North East parents ‘driving children to drink’

Oct 20 2009 by Adrian Pearson, The Journal

ALCOHOL campaigners have warned that some North East parents are literally driving their children to drink.

Health bosses say they have noticed an alarming number of cases in which parents are not only buying alcoholic drinks for their teenage children but also driving them to parks and leaving them to get drunk with their friends. Regular anti-social scenes involving drunken teenagers witnessed in neighbourhoods across Tyneside are at least in part being fuelled by laid-back parents glad to be rid of their children for the night, according to campaigners.

And now North East alcohol watchdog Balance is warning parents they risk saddling their children with health problems later in life unless they talk “openly and honestly” about drink dangers.

Colin Shevills, director of Balance, North East England’s alcohol office, told a meeting of the region’s 12 councils that parents had to do more to set a good example to their children.

He said: “We are vary aware from talking to council officers that in many places parents are not just turning a blind eye but in some cases buying the drink for their children and then driving them to the park so they can get drunk with their friends.

“This is something we are aware of, it is going on across the region, and it is important we reach out to parents on this issue.”

Mr Shevills later added he was concerned that too many children under the age of 11 were already aware of alcohol and viewed it as “something adults use for stress relief”.