Family dinners and adolescent substance use

A new study conducted by researchers at Tufts University School of Medicine (United States) has concluded that Regular family dinners can help prevent substance use in most teensalthough it specifies that this strategy is not effective for youth who have experienced significant childhood adversity.

The findings provide important information for professionals seeking to help families prevent substance use, as well as researchers seeking to develop interventions that better take into account the unique experiences of adolescents.

For the study, published in the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Traumathe researchers analyzed data from an online survey conducted on 2,090 American adolescents between 12 and 17 years old and their parents. Participants across the country were asked about the quality of their family meals (including communication, enjoyment, digital distractions, and logistics), as well as the consumption of alcohol, electronic cigarettes and cannabis by adolescents in the previous six months.

The researchers examined how these patterns differed depending on the adolescents’ experiences with Stressors in the home and exposure to violenceas reported by both children and their parents. Instead of counting each adverse experience equally, the researchers created a weighted score based on how strongly different experiences are linked to substance use in previous research and in this national sample.

Higher quality of family dinners was associated with prevalence of substance use 22 to 34 percent lower among adolescents who had no adverse childhood experiences or that they had had them at low or moderate levels.

“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 substance use in adolescents“, highlights Margie Skeer, lead author of the study, professor and director of the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine.

“Connect regularly during meals (which can be as simple as a caregiver and child sitting at a counter to eat together) can help establish open and regular communication between parents and childrenas well as supervise them, which promotes more positive long-term outcomes for most children, Skeer adds. It’s not about the food, the schedule or the environment; “What matters is the relationship between parents and children and the interactions it fosters.”

Adverse childhood experiences reported by study participants included divorced parents; a family member diagnosed with a substance use disorder; someone in the family with a mental health disorder; the adolescent witnessing violence; the teenager frequently being teased for his weight; a parent using non-prescribed drugs daily; or the teen experiencing sexual or physical dating violence.

The study found that family meals offered little protection to teens whose adversity score reached the equivalent of four or more experiences, a population that encompasses nearly one in five U.S. high school students under age 18, according to a study of the most recent data from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

“While our research suggests that adolescents who have experienced more severe stressors may not gain the same benefits from family meals, they may benefit from more specific, trauma-focused approaches, such as mental health support and alternative forms of family engagement,” Skeer notes.

He adds that 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.