What age should a child be trusted with a hot drink?

[Onanotherdiet38]

Like a hot chocolate, what do you think is a suitable age for them to be given their own hot drink safely?

It’s a bit like bath water, you start warm when they’re young and then as they get older, the bath water gets warmer until suddenly you’re a fully grown adult drinking steaming hot mugs of tea and emptying the hot water tank to get a toasty bath!!

To add to that I think my children had ‘hot’ chocolate around the campfire at nursery from about 2years old?

Do you mean make a hot drink, or just drink one? Surely most children have a hot chocolate from pretty young - coffee shops sell hot milk & froth as babycinnos. You just supervise less as they get older.

@Bananabutter

Why do they need one?

Because hot ribena is a miracle cure for all ailments.

At 11 and 9 now and I’d let them have a hot drink of their own but always say ‘mind my tea it’s hot’ (or something along those lines) if they’re around piping hot drinks. The 9yo is still capable of spilling whatever she’s drinking so definitely nothing too hot!!

Depends on the child, there’s some adults who probably shouldn’t be allowed them without supervision! A 9 or 10 year old should be able to make themselves a hot drink, let alone be allowed to drink it.

I'm also at posters who believe kids shouldn't have hot drinks. Not everything hot has caffeine in it, you know. Horlicks? Hot chocolate? Or is it the devil's sugar you're worried about?

Mine have been having hot chocolate since about 3/4. Very milky and sat at the table. My kids are 7 and 9 now. I'm still not sure I'd trust them with one in the living room without a lid on it just yet. But they're fine sat at the table or with a lid on it.

I still put my foot down about coffee and tea. They're hyper enough without caffeine.

@Onanotherdiet38

I was just curious to see opinions really, i was thinking around 9 or 10 myself

9~10yo for a hot drink?

Are you dcs not eating hot food straight from the oven? Porridge out if the pan? What’s the difference?

In fact once my DC were weaned off breastfeeding and drank cow’s milk we always heated it up at the beginning and end of the day…

I don't have my own children, looks like I've massively misjudged.
I work with a 7 year old girl who has a habit of knocking things over and not listening, my colleague gave her a hot chocolate without a lid but fortunately she managed it ok

I find it mid boggling because at 9~10yo, my dcs were left alone to cook their porridge in the morning in the hob. And the. Eat it.

And I just cannot see the difference between that and drinking a hot drink.

If the question is about tea and coffee… then that’s a different question altogether

I don’t think my dcs have a lid on anything after they were about 3yo.

I’m expecting a child at 7yo to be able to drink without spilling some everywhere. Cold or hot.

My toddlers been drinking tea since he was 18 months, I just make it warm rather than hot

Mine's been having hot chocolate as treat since she was maybe 3, i make it with a bit of hot water, top up with cold milk to cool it

My DC has had (luke)warm hot chocolate or milk since they were around 2. But not at a temperature where they could have burnt themselves if they'd spilled it.

I'd expect a 7yo to be able to have a hot (but not boiling) milk-based drink without spilling it. I'd remind a clumsy child to be careful though.

Tbh, with hot tea or coffee made with boiling water, I'd take care around both adults and children. Hot drinks are the most common cause of scalding injuries for both adults and children. I guess the point at which you can relax a little more is when children are old enough not to run about wildly or climb on the table or reach for things, so they're less likely to knock it over. Probably around 4-6 depending on the child and situation.

I still use a mug with a lid around my 4yo DC but that's more habit than anything now.

How do you work with children yet not know what they’re capable of? Intriguing!

9 or 10?? 😆 My just gone 10 year old can bake cakes and make scrambled eggs on a gas cooker unsupervised.

@Bananabutter

Why do they need one?

Congratulations, you’ve got won the award for ‘Most Joyless Comment Of The Week’.

Heaven forbid a child should just have something simply because it’s enjoyable.

Provided it’s not hot enough to actually burn them, they can have a hot drink at any age as far as I’m concerned. I was drinking tea before I could walk. I was making tea with cursory supervision from about six or seven onwards.

DD1 is 3 and has had hot chocolates since she was 2. She knows to check it with the tip of her tongue first.

Ski schools regularly offer hot chocolates to all ages they teach (so 3+). Didn’t think it was a big deal tbh.

About 3 or 4?

At 7 I used to make cups of tea for all the adults at church as a Brownie ‘good deed’. I don’t know if I’d let all 7 year olds loose with a kettle, but I’d not think twice about giving one a hot chocolate!

About 3 or 4 for DNephew but definitely add cold milk water if not sure.

@Onanotherdiet38

I was just curious to see opinions really, i was thinking around 9 or 10 myself

🤦‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️ I assume you give them hot food…but maybe not …maybe you feed them cold food… Don’t be so ridiculous - this is positively abnormal and controlling

Children will figure out, just like adults, that when they have hot food or drink in front of them they have to take a little bite or sip to test temperature. And even as adults we get that wrong and end up it’s burnt mouths. But it doesn’t kill us, it’s not that painful after an hour, and it heals very very quickly as that what mouths do. Heal quickly. Same as if you bit your tongue and your cheek when eating. Mouths are designed to take a bit of a battering.

To answer the question sensibly - Part of knowing when a drunk/food is hot is assessing the temperature as you bring it close to your mouth and nose - that’s why we typically burn our mouths on food that has some sort of outer coat that maybe is cooler but the inside, which the act of bringing it to the mouth can’t detect is much much hotter (e.g. things stuffed with jam or sugary fruit, chips and roasties etc..all to do with latent heat capacity)

So a child is old enough when they can do that sense thing- they need god control of an open cup ( not a sippy beaker), and dexterity to bring it up slowly, and the cognitive function to realise it’s hot and take it slowly. So about 3-4 . I helped my kids by adding cold water to tea or cold milk to hot chocolate first till they got the hang of that assessment process

And for poster that said why bother to give hot drinks? Yes ideally kids could live off 1 glass of milk and then water. But it is boring and as kids get older they want to expand their horizons. So you can go for juice, squash or god forbid fizzy drinks- and non of those are healthy . A cup of weak tea is much better than sugary drinks (even if artificial sweeteners they’ll develop a habit for sugary flavours), a cup of hot chocolate is a lovely treat for kids …

As a child, I drank warm tea from my sippy cup.

Progressed to coffee at the age of about four.

I was also allowed cocoa. Hot chocolate was not a thing then from memory.

I was allowed to make tea as soon as I could reach the stove - so probably from about 7.

Things were different then thank fuck

Children at my school were given a hot chocolate at school as a treat in December. It was warm not hot but definitely not in a lidded cup. The youngest children would have been 4 years 4 months. No spills or issues.

I give my 4 year old a hot chocolate but I add milk in it so it’s not actually hot it’s warm.