Parental Monitoring in High School Significantly Impacts College Drinking
A recent study of more than 1,200 first year college students revealed that parental monitoring in their senior year of high school significantly impacted their college alcohol consumption. Moreover, the National Institute on Drug Abuse reported in their February 27, 2009 issue of the Addiction Research News, the study results showed the amount that students drank in high school was a significant predictor for drinking in college.
Interviewers asked the students about their college living situation, high school and college alcohol consumption and their perceptions of their parental monitoring during their last year in high school, such as being required to tell their parents of their plans and having consequences for breaking curfew. The higher levels of parental monitoring were associated with less alcohol consumption in high school regardless of the students’ race, sex, or importance of religion in their lives.
“Too many Americans consider underage drinking a rite of passage to adulthood”, said Acting Surgeon General Kenneth Moritsugu, M.D., M.P.H., on March 7, 2007. Although there has been a significant decline in tobacco and illicit drug use, underage drinking has remained at consistently high levels. And binge drinking — drinking 5 drinks or more on one occasion — now starts at age 13 and peaks at ages 18-22.
What’s even more frightening is that binge drinking is common among high school students in the United States. Moreover, their binge drinking is strongly associated with sexual activity, violence, and other risky behaviors according to a study published in the January 2007 issue of Pediatrics.
What’s worse, drinking games, usually done behind closed doors, are now done in public, despite laws against drinking in public and arrests made for this offense. “Too many student’s are getting the message that excessive drinking is okay, “ say Carol Falkowski, Director of Research Communications for the Hazelden Foundation, a well recognized addiction treatment and research facility. “It’s getting more intense. Drinking games that were happening in private parties or houses or bonfires 10 years ago are now happening in public venues. That to me reflects a sort of larger acceptance of extreme drinking.”
NIAAA – National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
A Snapshot of Annual High-Risk College Drinking Consequences
The consequences of excessive and underage drinking affect virtually all college campuses, college communities, and college students, whether they choose to drink or not.
• Death: 1,700 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die each year from alcohol-related unintentional injuries, including motor vehicle crashes (Hingson et al., 2005).
• Injury: 599,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 are unintentionally injured under the influence of alcohol (Hingson et al., 2005).
• Assault: More than 696,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 are assaulted by another student who has been drinking (Hingson et al., 2005).
• Sexual Abuse: More than 97,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 are victims of alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape (Hingson et al., 2005).
• Unsafe Sex: 400,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 had unprotected sex and more than 100,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 report having been too intoxicated to know if they consented to having sex (Hingson et al., 2002).
• Academic Problems: About 25 percent of college students report academic consequences of their drinking including missing class, falling behind, doing poorly on exams or papers, and receiving lower grades overall (Engs et al., 1996; Presley et al., 1996a, 1996b; Wechsler et al., 2002).
• Health Problems/Suicide Attempts: More than 150,000 students develop an alcohol-related health problem (Hingson et al., 2002) and between 1.2 and 1.5 percent of students indicate that they tried to commit suicide within the past year due to drinking or drug use (Presley et al., 1998).
• Drunk Driving: 2.1 million students between the ages of 18 and 24 drove under the influence of alcohol last year (Hingson et al., 2002).
• Vandalism: About 11 percent of college student drinkers report that they have damaged property while under the influence of alcohol (Wechsler et al., 2002).
• Property Damage: More than 25 percent of administrators from schools with relatively low drinking levels and over 50 percent from schools with high drinking levels say their campuses have a “moderate” or “major” problem with alcohol-related property damage (Wechsler et al., 1995).
• Police Involvement: About 5 percent of 4-year college students are involved with the police or campus security as a result of their drinking (Wechsler et al., 2002) and an estimated 110,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 are arrested for an alcohol-related violation such as public drunkenness or driving under the influence (Hingson et al., 2002).
• Alcohol Abuse and Dependence: 31 percent of college students met criteria for a diagnosis of alcohol abuse and 6 percent for a diagnosis of alcohol dependence in the past 12 months, according to questionnaire-based self-reports about their drinking (Knight et al., 2002).
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