This is the ninth in a series of blogs examining the benefits of parental monitoring.

The Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs reported a study that examined the effect of parental monitoring on gambling and alcohol use among youth.

Gambling and alcohol misuse are known to be widespread among youth, and may be part of a common problem behavior syndrome. These researchers hypothesized that misuse of alcohol might be connected with youth gambling more.

This is the eighth in a series of blogs examining benefits of parental monitoring.

Indiana University conducted research among 116 boys and girls (average age 16.8 years) attending a Midwestern urban high school. The students were surveyed to determine the how often they gambled, and relationship between gambling and their parental and peer influences.

Almost all of the students (91%) reported gambling at least once in their lifetime, while 36.2% reported gambling once a week, 19% reported gambling on a daily basis, and 26% were classified as problem gamblers.

Have you noticed that gambling is now treated like a sport?

Take a minute to go to the ESPN web site and search for the term “poker”. You'll find that ESPN Poker, is an entire section devoted to the game. Times sure have changed! Not long ago, very few people would have considered poker (a form of gambling) to be classified as a sport.