Does your 15-year-old teen drink socially?

[Shallowhallowpool]

DC is Year 10. Doing well at school. Does lots of team sports. An age appropriate pain in the butt, but overall great kid.

This academic year he's also started going out a lot more. Hanging with a big group. Parties. Parks. people's houses.

I know he drinks - he tells us - when he goes to parties or hangouts. He comes home mostly and he's not drunk. He says he has a couple of beers - but that they all drink. It's not all the time - at all. Every few weeks?

He swears he doesn't vape - he likes his sports too much - and I know he's tried weed because it didn't agree with him.

I guess my question is - how many Year 10 students drink socially? I try to be quite firm with boundaries, but also open so he'll talk to us about stuff. Just curious about others.

I find this a very interesting discussion. I think there are kids that can do both and can handle both. And I think there are kids that binge drink and it affects their developing brain in a way we still don’t know . It is a drug after all. Its effects on individuals is idiosyncratic and unpredictable so I understand why some people think it is a risk. Alcohol is a neurotoxin.
i had a very hedonistic youth but I have a different approach with my kids. I actually don’t normalise alcohol and controversially don’t believe it is a rites of passage and I think developing dopamine hits with alcohol early can affect the brain

I was totally chilled about my children drinking as teens for all the reasons you have listed. But as others have said, round here (a leafy bit of the home counties) it just doesn't seem to be a thing.
And that's with the sporty popular straight 8s and 9s crowd.

I guess London may have a different vibe still. It's interesting how things vary with geography. I know my peers at university who had grown up in London were much more used to drugs at house parties (and I thought I was reasonably experienced till I met them)

I am not sure it can be extrapolated that children who are choosing not to drink as teens (as opposed to those kept on a tight leash) will go on to lose control totally at university. I remember seeing people like that but they tended to have had very strict parents and a very limited social life prior to university

I look back with nostalgic fondness at my partying years as a teen, but I can equally see that our teens and their friends are having an equally great time just without the alcohol.

Binge drinking is unhealthy, especially as a teen. I did it only because others would do and I thought it was "cool" to do. After throwing up in my sleep once I realised I'd gone too far.

I've learnt now I have had family die due to alcoholism, so best refrain. There aren't any real benefits. People just enjoy the way it makes them feel.