Top reasons teens should choose NOT to drink
What is your top reason for why you should choose NOT to drink?

Even if you’re not talking to your mom, you probably agree with her about the biggest reason you shouldn’t drink. Both moms and daughters agree that the biggest risk for a teenage drinker is that you could lose control and make bad choices.

Beyond this, your mom is concerned about your safety and the law. Drunk driving is the number-two concern for moms, followed by the fact that underage drinking is illegal. More than half of moms worry that underage drinking can lead to consequences that you’ll later regret, while nearly as many are concerned that drinking can stunt your physical or mental growth.

Daughters, on the other hand, are more concerned about doing something they’ll regret or driving drunk than they are getting pregnant, harming their growth or mental development, or breaking the law.

Top reasons teens choose TO drink
Now, what is your top reason for choosing TO drink?

Girls and their moms also agree about what makes alcohol tempting. The top-two answers for both mothers and daughters are “to fit in with friends” and “peer pressure.” Seven out of ten girls (and 80% of moms) say teens drink because they want to fit in. Peer pressure is a close second-place, chosen by 74% of moms and 63% of teen girls. Still, it’s nice to see that fewer girls than moms say the pressure to fit in is important to them—obviously, girls today are stronger and more independent than their moms give them credit for!

There’s one answer where teens and moms don’t agree at all. Although one-third of mothers said their daughters drink “for fun,” more than half of teen girls listed that reason. Why the difference? Maybe it’s because moms have more experience with alcohol and they know that alcohol can actually end up making you quite depressed! We’ll talk more about this later!

Top reasons teens choose NOT to drink

So now you know the top reasons teens might choose to drink, as well as why moms and their teenage daughters say you shouldn’t. But what about the reasons teens actually choose not to drink? These aren’t the reasons you think you should give, but the ones that actually work for you, in the real world.

The number-one reason teens choose not to drink alcohol is their friends don’t drink. Moms and their teenage daughters agree again: Girls say “no” when their friends say “no.”

For the most part, girls know that drinking isn’t a good idea for someone their age: Nearly half of girls say they don’t drink because they don’t want to get caught, while almost as many say they don’t want to disappoint their parents.

It’s interesting that four in 10 moms believe having high self-esteem is a reason to avoid drinking. They don’t seem to have explained this point to their daughters very effectively: Only 28% of teen girls say self-esteem is a reason not to drink.