Do as I Say or Do as I Do: Parenting, Family Life and

Alcohol Consumption

Gill Valentine (University of Sheffield)

Mark Jayne (University of Manchester)

Official report

Valentine, G., Jayne, M. and Gould, M and Keenan, J. (2010) Family Life and Alcohol Consumption: The Transmission of Drinking Cultures, York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Academic publications

• Valentine, G., Jayne, M. and Gould, M. (2012) ‘As I say, or as I do? The affective space of family life and the generational transmission of drinking cultures’, Environment and Planning A 44, 776-192.

• Jayne, M., Valentine, G. and Gould, M. (2012) ‘Family life and alcohol consumption:  the transmission of ‘public’ and ‘private’ drinking cultures’, Drugs: Education, Prevention, 19 (3), 192-200

• Valentine, G., Jayne, M. and Gould, M. (2013) ‘The proximity effect: the role of the affective space of

family life in shaping children’s knowledge about alcohol and its social and health implications’ Childhood (Online First)

• Jayne, M. and Valentine, M. (2015) Rethinking Childhood: Families and Alcohol, Aldershot: Ashgate (Forthcoming)

• Jayne, M. and Valentine, G. (1014) Drinking is for grown-ups: children’s perceptions of alcohol and its effects’, Journal of Consumer Culture (In Press)

• Valentine, G., and Jayne, M. (2014) ‘The Changing Gendered Drinking Cultures in Everyday Family Life’ Journal of Substance Use and Mis-use (Under review)

Research Publications

1. to map parents’/carers’ attitudes towards the role of alcohol within the family

2. to examine families’ own alcohol practices

3. to understand how these attitudes and practices are transmitted

4. to examine how processes of transmission vary according to: SES; family structure/support; age/gender, and positioning of children within the family.

5. to identify the implications of these processes for alcohol harm reduction and family policies.

Research Aims

i) National telephone survey (n=2089)

ii) Case study research (n=10)– Family interviews/social network analysis– Individual interviews with parent(s)/carer(s)– Child-centred research

– Participant observation • at a family celebration with alcohol• of an ‘everyday’ family evening at home with alcohol • of a family treat involving alcohol

Methods

Parental Attitudes

Acceptable for children to … Average age

Be given a taste of an alcoholic drink 13

Fetch, pour or serve alcoholic drinks for others at home

14

Have a watered down alcoholic drink with a family meal

14

Get away with having a sneaky sip of an alcoholic drink at a family event

15

Have an alcoholic drink at family events

16

Have an alcoholic drink with just their friends, in the family home under supervision

16

Drink unsupervised with their friends on Friday/Saturday nights

18

Alcohol an Unremarkable Feature of Family Life

Keeping Alcohol in the Home

n=2088

Mother: … if she says to me ‘Oh can I have a sip, can I have a little taste?’…If I said to her ‘No, you can’t have that’, course … she would be in the fridge… she would have done it by now if she was denied being able to have some. You know, it’s kind of like well why are you having it? (Family H)

Fear Strictness is Counterproductive

Parental Attitudes

Parents agrees/strongly agree that it is ok to:• 86.1% [n=1798] Drink in moderation in front of kids• 86% [n=1796] Drink during meal with kids• 17% [n=354] Take children to pubs/bars when parents

drinking

Children’s Recognition of HospitalityWell when we go on holidays to my Granny’s house, my

Mum and my granny have some wine. And sometimes in the holidays when Granny comes here, they have some wine as well. My Mum would usually bring wine to Granny’s as a present (Aileen, aged 8, Family G).

Modelling Openness: tasting alcohol at home

Father: We’ve never hidden the fact that we have a drink and obviously on Saturday night, they’ve seen us drink and stuff. So I want them to be open with us about what they’re doing…and not them hide it behind my back (Father, Family B).

1161

Imitating Rituals

Girl: [identifying a picture of a drink] Cocktails!... Sometimes my Mummy makes them and my Uncle makes them …My Mummy makes a special one for me …Mummy’s has got alcohol in it. I don’t have alcohol in mine (Anne, aged 7, Family B).

Father: I would drink beer in the house and I used to have Miranda trained, she used to … when she was little, I had her trained quite well where she would go to the fridge and get me a can of beer (Father, Family H).

Boy: …it’s a very strong alcohol…You just go … like that [imitating knocking back a shot]. I’ve actually drank … I’ve actually put some water in there and … my Dad asks me to see how long it takes me to drink four of them (Karl, aged 11, Family B).

Kids shouldn’t drink because…:I think there’s probably something bad in it…that children

can’t have (Anastasia, 7, Family I)

Kids can get drunk quicker (Karl, 11, Family B)

Kids…lose control more quickly (James, 9, Family D)

[referring to her sister] probably go around snogging boys (Emma, 10, Family C).

Children may not be able to stop (Linda, 10, Family A)

What Children Know

Witnessing Drinking

Girl: [identifying a picture of a drink] It’s beer and it’s called John Smiths...

Interviewer: Who drinks that one?

Girl: My Daddy. Sometimes my Daddy drinks it

Girl: [identifying a picture of a drink]: Smirnoff, my Mummy’s favourite [laughs]…

Even she’s got her own Smirnoff glass (Anne, aged 7, Family B).

Girl: When we went to Greece my sister, she had about one or two cocktails and when we went back to our …apartment and she went into her bedroom and she just laid down on the bed laughing…

Interviewer: So what does alcohol do to you when you drink it?

Boy: It makes them a bit less controlled of theirself...

Girl: Well they sing stupid songs…my Mum and my friend’s Mum got drunk …They was a bit drunk and they started singing a song about what you do when you need the toilet when you’re working in the garden.

Interviewer: Right, so what’s a bit drunk then?

Boy: Sort of a bit strange, a bit weird. Yeah, just a bit strange, not theirself…

Girl: A bit … like really messy hair (Emma and Tim, aged 10).

Government advice

The role of families in advising and guiding young children in relation to alcohol

What families are not teaching children

The role of education and/or other support services in advising and guiding younger children in relation to alcohol

Implications

Impact: making a difference?

• Impact could be good for social science approaches – a low ‘hum’?

• Evidencing impact is challenging but is a process that could be good for academics, policy makers and practitioners.

Impact: making a difference?

“We are very much aware of your research on the importance of parental behaviour in influencing young people’s drinking habits and attitudes to alcohol. We have featured your work… and were also pleased to invite you and your colleagues to speak at the first session ‘The Impact of Drinking in the Home’ of our 2010 conference. The presentation was well received, and alongside other factors… we have always been keen to emphasise the points made in your research about how parental behaviour, however unintentional, or even well intentioned, can encourage unhealthy drinking in children”

Alcohol Concern

Impact: making a difference?• Our research directly impacted on JRF alcohol programmes,

• JRF have “worked closely with the alcohol strategy/policy teams in Westminster, Scotland, Northern Ireland in order to feed in the key messages… [the] feedback from civil servants in Wales is that research from the JRF Alcohol Programme, and more specifically the research of Professor Valentine and Dr Jayne was instrumental in their decision to fund a RCT of the Strengthening Families programme” .

• In late 2012, JRF secured >£1m from Scottish funders that “will be used to test out approaches to challenging negative drinking cultures in deprived communities in Scotland… the interventions being tested are based on findings from the JRF Alcohol Programme including Professor Valentine and Dr Jayne’s research on Drinking places… and Family Life and Alcohol Consumption…” .

Impact: making a difference?

• The research “directly influenced the content of the Drinkaware campaign ‘Your Kids and Alcohol’; which was tasked at encouraging parents to talk to their children about alcohol”. This campaign aimed at delaying a child’s first alcoholic drink, highlighting the importance of talking to preteens (9-12 years) about alcohol, alongside providing parents with the tools to have meaningful conversations with them.

• The parents’ video “featured young people peeping out from behind an alcoholic drink… [and] has been viewed over 800,000 times, furthermore, 100,000 copies of the parents leaflet have been distributed through orders from Drinkaware’s online shop.” Independent evaluation of the campaign suggested that “44% of mothers taking part in the research claimed to have had a conversation with their child and most felt their conversations went well” .

Impact: making a difference?

• Findings from the research also “reaffirmed the importance of building… activities around rule setting; family communication and parenting skills…. In:tuition was based on a course of 10 primary lessons and 11 secondary lessons aimed at building young people’s confidence, decision-making and communication skills. To date, 751 schools and 909 other organisations (PCTs, Youth Services, local authorities, etc) have registered on the website.”

• A subsequent pilot study in 34 schools “provided initial assurances that In:tuition is workable in practical terms and has the potential to have an effect on young people’s attitudes to drinking.” In:tuition will be trialled in a further 620 schools during 2013-14

Impact: making a difference?

• Media interest

This is evident in pick-up by 347 media outlets (7 national, 89 broadcast, 3 consumer, 34 regional and 214 online). Additionally, two ‘twitter parties’ were held for parents, which stimulated 2628 ‘mentions’, 6.7 million ‘impressions’ and 10 ‘trendings’.

Impact: making a difference?

• We need to show how social sciences approaches can add up to more than the sum of diverse parts

• Impact offers a ‘new evidence base’

• We need to collate and promote to ensure greatest impact of our impact