Lead by example with alcohol, expert warns parents

As adults uncork a bottle of wine or bubbly to celebrate Christmas, they might be faced with a pleading child requesting a glass. But Erik Mansager, director of counselling at the Collège du Léman in Versoix, advises against giving alcoholic beverages to children younger than 16.

“It’s not up to the parents to teach kids to drink any more than it’s up to them to teach them to have sex,” said Mansager, a psychotherapist specialising in substance abuse treatment. “Kids tend to follow us by example and, in a healthy relationship, they will experiment as teenagers but will come back to a sense of values,” he said.

To set an example, Mansager advises parents to monitor their own alcohol consumption in the home, including over Christmas, a period that can be the most stressful of the year for some English-speaking communities. “At this time of the year, some people drink to reduce this stress but how they handle it is the issue,” he said.

He explained that getting drunk sends out the wrong message to children, especially as the earlier individuals start experimenting with alcohol, in terms of age, the more prone they are to addiction.

It is therefore far more acceptable to let 16-year-olds have an occasional drink rather than allowing a 12-year-old have a glass of wine or beer, according to Mansager. Some parents like to give their kids a sip of an alcoholic drink, but  he questions the purpose.

The Swiss institute for the prevention of alcoholism (ISPA) issued a press release on Monday warning parents that liquor has more of an impact on the body of a child, due to lower body weight, compared to an adult, and an underdeveloped liver breaks down the substance less easily.

It therefore advised parents to put away half empty glasses or bottles to reduce kids’ temptation to try them. “Children could drink too much [out of the glass or bottle] and risk an alcoholic intoxication,” said Marie-Claude Amacker in the communiqué.

Mansager agreed that you should not leave bottles around, explaining that while teenagers will be curious about the effects of alcohol, younger children are curious about its taste.

“An eight-year-old is far more susceptible to drinking from a bottle.  A lot of liqueurs smell good and look good and flavours such as melon or chocolate are very attractive to kids,” he said.

Meanwhile the therapist warned of an abundance of unchaperoned parties in Switzerland’s Anglophone community, where parents allow teenagers to abuse alcohol. Quite often this leads to unsafe sex, sexually-transmitted diseases and where “all sorts of things go on”, according to Mansager.

He said the phenomenon also exists outside the holidays, and occurs often in affluent Geneva. “Have a party, but make sure there is adult supervision,” Mansager advised.