Whilst there are continuous debates about whether sex education in schools should be about relationships or the nitty-gritty facts, we are forgetting about the other things that children are not being taught. There are one or two adverts on television but after statistics have revealed that over 50% of 15-16 year olds have binged on alcohol, these campaigns don’t seem to be having the right impact on society.
Andy Bradbury, from the Lancashire Constabulary, thinks we need to be more clever in the way we approach binge drinking. He said: “Education about drinking and the effects of alcohol has become more popular within schools, but I don’t think it is as simplistic as education. It would be naive to think that better education would change everything. It would require a cultural and social change to make a difference.
“We don’t realise how much drinking is engrained into our culture. Particularly things like birthdays as people think it is ok to go out and get really drunk.”
peer pressure
Laura Hardman, of Preston Addiction Dependency Solutions , thinks that if there was better education about alcohol at a younger age then it would prevent problems in the future.
She said: “I think younger children need to be warned of the health risks. Alcohol is a poison. There isn’t enough money for alcohol education and when drink becomes a problem there isn’t enough money for treatment either.”
“There is a lot of peer pressure and promotions are angled to encourage people to drink. The cheapest drinks are the worst; they can lead to twice the addiction. Young children start drinking on cheap alcohol and they are stocking up on liver damage. They see 18 year olds having fun, sitting in a warm cosy pub and aspire to be like them. But for these 18 year olds there’s nothing else to do, it was the same when I was younger.”
(Picture taken from; http://www.flickr.com/photos/photographicindex/503260567/)
County Councillor Vali Patel, Cabinet Member for Schools, thinks that education in schools is already of a good standard. He said: “We put a lot of pressure and work into assuring that children are being informed. Education is the key way to really get children to be good citizens.”
If the amount of education within schools increases, the detail and depth of it will vary. Councillor Patel added: “It is no good frightening very young children with gory scenes of drinking. With secondary school children aged 11-12 onwards, we can teach them hard hitting facts about the effects of drinking.”
There are already numerous websites, such as the one below, that aim to inform parents, teachers and primary school children about alcohol. They use question and answer techniques, photographs and animation to help explore the resources. http://www.lookoutalcohol.co.uk/welcome.html
common culture
There has been speculation suggesting that this growing problem may be due to the UK culture and that young people are just fitting in. If this is the case than we need to approach the older generation first, as children can see their parents drinking and they assume it is the norm.
Andy Bradbury added: “Abroad, you find the social view and outlook on drinking is different to here, it is a family experience. France and Spain are bought up with drinking like we are in the UK, but they do not seem to have the same issues.”
making a difference?
Campaigns are constantly being launched and most recently, the Lancashire Constabulary have set out to highlight the issues of alcohol related sexual assaults. However, these campaigns don’t seem to focus on children, so there is room for more.
The timeline below shows 12 campaigns that have been launched nationally or within Lancashire in 2008. Evidently, attempts are being made to warn people about the repercussions of binge drinking in order to combat the problem but the lack of awareness is still astounding and more can be done.
Follow the link to find out more facts about binge drinking. http://www.thesite.org/drinkanddrugs/drinking/problems/bingedrinking
