Grade School Alcohol Abuse

Just when you thought it was safe to send your kids back to school, I find another disturbing article about underage drug and alcohol abuse. This article from WebMD says that children may be exposed to underage alcohol consumption as early as 4th or 5th grade! Last week I posted here about a study reporting the majority (80%) of teens had first hand knowledge of drugs in their schools while the same study discussed the parents of these same teens being largely unaware of the scope of their teenaged children’s exposure to illicit drugs in school.

This new article cites a study out of the University of Pittsburgh surveyed 25,000 children and found that 7% of fourth graders, 8% of fifth graders, and 13% of sixth graders admitted to having consumed beer, wine coolers, or liquor sometime in the past year. The jump in numbers from fifth to sixth grade suggests to the authors of the study that the time to discuss alcohol abuse is in fifth grade or before. If these numbers are true, the time to talk with kids about drugs and alcohol is earlier than any of us parents suspect!

I talked in that prior article on the MedicCast blog about talking with your children early and often about the presence of drugs and alcohol in their schools. Assume you don’t know anything (because you don’t) and feel them out about what they have come in contact with. This is one of those situations where you need to issue a parental “blanket immunity” clause like the FBI gives out to their mob informants.

Let your kids know in this discussion that this is for information only and anything they relay to you will not be used against them or punish them. This is a situation where we all need to act, as care providers, and as parents ourselves to increase awareness of drug and alcohol abuse in our schools. We can also increase open up important lines of communication with children we come in contact with, whether they’re our own or someone else’s.