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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to refuse to serve coffee to a 10 year old?

252 replies

ScarlettDarling · 24/01/2015 15:41

Ds just been to an outdoor sledging place for his birthday party. Three of his best friends have come back here and as they're all freezing I offered them hot chocolate. One said he didn't like it and asked could he have coffee instead.I was a bit taken aback and made a joke about how coffee wasn't a children's drink, but he looked a bit miffed and said he had it all the time at home. I ended up giving him hot apple stuff instead but now Im wondering if I was being unreasonable...I don't think coffee is an appropriate drink for children, but I happily served hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows to the others which, let's face it, isn't exactly healthy!!

OP posts:

TheBooMonster · 24/01/2015 21:07

I was drinking coffee in middle school. If my parents wouldn't make it I'd climb up on the side and make it myself, so they decided making it for me was the lesser of the two evils.

TripTrapTripTrapOverTheBridge · 24/01/2015 21:09

Are you joking minifingers ? Please don't tell me anyone would seriously think the solution to their kids waking 'pale and pasty' is to give them a stimulant rather than sorting out their sleep pattern?A nice invigorating shower?Bit of exercise? Or getting them to drink water (which,by the way,if you drink enough gives you all the perks of being awake,alert and feeling energised without the addiction and potential harm..)?

PunkrockerGirl · 24/01/2015 21:11

Ffs it's not an addictive drug. That's offensive to those of us who enjoy a couple of cups a day

I gave up coffee (and I previously drank a lot) when pregnant and suffered absolutely no effects.

I've nursed drug addicts, Bogey. Their highly addictive choice of drug is not coffee. Their withdrawal is slightly more than a fewheadaches and a couple of weeks of "flu" like symptoms.

Get a grip.

Wadingthroughsoup · 24/01/2015 21:12

I drank tea from a young age, and was given milky, sugary coffee at nursery school, believe it or not. I don't like coffee now though.

wigglybeezer · 24/01/2015 21:14

I started giving a ( proper) coffee to my boys at about 10, after reading that Doctors in Italy sometimes prescribe it in preference to Riltalin for children with ADHD!

hoobypickypicky · 24/01/2015 21:18

"Hooby ...so you think that kids drinking coffee is 'aspirational'? Now that is bizarre!"

No Scarlett, lol. On the contrary, I think that some people eschew the very thought of a single drop of coffee passing their under 21's lips in a bid to join the ranks of the middle classes. I.E. that it's less about the potential damage a single cup of coffee could cause than about the image it presents and what people might think of the parents. I would give an example, but..............

FullOfChoc · 24/01/2015 21:19

I'm with you and would have refused also. I have a problem with little kids drinking diet coke too and say it is only for adults at my house, all those horrible chemicals (yes I know there are worse things, but that is how I feel).

chocomochi · 24/01/2015 21:19

I'm in the minority, but I think YANBU. I don't think I would have served him coffee either without having checked out with his parents first (just like I wouldn't have bought him a cola or fizzy drink).

squoosh · 24/01/2015 21:23

I have no issue with kids drinking tea/coffee/coca cola in moderation. A weekly caffeinated drink won't hurt anyone. I just don't think the OP was being unreasonable by making a on the spot decision that her 10 year old guest shouldn't have coffee.

Original poster

ScarlettDarling · 24/01/2015 21:25

Sorry Hooby I misunderstood your post. I read it as if you thought giving your child coffee was aspirational. But actually I think that what you really did mean was just as strange. When I refused my son's friend a cuppa I certainly wasn't aspiring to be anything Im not...it simply hadn't occurred to me that people gave their 10year olds coffee. Lol.

OP posts:

MuddlingMackem · 24/01/2015 21:27

YW probably being a bit U, it's not that big a deal to give a kid a coffee, especially as the others were enjoying a treat he didn't like.

My parents started letting DS have very weak and milky tea from about age four, he has finished off my cappuccinos since he was about five, and been having his own occasionally from about seven or eight. By about nine his paternal GPs introduced him to lattes, both instant ones at home and the McD's variety, and in the past six months he and I have acquired a Tassimo machine and we love our lattes from it (made with an espresso pod and half a pint of milk).

Oh, and DS was pleased to discover, on our last visit to McD's, that it's possible to have a latte as the drink with a happy meal.

FWIW, DD doesn't like tea or coffee, but she does like the Nesquik milk flavourings so she has those instead. :)

I recently did the opposite of the OP. DS had a friend round to play on the xBox and was having his weekly latte. As he was having something it seemed rude not to offer a visitor something, so I asked his (10 year old) friend if he'd like a latte too. He declined.

2rebecca · 24/01/2015 21:28

I think occasional cups of coffee and tea are fine. Kids usually like it weak, milky and sugary anyway.
If coffee is so evil you shouldn't be drinking it in front of kids.

TripTrapTripTrapOverTheBridge · 24/01/2015 21:29

Hooby do you think the same way about anyone who disagrees with doing something do?

It couldn't possibly be that people don't want to give their kids unnecessary stimulants they could get addicted to?

ktd2u · 24/01/2015 21:32

I wouldn't give a child coffee or tea at that age. Just my opinion but I'd do the same as you if in my house. So yanbu in my opinion x

hoobypickypicky · 24/01/2015 21:32

I'm sure you weren't aspiring to be anything you're not Scarlett. You're not coming across as someone who does, just as someone who got caught on the hop with what was for her an unusual request. Some people are definitely of the type who'd like to impress or fit in by flashing what they believe to be their middle class credentials, I'm convinced of this. You only have to mention Gregs on here to see it!

PincPengwin · 24/01/2015 21:35

I was given coffee in my bottle when I was young, my mum says it was cause I always tried to rob off with her brews when I was toddling round. A very, very milky coffee with no sugar mind... No wonder I grew up to have a major caffeine addiction and had major withdrawal symptoms when cutting it out...

fredfredgeorgejnr · 24/01/2015 21:35

Ignoring the should they have coffee or not angle... but what age do you start treating guests in your house as adults and not children? I assume no-one would decline a reasonable request from an adult guest in their house, why is it okay to deny a request of a 10 year old?

fatlazymummy · 24/01/2015 21:36

I don't find coffee addictive at all. I gave it up for a couple of months in the summer (hot flushes) with no withdrawal symptoms whatsoever.
I know some people have a problem with caffeine withdrawal when they stop drinking coke, but thats usually those who drink a couple of litres a day, rather than the odd can.

squoosh · 24/01/2015 21:38

Because they're 10.

I'd be happy to indulge most reasonable requests made by someone from 15 years up, as long as they weren't an arse.

squoosh · 24/01/2015 21:40

fatlazymummy Diet Coke is even worse, I don't know what ingredient is in it that makes it torture for daily Diet Cokers to give it up. Can't be just caffeine.

Readaholic · 24/01/2015 21:48

Surely coffee has a lot more caffeine than your average cup of tea???? I would have said no also so with you on this one. I worked in a coffee shop once and although it was not illegal to give a child a coffee we were advised not to sell it unless an adult was present. We had babyccinos as an alternative

Bogeyface · 24/01/2015 21:51

I've nursed drug addicts, Bogey. Their highly addictive choice of drug is not coffee. Their withdrawal is slightly more than a fewheadaches and a couple of weeks of "flu" like symptoms.

And?! Just because heroin addicts really suffer withdrawal doesnt mean that caffeine isnt an addictive substance that also causes withdrawal albeit on a much less pronounced basis.

Anyone who says that caffeine isnt addictive is a fool, it is defined as such in the UK and other countries. Continued consumption leads to increased tolerance which is why caffeine addicts (as I used to be) need a massively strong cup just to get going in the morning. Once I packed it in, I didnt need that kickstart and I realised that it wasnt the coffee that was waking me up, it was the coffee that was stopping me waking up properly in the first place.

Readaholic · 24/01/2015 21:52

Also I read above somewhere caffeine being addictive? In some cases over consumption can cause addictive like patterns. I know this sounds dull by My sister for one drank so much coke day to day, if she didn't have one can fit a few hours she would suffer dreadful headaches. We slowly had to ween her off the stuff

Bogeyface · 24/01/2015 21:56

It also strikes me as amusing that a parent handing a child a can of red bull is judged as appalling on MN, yet depending on the type of coffee it can have less caffeine than a coffee which is deemed ok. As this place was serving its chocolate a la Costa, its reasonable to assume that it would be espresso shots in milk. I would rather you gave my child the red bull!

MuddlingMackem · 24/01/2015 21:56

I didn't know that I would suffer withdrawal when, as a teenager, I had to give up chocolate as it was giving me migraines. I really wasn't prepared for it at all.

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