious presses all the right buttons, so I guess they will see it as money well spent.

10 Comments

  1. When this was discussed on the Today programme this morning, it was interesting to note that the pollsters decided to redefine “drunk” from what you and I would regard as “pissed” down to something more along the lines of “feeling affected” and then used that as the baseline both for questions about the teen drinking as well as about thier parents, whilst conveniently reinserting terms “drunk” and “binging” into the results.

    In other words, a contorted piece of junk science skewed from the outset to get a headline. It was outrageous that Radio 4 allowed this to be presented as serious research, but as you can imagine they failed to seriously challenge any of the “truths” put forward by the Roundtree Foundation.

    The Today Programme continues it’s descent unfortunately.

  2. By their own logic, the authors of this report must have learned about being overbearing propagandists from their parents then. Will somebody please pay me many thousands of pounds to do a survey to prove this please. Failing that, to prove that when the sun shines it is daylight and that night happens after sunset.

  3. 1 in 5 drunk by the time they’re 14?

    Standards really are slipping, I’m sure it used to be much higher than that. Followed by a long period of deciding never to do that again.

  4. Obvious correlation/causation confusion here. Children who see their parents drink or not drink as the case maybe also share their parents genes and could easily have inherited any predisposition of lack thereof for the bottle.

  5. Well stated Jimmy, won’t hear that fact of the telly. Surprising how they deny genetics when so many of these media types actually seem to inhert their jobs!

  6. All I can say is, the Rowntree Trust has more money than sense. But, then, this “progressive” organisation has an agenda to push and this survey of the blindingly obvious presses all the right buttons, so I guess they will see it as money well spent

    The Rowntree Trust supported No2ID. And it’s hardly rocket science to deduce that children who see their parents regularly worse for wear might be encouraged to drink themselves.

  7. It’s amazing what the little buggers will say when asked in a survey. Drunk once a month?? Thats nowt I get drunk once a week. And I get pissed every day. Wimps I get drunk twice a day. and on and on. The little sods try to outdo each other. Well what a surprise. And don’t ask a 15 year old about sex for god’s sake. Most will tell you they deflower two virgins (where do they find them ??) every week. and on and on . And the silly little researchers write it all down. Fools.

  8. We’re living in a mad World, and we’re getting more mad as days pass. A lot of teenagers tend to do stupid things because of their friends, if their friends smoke – it’s probably that they will start smoking too, for example. They are very influenced by their friends and that’s something really dangerous, it’s very important to have good and smart friends that don’t act fool.

  9. These folk at Ipsos MORI are making an industry out of discovering what we already knew decades ago. Someone, somewhere is paying for this tosh.

    What goes round comes round.

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