Bob CollinsHow clueless are parents when it comes to evaluating the likely use of alcohol and marijuana by their dear ones? Pretty clueless, a new study suggests.
The National Poll on Children’s Health asked parents asked parents of teens about their perceived use of the substances by their own kids and other people’s kids.
Only 1 in 10 believe their teens have drunk alcohol in the last year. Only 1 in 20 say their kid has used marijuana in the last year. It’s possible they’re right, but they’re probably not.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse’s most recent annual survey recently found 65 percent of high school seniors, 52 percent of 10th graders, and 29 percent of eighth graders have used booze in the last year.
More than a third of the 12th graders said they’ve used pot in the last year. Twenty-eight percent of tenth graders said they had, too.
The survey says, however, that parents are overestimating drug and alcohol abuse by other kids. They believe other kids — 10th graders in this case — use marijuana at the rate about about 40% and alcohol at the rate of about 60%.
But the data from the National Institutes of Health says they’re not that far off.
