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News

30% of Children Scared by Adults’ Drinking

5th July 2010

30% of Children Scared by Adults’ Drinking A survey by BBC’s Newsround found that almost a third (30%) of children feel scared when they see adults drinking.

Nearly three-quarters (72%) of the 1,234 children (aged 10-14) questioned said their parents drink alcohol and of those, seven out of ten (70%; half of all children in the survey) think they have seen their parents drunk at some time.

Just less than half of the children (46%) surveyed thought that adults should not drink in front of children, while 32% thought this was all right, and 22% were not sure.

When given a list of words to describe how they felt when they saw adults drinking, almost half the children (47%) said they were not bothered. But 30% said it made them feel scared.

Eight in 10 children (81%) surveyed who had seen adults drinking said they noticed one or more changes in the way they behaved.

Of those, almost a quarter (24%) said it made adults act stupid or silly; a fifth (20%) said they became angry and aggressive; another fifth (20%) said they became happy and funny; 19% found them to act strangely or in a different way; 18% said they became loud and swore; and 17% said they became dizzy or fell over.

Most children (64%) thought between three and six glasses of alcohol was too much to drink. This survey was conducted to tie in with a special Newsround programme called Living with Alcohol.

This programme along with resources for children affected by alcohol are available on the Newsround website, here.

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