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)
Research Publications
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, 776192.
•
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), 192200
•
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 Aims
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
to map parents’/carers’ attitudes towards
the role of alcohol within the family
to examine families’ own alcohol
practices
to understand how these attitudes and
practices are transmitted
to examine how processes of
transmission vary according to: SES;
family structure/support; age/gender, and
positioning of children within the family.
to identify the implications of these
processes for alcohol harm reduction and
family policies.
Methods
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
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
Fear Strictness is Counterproductive
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)
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 Hospitality
Well 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
1161
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).
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).
What Children Know
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)
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).
Implications
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
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, decisionmaking 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