By Stephen Beech
Family dinners may keep teenagers off drink and drugs, according to new research.
Sitting around a table and regular bonding over meals may help prevent youngsters from using alcohol, cannabis, and vapes, suggest the findings.
But adolescents with “significant” stress or trauma need additional support, say experts.
The American study found that regular family dinners may help prevent substance use for a majority of teenagers.
But it suggests that the strategy is not effective for youngsters who have experienced significant childhood adversity.
Researchers say their findings provide important insights for practitioners looking to help families prevent substance use.
For the study, published in the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma, the research analysed online survey data from 2,090 American adolescents ages 12 to 17 and their parents.
Participants from around the United States were asked about the quality of their family meals – including communication, enjoyment, digital distractions, and logistics – as well as alcohol, e-cigarette, and cannabis use in the previous six months.
The research team then examined how the patterns differed based on teenagers’ experiences of household stressors and exposure to violence, as reported by both the children and parents.
Instead of counting each adverse experience equally, the researchers created a weighted score based on how strongly the different experiences are linked to substance use in prior research and this national sample.
Higher family dinner quality was associated with a 22% to 34% lower prevalence of substance use among adolescents who had either no or low to moderate levels of adverse childhood experiences.
Study lead author Professor Margie Skeer said: “These findings build on what we already knew about the value of family meals as a practical and widely accessible way to reduce the risk of adolescent substance use,”
“Routinely connecting over meals – which can be as simple as a caregiver and child standing at a counter having a snack together – can help establish open and routine parent-child communication and parental monitoring to support more positive long-term outcomes for the majority of children.
“It’s not about the food, timing, or setting; it’s the parent-child relationship and interactions it helps cultivate that matter.”
Adverse childhood experiences reported by participants in the study included parents being divorced; a family member being diagnosed with a substance-use disorder; someone in the family having a mental-health disorder and the adolescent witnessing violence.
The study found that family meals offered little protection for adolescents whose adversity score reached the equivalent of four or more experiences – a group that encompasses nearly one in five U.S. high school students younger than 18, according to recent research.
Skeer, from Tufts University School of Medicine in Massachusetts, said: “While our research suggests that adolescents who have experienced more severe stressors may not see the same benefits from family meals, they may benefit from more targeted and trauma-informed approaches, such as mental health support and alternative forms of family engagement.”
She added: “Future research should explore whether other supportive routines – beyond shared meals or outside the family environment – can help protect adolescents exposed to highly stressful or traumatic childhood experiences.”
