An Examination of the Drinking Habits of Primary School Students

- From an Inquiry into the Actual Drinking Habits of Parents -

Abstract

Parents who have one or more elementary school-aged children completed an alcohol-related questionnaire. Based on the results, almost twice as many fathers were classified under the categories of “caution needed with regards to alcoholism” or “suspicion of alcoholism” than mothers. Furthermore, these parents showed insufficient knowledge about the “harms from long-term and excessive alcohol drinking” in the alcohol-related knowledge questions. These results suggest that the parents’ drinking behavior influences their children’s drinking behavior, and also that these parents are influenced from their parents as well. Therefore, for alcohol prevention education for children to be effective, the enrollment of parents, particularly fathers, and an e-learning system that allows parents to participate in the home, is necessary. To this aim, further research into the development of attractive educational materials and the introduction of such materials into elementary schools is needed.