Parents should avoid letting their children see them enjoy a couple of glasses of wine at a dinner party and must enforce tougher rules on drinking in the home to discourage binge drinking, the Government has said.

The first official guidance on teen drinking also tells parents to monitor their children’s intake of alcohol, discourage them from trying it before 15 years of age, and stop them idolising celebrity drinkers such as Amy Winehouse.

One and a half million children aged 11-17 each drink four and half bottles of beer or just over a bottle of wine, every week on average - double the amount teens consumed in 1990. Getting drunk on a weekly basis is the norm for 360,000 eleven to 15-year-olds and almost three-quarters of 15 to 16-year-olds associate drinking with having fun.

Families should reconsider their drinking habits because children whose mothers and fathers drink are more likely to consume alcohol themselves, Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer and author of the draft guidance on consumption of alcohol by children and young people, said.

“Parents’ and carers’ own drinking behaviours can influence their children’s alcohol use. This includes all parents, from those with an alcohol problem to those who just drink in front of the children from time to time,” his report says.

“Top tips” tell parents to “Establish family values on alcohol – lead by example. Avoid exposing children and young people to family situations, behaviours and environments that are alcohol-fuelled or where drinking is the central activity.”

Mr Balls, Children’s Secretary, said: “Role models are important. But the link between what parents do themselves and what they say to young people is the right way to do things and has far more influence on young people's behaviour than parents currently think.”

Overly strict parental discipline can lead children to drink heavily but equally parents with slack attitudes towards underage drinking encourage teens to binge.

“In general, when parents show disapproval, children are less likely to drink, and conversely, when parents are tolerant, children are likely to drink more,” the draft guidance says.

“Research shows that boundaries in the home work. Parents should encourage children to join youth clubs and sports clubs to stop them hanging around in parks and drinking large quantities of cider,” Sir Liam said at the launch of the draft guidelines at Methodist Central Hall in London yesterday.

Parents should work to undermine the stereotypes of “drinking heroes” including celebrities and older classmates who portray drinking and getting drunk as fashionable and alluring, Sir Liam said.

The guidelines suggest that children shouldn’t drink before they turn 15 because vulnerability to alcohol related problems, including abnormal brain development, is greatest amongst young people who begin drinking before the age of 15. Studies have also linked the use of alcohol below the age of 13 with excessive consumption later in life.

The Government is backing this advice to parents despite contradictory evidence, contained in the report, that drinking in a family context is protective against underage and problem drinking later in life and young drinkers who are given alcohol by their parents are likely to drink less than those who obtain it from their friends.

Almost one half (48 per cent) of 10 to 17-year-olds get their alcohol from parents. But those who had been drunk or very drunk at least once a month in the past year tended to get their alcohol outside the home, from friends, pubs or shops. Only 23 per cent said they get very drunk on liquor given to them by their parents.

Young people between 15 and 17 should only consume alcohol "in a supervised environment" and with the "guidance of a parent or carer", the report says.

Mr Balls said parents must “work through” how to supervise their teenagers’ time with the bottle. “We can’t legislate that for a moment. We recognise how difficult it is being a parent of a teen today,” he said.

Avis Johns, from the charity Drink Aware, welcomed the guidelines. “For a long time there’s been a real gap in the information available to parents and children,” she said.

“One of the dangers of not having boundaries is that you leave children to their own devises. We need to address the alcohol culture in the UK that means that young people are often left to find out for themselves and that’s not the best way at all.”

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