One Third Of Child Drinkers Get Booze From Parents

Seventeen percent of children have tried alcohol before they finished grade school, shows a study published in this month's Preventative Medicine. By the end of junior high, that number jumps to 41 percent, the longitudinal survey of 3,709 racially diverse low-income urban students reveals.

It's hard to imagine fresh-faced 12-year-olds passing for 21 down at the liquor store, but only a tiny percentage of these underage drinkers (2.4 percent of sixth graders and 5.6 percent of eighth graders) got their booze from commercial sources, the study found. Shockingly--or not--the primary source of alcohol for teen drinkers is parents, who supplied more than one-third of the alcohol consumed by these children. Some children also took alcohol from their homes or from from other adults and individuals under 21, but tended not to rely on these sources until they got older, the study showed.

ABSTRACT: Who needs liquor stores when parents will do? The importance of social sources of alcohol among young urban teens