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• Posted February 5, 2026

Family Meals Protect Teens From Drinking, Drug Use

Want to keep your teenager from using drugs or drinking?

Make time to have dinner with them, a new study suggests.

Most teens who have regular dinners with their family are less likely to turn to substance use, researchers reported today in the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma.

Quality dinner time – open communication, no digital distractions, enjoyment – was linked to a 22% to 34% lower risk of substance use among teenagers, researchers found.

“These findings build on what we already knew about the value of family meals as a practical and widely accessible way to reduce the risk of adolescent substance use,” lead researcher Margie Skeer said in a news release. She’s chair of public health and community medicine at Tufts University in Boston.

For the new study, researchers surveyed 2,090 U.S. adolescents ages 12 to 17 and their parents.

The team used a standard questionnaire to assess the quality of family meal times, and asked about the teens’ use of alcohol, weed and vaping in the previous six months.

Results showed that bonding over family dinners reduced risk of alcohol use by 22% to 34%; vaping by up to 30%; and weed use by up to 34%.

“Routinely connecting over meals — which can be as simple as a caregiver and child standing at a counter having a snack together — can help establish open and routine parent-child communication and parental monitoring to support more positive long-term outcomes for the majority of children,” Skeer said.

“It’s not about the food, timing or setting; it's the parent-child relationship and interactions it helps cultivate that matter,” she said.

However, the study also found that regular family meals might not help as much with teens who’ve experienced many negative childhood experiences.

Teens who’d experienced four or more adverse events in their childhood got no significant benefit from family dinners, the study showed. 

These events might include divorce, physical violence, sexual violence, a family member who uses substances, a family member with a mental health disorder or being shamed about their weight.

Unfortunately, nearly 1 in 5 U.S. high school students younger than 18 have experienced childhood trauma at this level, researchers said.

“While our research suggests that adolescents who have experienced more severe stressors may not see the same benefits from family meals, they may benefit from more targeted and trauma-informed approaches, such as mental health support and alternative forms of family engagement,” Skeer said. 

She said future research should investigate whether other shared family rituals or routines might help these teens.

More information

The Family Dinner Project has more on the benefits of family meals.

SOURCE: Tufts University, news release, Feb. 5, 2026