to ask if you let your teenagers have alcohol

[betteliefsen]

DS (15, 16 early next year) asked if he could have a bottle of cider (4%) with dinner tonight. I said no and will continue to say no but it got me wondering if that's unusual or if other 15 year olds are allowed alcohol at home.
YABU - yes, I let my teenager have alcohol at home
YANBU - no, I don't let my teenager have alcohol at home

Maybe we could teach our children to smoke 'in moderation'?

If we were drinking yes, I’d allow alcohol in a small amount, because banning it just leads kids to drink heavily outside and not know their limits. However no I would not permit routinely drinking with their evening meal because we don’t sit and drink like that and I don’t think it’s a healthy habit to get into.

I didn’t vote, because there is obvs no in between position in the voting, but for us, yes a little if we were drinking so as not to make it something exciting and taboo but absolutely not as something routine to be had with your dinner.

The research also shows that children who are introduced to drink early are more likely to go on to become problem drinkers

What research? Because in many countries, Ie the Mediterannean, alcohol is introduced from a young age, wine with lunch etc and normalised and they have much lower incidences of alcohol problems in young people than we do.

The odd special occasion not normal dinner

@Bluntness100 France had terrible trouble with alcohol related poor health. Professor David Nutt in his book 'Drink' said that alcoholic liver disease was known as the French disease. They were so concerned that they have one of the strictest set of laws around alcohol advertising. There is plenty of peer reviewed evidence that states early introduction to alcohol has worse outcomes for people than those who drink later.

My late Dad was an alcoholic and we were allowed to have wine on Sundays from the age of 10 and 'special' Christmas drinks.

Even worse, he let me finish the dregs of his cans of beer when I was 3 - there is a photo of me on the back door step doing just that.

I had a very unhealthy relationship with alcohol and put myself in danger all through my 20s as a result. I don't drink now.

I will now be allowing my kids alcohol at home until they have moved out.

I won't allow that should say!

IMO, whether children go on to be problem drinkers will have a lot to do with attitudes they have developed by watching their parents and other role models. So if, for example, you drink almost daily and see it as an essential part of every celebration/weekend/way to relax, it won't matter that you've not let them have their own as a teenager. If you drink one glass of wine once a week, and don't binge and get drunk at events, it's very unlikely your child will develop problem drinking even if they join you occasionally from 16.

As with everything, the best thing to do is to model the relationship with alcohol you want them to have. Whether you let them have a glass occasionally at 16 is going to have very little bearing in comparison.

@Bluntness100 - What research? Because in many countries, Ie the Mediterannean, alcohol is introduced from a young age, wine with lunch etc and normalised and they have much lower incidences of alcohol problems in young people than we do

Go on to google scholar (scholar.google.com/) to access peer reviewed research on the subject. Search children and alcohol or teenager and alcohol. You'll mainly only be able to read the abstracts without paying but that will give you the highlights.

Equally, you can have a look at the research on your local alcohol awareness site. Drinkaware is one such site.

The difference is @Northernsoullover It's a lot more likely that our kids will drink alcohol than smoke these days, so we should set up a positive, moderate relationship with it while we can.

Everyone I know has drank alcohol at some point in their lives, I can't say the same about cigarettes.

But bloss people are missing the point. They don't actually have to drink. It shouldn't be a fait accompli. I said in an earlier post that I'm guessing as most adults drink its seen as inevitable that our children will follow, yet more young people than ever before are choosing not to drink.
Smoking is pretty bad for your health but unless you live behind closed doors with a smoker its unlikely to affect anyone else. Drinking causes widespread misery affecting far more than the person that consumes to excess. I'm not stupid. Maybe my teens will eventually start to drink but as I said upthread we talk about safer consumption of alcohol. We talk about using alcohol to overcome social anxiety makes it difficult to ever socialise without it (how many times have you heard 'I need a few drinks to get on the dancefloor'?). It just saddens me to think that people are giving young teens their first few drinks in a misguided attempt at teaching them how to get pissed safely.

The point is if you have a society where getting drunk is seen as normal, grown up and clever then teenagers will want to do it. If on the other hand having a drink is something you do in a social situation, with a meal, with friends, but getting drunk is frowned upon, then the relationship with alcohol is much healthier. As I live in the UK which embraces the former, I will continue to encourage the latter.

But don't you think you could go without alcohol in a social setting porcupine?.

@Northernsoullover well all I can say is that I, and my friends, have a much healthier relationship with alcohol than the people I went to school with who's parents were militant about them not drinking - they 'went for sleepovers' and got bladdered in the cemetery, parents no idea, they passed out and were often there all night.

This was a very very common occurrence, with teenagers from all different backgrounds. And it wasn't that long ago - barely over a decade - I assume it still happens today. Like I said my children aren't teenagers yet but I will most certainly choose the way I was raised and educated about alcohol.

I'm teetotal @Northernsoullover so obviously yes. It's one of a range of options but ime most people like an occasional drink and there's nothing wrong with that, the key is moderation.

From the age of around 14 we were allowed an alcopop, a shandy or a small cider etc at family events or Sunday dinner etc. I believe it made us respectful of alcohol & it wasn't then something at 18 we then binged as we suddenly could have it. A lot of my friends who weren't allowed it then absolutely went mad at 18. I just think it's whatever you are comfortable with.

Yes, but then we were allowed alcohol when young, however, in the context of a drink when our parents had guests or a glass of something with a meal.
Definitely not just gulping stuff back for the sake of it.

I think most young people will binge drink at least once at some point and i don't think what their parents do either way will influence that. Whether they keep doing it or not might depend on their parents attitude to alcohol, but imo it's more down to personality and the influence of their own peer group.

No, but then I don't drink and don't have alcohol in the house.

If a kid is going to get pissed, they’ll find a way of doing it!

Alcohol doesn’t scare me, but I’ve never lost control. I let DS14 have ciders and occasionally let DD12 have a thimble full on very special occasions. (Which she usually rejects anyway!)

I just don’t think there needs to be a fuss. They’ll leave home and discover their own limits for theirselves. Some people can’t handle it, some people become addicted and dependant. Most people don’t.

Obviously those who are teetotal, then that’s different all together for whatever reason they decide!

@LovingLola

My dd was 13 in feb, at xmas I bought a 4 pack of blue wkd she had 1 bottle at xmas 1 bottle on nye 1 bottle on her 13th b day in Feb and theres still 1 bottle in the cupboard.

Why do you think it’s appropriate to give alcohol to a 12 year old?

Each to their own but that wouldn't have happened in this house. I wouldn't be buying WKD for my 15 year old and certainly not my 12 year old.

In my family from about the age of 13 we were allowed to have a drink on special occasions (Christmas/Easter etc) but it was something like a shandy/white wine spritzer, that was more mixed than alcohol. Then from the age of about 15 we could also have a glass of wine or cider at a meal if adults were also drinking like a Sunday dinner. It wasnt a big deal, just a normal choice.

Yes we all still went to house parties and drank but because alcohol was "available" at home those parties weren't the only opportunity to drink and I didn't feel the need to drink to excess like some of my friends whose parents banned alcohol outright.

I don’t have teens but my parents took a view that their kids would drink alcohol at some point so better to learn to drink responsibly at home rather than at our first parties/in a park/at freshers week. We would be allowed a bottle or can of something from being about 13/14 at Christmas or New Year’s Eve for example. Sometimes we wouldn’t be bothered but the option was there.

I went to various parties aged 16-18 where so many of my friends were completely shitfaced with parents having to collect them early. Usually those parents that previously had no idea their child drank alcohol so they wanted to make the most of it! It actually put me off going to parties as there were so many that just didn’t know their limits. It was the same at uni. I hated going out with the people that would be paralytic after an hour and need helping into a taxi.

I think attitude towards drinking in younger people seems to be changing for the better actually with a lot of the ones that are into the gym choosing not to drink to excess.

This is an interesting topic. TTC atm. DH and I were both about 8 when we were given our first drink at home (pimms / sherry for special occasions). I pretty much always had sherry when my grandma visited. A family friend (a GP) bought me a WKD in a pub at 15, my parents weren't there, a friend was having a birthday party in a room you could rent and he happened to be at the bar. We are in our 30s so I guess stuff has changed a lot and it'll be a while until we are there.