REPORTING OF HARM TO ONE’S SELF AND ONE’S CHILDREN

Chapters 3 and 4 describe how respondents themselves were harmed by problematic family drinkers’

drinking and whether children were harmed. This section of the report explores the extent of overlap between these elements – how respondents report both their children and themselves have been harmed.

Table 4.7 presents more detailed information on a subset of families and indicates that 219 (92 + 127) or 15 per cent of carers from the 1,130⁴ families with children reported that they themselves had been adversely affected “a lot” or “a little” by another family member’s drinking. This table also shows that 109 (13 + 96) carers reported that a child in their family had been adversely affected “a lot” or “a little” (but they themselves had not been), and that 120 (35 + 85) carers had been affected but their children had not been. A total of 99 carers (27 + 72) reported that they and a child in their family had been affected by other family members’ drinking. Overall, 27 per cent or 328 (109 + 120 + 99) of the 1,130 carers from these families with children were either adversely affected by the drinking of a family member, or were responsible for a child who was negatively affected by others’ drinking, or both.

Table 4.7 Cross tabulation of harm to respondent and harm to children, among respondents caring for children (2008 HTO survey)

HARM FROM FAMILY CHILDREN NEGATIVELY AFFECTED

RESPONDENT NEGATIVELY AFFECTED “A LOT” “A LITTLE” SUBTOTAL (“A LOT”

OR “A LITTLE”) “NOT AT ALL” TOTAL %

“A lot” 25 32 55 35 92 7

“A little” 2 40 42 85 127 10

Subtotal (affected) 27 72 99 120 219 17

Not at all 13 96 109 802 911 82

Total 40 168 208 922 1,130 100

Note: n = 1,130

Examining these data differently, of the 219 carers who reported they themselves were harmed by a family member, 99 carers (44 per cent) reported that their children were also harmed. Of the 208 carers who reported that their children were harmed, 99 (46 per cent) reported that they themselves had also been harmed. There was a statistically significant relationship between harm to the carer from a family member’s drinking and harm to children (ʖ²(₁) = 129.8, p < 0.001). If a family member’s drinking had negatively affected the carer, the odds of reporting harm to children were almost six times the odds of reporting harm to children as if carer did not report being harmed (OR = 6.35, CIs [4.39, 9.18]). However, there was no statistically significant relationship between carers reporting “a lot” of harm from a family member and carers reporting that their children had been harmed “a lot” by others’ drinking (although numbers are small in these cells for comparison).

The highlighted cells in Table 4.8 illustrate that in over two-thirds (69 per cent) of the cases where both the carer and the child were negatively affected “a lot” or “a little” it is likely to be a person of the same relationship type within the household that is affecting the child and most affecting the carer. However, this may be an overestimate of overlap: for example, the drinking of a current spouse may be affecting the carer and the drinking of an ex-spouse may be affecting the child or vice versa. There are also multiple children/siblings in many families and not all respondents identified which relationship had affected the child.

4 Total does not equal 1,142 because 12 people could not say whether they had been affected or not.

Table 4.8 Relationship of persons whose drinking affected the child and the carer

HARM FROM FAMILY CHILDREN NEGATIVELY AFFECTED BY

RESPONDENT NEGATIVELY AFFECTED CARER^a SIBLING RELATIVES TOTAL

Spouse, partner or ex-partner 25 1 2 28

Children 5 5 1 11

Relatives 7 1 7 15

Total 37 7 10 54

Note: n = 54; ^a Carer includes parent, step-parent, and spouse or partner or ex-partner of the child’s parent.

Table 4.9 includes information on all those affected (or whose children were affected) by family members’

drinking and uses the total sample n = 2,649 as the baseline. These figures have been extrapolated to provide estimates of the Australian population affected. Overall, 22 per cent of all respondents in the 2008 HTO Survey reported that they themselves or a child in their family had been affected by others’ drinking.

This finding is equivalent to an estimated 3,613,130 Australian adults being affected by a family member’s drinking or reporting that their child had been affected by other’s drinking. Furthermore, around four per cent of all respondents (equivalent to an estimated 706,202 Australian adults) reported that both they and one or more children in their families had been affected by others’ drinking.

Table 4.9 Population estimates of harm to carers and children due to a family member’s drinking

FAMILY HARM EITHER CHILDREN

OR FAMILY HARM

BOTH CHILDREN AND FAMILY HARM

n % n % n %

No 2,203 84 2,068 78 2,526 96

Yes 446 17 581 22 123 4

Negatively affected “a lot” 224 8 234 8 30 1

Population estimates n n n

Negatively affected “a little” or “a lot” 2,791,964 3,613,130 706,202

Negatively affected “a lot” 1,300,727 1,369,705 154,379

Note: n = 2,649

EFFECTS OF OTHERS’ DRINKING ON CHILDREN: 2008 HTO SURVEY FINDINGS 45

4.5 CONCLUSION

This chapter of the report underlines that:

• One in five carers (22 per cent) reported that their children had been affected in some way by others’

drinking in the last year.

• Twelve per cent of carers reported that their children were verbally abused, left in an unsupervised or unsafe situation, physically hurt or exposed to domestic violence because of others’ drinking in 2008.

• The harm children are reported to have experienced is most often verbal abuse and described as “a little”

harm rather than “a lot.”

• Among respondents who reported that their children were affected, the median number of times their children were affected in the last 12 months was three.

• Overall, respondents were more likely to report that older children experienced harm of any type than younger children.

• Respondents with responsibility for children both within and outside their households were more likely to report harm of any type to their children than respondents with children within their household only.

Almost half (46 per cent) of the 135 respondents whose children had been affected in one or more of the specified ways reported that a child in the family was affected by the drinking of their parent, step-parent, or the carer’s partner or ex-partner, or the child’s guardian. Twelve per cent of respondents also reported that their children were negatively affected by the drinking of siblings, and 15 per cent reported that they were affected by other family members and relatives. Fifteen per cent of carers reported that their children were affected by family friends or people their child was in contact with, such as a coach, teacher or priest, and 12 per cent reported that they had been affected by unspecified others. A small number of respondents reported that their children had been affected by more than one relationship.

The final section of this chapter described the substantial overlap between harms to children and to the respondent:

• Twenty-two per cent of all respondents in the 2008 HTO Survey (equivalent to an estimated 3,613,130 Australian adults) reported that they themselves or a child in their family had been affected by others’

drinking.

• Furthermore, around four per cent of all respondents (equivalent to an estimated 706,202 Australian adults) reported that both they and one or more children in their families had been affected by others’

drinking.

5.1 INTRODUCTION

In 2011 a follow-up study of those interviewed in the 2008 HTO Survey was conducted to examine factors predicting whether the effects of others’ drinking were transient or persistent. These results were published in Beyond the drinker: Longitudinal patterns in alcohol’s to others (Laslett et al. 2015). This chapter focuses on answering the research question: To what extent do the effects upon children and families persist or change over time? The first consideration is the effects upon an adult family member (i.e. the respondent) and then effects reported by carers on the children in their families are examined.