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Pre‐teenage Children's Experiences with Alcohol
Author(s) -
McIntosh James,
MacDonald Fiona,
McKeganey Neil
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
children and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.538
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1099-0860
pISSN - 0951-0605
DOI - 10.1111/j.1099-0860.2006.00077.x
Subject(s) - boredom , peer pressure , pleasure , psychology , minor (academic) , consumption (sociology) , alcohol , alcohol consumption , developmental psychology , peer group , human factors and ergonomics , social psychology , poison control , medicine , environmental health , political science , sociology , social science , biochemistry , chemistry , neuroscience , law
This article reports on the drinking experiences and motivations of 77 pre‐teenage children. The main reason which the children gave for occasional or regular drinking was the pleasure which they derived both from the effects of the alcohol and from the social interaction which accompanied the activity. Several of the children claimed that they were partly motivated by boredom. Peer influence appeared to play a minor role as far as the recurrent consumption of alcohol was concerned. A number of causes for concern are identified in the article. These include the frequency of the children's drinking and the volume of alcohol consumed by some of them; their tendency to combine different types of alcoholic drink in the same session; the unreliability of measures undertaken by the children to reduce risk and ensure their safety and the ease with which alcohol could be obtained. These findings emphasise the need for drug education programmes to alert children to the dangers of alcohol consumption and equip them with the skills to deal effectively with peer pressure. There is also a pressing need to improve the leisure facilities available for young people as alternatives to drinking and other problem behaviour. © 2007 The Author(s). Journal compilation © 2007 National Children's Bureau.