Journal: Addictive Behaviors: An International Journal
When students go off to college parents often have misperceptions of college drinking as well as how other parents approve of alcohol usage.
A study was done to correct the misperceptions of alcohol use and other parents’ approval of drinking.
It was found that parents of college age children have a significant impact on their children’s alcohol use.
It was also found that parents often tend to underestimate student alcohol use and overestimate how much other parents approve of alcohol use.
The goal of this study was to teach parents about student drinking at college so that they could improve conversations about alcohol with their children.
Parents were educated via the internet about college alcohol use and how much other parents really approve of alcohol use.
After educating parents there were many positive results.
Parents reported stronger intentions to talk to their children about alcohol and also felt less confident in their knowledge of their children’s alcohol use.
After the online education parents also felt that other parents were not as approving of alcohol as much as originally thought.
It was concluded that more online education about college aged alcohol use was necessary.
The education of parents about adolescent alcohol use was found to improve the effectiveness of parent interventions to reduce the frequency of alcohol use.
Ages between 18 and 25 are considered a unique developmental stage in life as typical adults at these ages are still reliant on their parents.
Online information typically included information on the effects of alcohol, how to start a conversation with a student and alcohol use norms among college students.
Oftentimes students overestimate other students’ alcohol use which puts them at risk of conforming to their perceived norm.
By educating parents about the realistic norms of college students and having interventions with their students’ misperceptions can be corrected.
Similarly it was found that many parents thought that other parents were more approving of their students’ drinking which in turn shaped their children’s perspectives of college drinking.
Parents often don’t realize what approving of their children’s drinking enables.
Parents that don’t think their children drink that much alcohol don’t feel as inclined to ask about their child’s alcohol usage.
Participants in this particular study were 77.8 percent female with 60.4 percent identifying as Caucasian.
About 94 percent of the parents in this study reported seeing or talking to their children at least once a week.
Parents reported talking to their children about alcohol around six times a year.
For extra course credit students were asked to recruit a parent for the study.
The study then proceeded to educate parents about alcohol use in college.
The goal was to convince parents to speak to their college aged children about alcohol use.
This intent was measured on a scale of one to seven.
A rating of one meant that the parent definitely did not want to or intend to speak to their children about their alcohol use.
A rating of seven meant that they definitely did want to or intend to speak to their children about their alcohol use.
After the survey parents realized they had been underestimating how much they thought their college students drank.
The parents were then more likely to have a conversation with their child about alcohol usage.
Link to Journal: https://www-sciencedirect-com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/science/article/pii/S030646031300261X
Antonio Carrillo 100W 