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Parent/caregiver attitudes, motivations and behaviours in relation to alcohol use among offspring aged 13–18 years: a qualitative study

BACKGROUND: Parental alcohol consumption and alcohol-related behaviour play a critical role in shaping adolescent alcohol use, but comparatively little is known about the perspectives of parents regarding adolescent alcohol use from qualitative studies in England. This study aimed to explore parenta...

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Autores principales: Mitchell, Siobhan, Campbell, Rona, MacArthur, Georgie J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8982295/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35382782
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12992-6
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author Mitchell, Siobhan
Campbell, Rona
MacArthur, Georgie J.
author_facet Mitchell, Siobhan
Campbell, Rona
MacArthur, Georgie J.
author_sort Mitchell, Siobhan
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Parental alcohol consumption and alcohol-related behaviour play a critical role in shaping adolescent alcohol use, but comparatively little is known about the perspectives of parents regarding adolescent alcohol use from qualitative studies in England. This study aimed to explore parental views and attitudes towards alcohol use during adolescence, among their offspring and among young people in general. METHODS: Twenty-three parents (21 mothers, 2 fathers) of children aged 13–18 years were recruited via schools, workplaces and community settings, predominantly in the West of England (n = 19) between 2017 and 2018. Data were collected via in-depth one-to-one interviews and analysed thematically, using an inductive, constructionist approach. RESULTS: Five major themes were identified in the data: (1) the parental alcohol environment, (2) balance and acceptance, (3) influences of the parental approach, (4) boundaries and parental monitoring, and (5) wider influences shaping young people’s behaviour. Overall, parents were aware of the risks and consequences of alcohol use and the wide range of influences shaping drinking behaviour, and expressed broad disapproval of alcohol use among young people. However, adolescent alcohol use was viewed as inevitable, and set within a context of a tolerant drinking culture. Many parents therefore chose a balanced and reluctantly accepting approach. This approach was determined by weighing disapproval of drinking against consistency with wider culture and parental behaviour, support for autonomy of the child, and avoidance of social sanctions. Parents’ responses were also determined by a desire to protect the parent–child relationship, maintain an open, communicative and trusting relationship, and ultimately limit risk and minimise harm. Various boundaries and strategies were employed to this end, including care around role modelling, gradual introductions to alcohol, boundaried provision, clear risk reduction messaging and parental monitoring. CONCLUSIONS: Parents employ a range of mechanisms to reduce alcohol-related risk and to balance harms of alcohol use among their offspring against adolescent behavioural norms. A downward shift in community consumption and changing socio-cultural norms could alter the accepting context in which parents are required to navigate adolescent alcohol use.
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spelling pubmed-89822952022-04-06 Parent/caregiver attitudes, motivations and behaviours in relation to alcohol use among offspring aged 13–18 years: a qualitative study Mitchell, Siobhan Campbell, Rona MacArthur, Georgie J. BMC Public Health Research BACKGROUND: Parental alcohol consumption and alcohol-related behaviour play a critical role in shaping adolescent alcohol use, but comparatively little is known about the perspectives of parents regarding adolescent alcohol use from qualitative studies in England. This study aimed to explore parental views and attitudes towards alcohol use during adolescence, among their offspring and among young people in general. METHODS: Twenty-three parents (21 mothers, 2 fathers) of children aged 13–18 years were recruited via schools, workplaces and community settings, predominantly in the West of England (n = 19) between 2017 and 2018. Data were collected via in-depth one-to-one interviews and analysed thematically, using an inductive, constructionist approach. RESULTS: Five major themes were identified in the data: (1) the parental alcohol environment, (2) balance and acceptance, (3) influences of the parental approach, (4) boundaries and parental monitoring, and (5) wider influences shaping young people’s behaviour. Overall, parents were aware of the risks and consequences of alcohol use and the wide range of influences shaping drinking behaviour, and expressed broad disapproval of alcohol use among young people. However, adolescent alcohol use was viewed as inevitable, and set within a context of a tolerant drinking culture. Many parents therefore chose a balanced and reluctantly accepting approach. This approach was determined by weighing disapproval of drinking against consistency with wider culture and parental behaviour, support for autonomy of the child, and avoidance of social sanctions. Parents’ responses were also determined by a desire to protect the parent–child relationship, maintain an open, communicative and trusting relationship, and ultimately limit risk and minimise harm. Various boundaries and strategies were employed to this end, including care around role modelling, gradual introductions to alcohol, boundaried provision, clear risk reduction messaging and parental monitoring. CONCLUSIONS: Parents employ a range of mechanisms to reduce alcohol-related risk and to balance harms of alcohol use among their offspring against adolescent behavioural norms. A downward shift in community consumption and changing socio-cultural norms could alter the accepting context in which parents are required to navigate adolescent alcohol use. BioMed Central 2022-04-05 /pmc/articles/PMC8982295/ /pubmed/35382782 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12992-6 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Mitchell, Siobhan
Campbell, Rona
MacArthur, Georgie J.
Parent/caregiver attitudes, motivations and behaviours in relation to alcohol use among offspring aged 13–18 years: a qualitative study
title Parent/caregiver attitudes, motivations and behaviours in relation to alcohol use among offspring aged 13–18 years: a qualitative study
title_full Parent/caregiver attitudes, motivations and behaviours in relation to alcohol use among offspring aged 13–18 years: a qualitative study
title_fullStr Parent/caregiver attitudes, motivations and behaviours in relation to alcohol use among offspring aged 13–18 years: a qualitative study
title_full_unstemmed Parent/caregiver attitudes, motivations and behaviours in relation to alcohol use among offspring aged 13–18 years: a qualitative study
title_short Parent/caregiver attitudes, motivations and behaviours in relation to alcohol use among offspring aged 13–18 years: a qualitative study
title_sort parent/caregiver attitudes, motivations and behaviours in relation to alcohol use among offspring aged 13–18 years: a qualitative study
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8982295/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35382782
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12992-6
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