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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

It is not ok for kids to drink alcohol

200 replies

Really123456789 · 27/04/2022 02:04

Is it really only me that thinks it is absolutely not ok for teenagers to drink?

I’m lucky my kid doesn’t want to yet (14) but all friends have started and only conversation is how pissed them what to get on Friday. Getting kid down! And feeling like has no friends like them anymore.

In my opinion it is absolutely not ok. Rest of life to drink. Do parents think it is really ok? Feeling sad that kids aren’t realising they have a choice to say no!

OP posts:
watcherintherye · 27/04/2022 06:49

What I’ve never understood is that it’s apparently not illegal for a child of 5 or above to be given alcohol at home! Not recommended, but completely legal, as the law currently stands.

Whatwouldscullydo · 27/04/2022 06:52

England has a horrendous drinking culture. What we are doing - preventing sale to adults if there's a kid with them even in a weekly shop and stopping them from even being allowed in the premises at all , is clearly not working.

We need to teach them to drink responsibly as it actually wouldn't take much alcohol to kill them If they went on a bender.

Do countries that have a more relaxed attitude where kids are allowed small glasses with dinner etc have a better outcome? I'd be intrigued to find out.

The price if alcohol is extortionate now. People load up at home go out pissed and have 1 or 2 in the pub. Its impossible to model good habits doing that.

The days of a sensible drink or two in a pub are gone.

Cheerios12 · 27/04/2022 06:58

My parents let me drink at family parties that they were at from age 14. Obviously j was too young and they let me get wasted. I then had a problem knowing my limits when I was older and used to get blackout drunk. They never taught me limits or how to do it responsibly.

Cheerios12 · 27/04/2022 06:59

Oh I would like to add, I really don't like getting drunk anymore

Cheerios12 · 27/04/2022 07:00

Oh I would like to add, I really don't like getting drunk anymore

Fairislefandango · 27/04/2022 07:00

YANBU that 14yos shouldn't be drinking. YABU to imply that their parents are encouraging or enabling them to go out and get drunk, or that their parents haven't told them they aren't allowed to drink at 14. Teenagers rebel. They go and do stuff they're not allowed to. It's not always very easy to stop them.

Zonder · 27/04/2022 07:02

Do countries that have a more relaxed attitude where kids are allowed small glasses with dinner etc have a better outcome? I'd be intrigued to find out.

Yes! I lived in France and never saw a french teen get really drunk. There wasn't that culture from what I saw and the family and friends I lived with. Totally different attitude to alcohol growing up and totally different drinking culture.

Original poster
Really123456789 · 27/04/2022 07:03

Just woken to the responses and thank you. We moved and I don’t know the friends families, so hard to ask them, basically parties every weekend where they are getting plastered and some being sick (and proud of it)

yes i was 14 once, allowed to do what I liked and yes did all this, although not proud of it now and I feel I’m not being a good parent if I just say it’s ok. It’s really not ok with me. They are 14.

My kid isn’t interested at the moment and luckily we talk, kid is sad that friends are pulling away from them and feeling lonely.

Kid doesn’t feel comfortable being friends with them drinking, vaping, etc, explained you can be friends as will all do different things but you all have a right to choose and you can still be friends, even if you make different choices.

I have said you can go to the parties if they want, you can choose whether to drink or not, you have me as a get out of any situation, but I explained that being drunk takes your inhibitions away and your ability to make decisions and at 14 I don’t want them to be in that position.

They don’t want to go, as they feel uncomfortable, which I respect also. I know a time will come when they want to.

I just wish as a society we would start to stand up and say it’s not ok, rather than just accepting everything as ok, when it’s really not.

Growing up at different rates. Kid is mature in some things and young in others.

We’re definitely busy away from here with Clubs etc

OP posts:
GraceandMolly · 27/04/2022 07:06

It’s not something that parents teach, because they love their kids to get drunk. It’s a stage that a teenager has to go through; being defiant and wanting to grow up and knowing better than their parents all that.

JustDanceAddict · 27/04/2022 07:07

Teens have always drunk - not all from 14 but certainly before it’s legal to buy booze.
My DCs didn’t really drink much pre-16. Cider/beer/Smirnoff ice type drinks and not regularly partying (although he has the occasional vodka).,
DS def drank more cos of his more active social life, although lockdown put paid to that for a bit.
Plenty of teens don’t drink though, some start at 14, some wait until they’re 18.

ShakespearesSisters · 27/04/2022 07:08

I remember sleepover from about age 12 where we had a bottle of woodpecker or lambrusco light to share. None of me and the other 4 in regular attendance have ever been big drinkers. We ended up as the responsible ones who got our drunk friends home when we were older.

Georgeskitchen · 27/04/2022 07:19

Many adults don't know how to drink responsibly, let alone their kids!!

PutinIsAWarCriminal · 27/04/2022 07:20

Just because kids are saying they are getting plastered every Friday night, it doesn't mean they are and it doesn't mean parents are allowing it.
My dc are 16 and 14. We have a continental attitude to alcohol and have allowed the 16yo an occasional small glass of wine with their food at a weekend for a while now. The 14 yo is allowed occasionally a very small amount, but again they aren't bothered. They aren't the kids getting pissed on vodka in the park because their parents have a blanket ban. My dc look down on the kids getting drunk, they certainly don't see it as cool, they see it as unsafe, embarrassing behaviour.

Whatwouldscullydo · 27/04/2022 07:24

Yes! I lived in France and never saw a french teen get really drunk. There wasn't that culture from what I saw and the family and friends I lived with. Totally different attitude to alcohol growing up and totally different drinking culture

I think there's also a huge lack of things to do. I remember going to the pub when I was at school. U didn't dare get drunk and disorderly as u knew you realky should not be there and they were turning a blind eye.

I remember even 25 + years ago that there is just no where to go amd nothing to do and things are now so out of a teens price range even seeing a movie with a couple of mates is best part of 50 quid.

Maybe if there was something to do besides sitting around in a park with a bottle of white lightning you bribed a hobo to buy u.

Anything that there is that would keep teens occupied is all ££ or requires a big commitment like DodE or caddettes or something

doadeer · 27/04/2022 07:27

I was brought up in a house which was very relaxed with alcohol, we would have one with dinner etc. I'm one of three siblings and we all hardly drink, me not at. I did drink a lot in my later teens and 20s and now not at all.
I do think many teens drink whether their parents know at all. But once I got over the novelty of alcohol - it plays zero part in my life at all now.

worriedatthistime · 27/04/2022 07:28

Well drinking and parties don't start around here until 16/17 not 14

Mirrorball2022 · 27/04/2022 07:30

My younger nieces and nephews who are now young adults just aren’t interested in alcohol at all, weren’t really as teens and now as adults maybe one sometimes but really not arsed. Not all young people become teenagers on a binge. We are finding out more and more about alcohol and health: not just alcoholism or liver issues but increased risks of certain cancers too. I like a tipple and have binged in my time when younger but no more. Not sure we should be encouraging it but teens will be teens, some will some won’t. A drink to celebrate at a special occasion but regular drinks to have with friends, does that not form a habit in some?

We definitely saw more intoxicated teenagers on a weekend in the hospital (admitted to a ward) I work in ten years ago than we do now. Maybe they are better at handling it or maybe they just don’t get into that state I don’t know.

MissNothing1991 · 27/04/2022 07:30

To be fair, I would have drank as a teenager whether my parents were aware or not. They knew,but they also bought my alcohol so they knew exactly what I drank, they were told exactly where I was going and I was also contactable and curfewed

Had they not taken this approach,I'd have went and bought dodgy booze and went down to the woods like most teens my age in my area.

TheDoveFromAboveCooCoo · 27/04/2022 07:31

My eldest DD came home from school late once when she was 14. Absolutely off her face on vodka. She was so poorly that she never did it again.

From 16 onwards I would buy her a couple of bottles of bulmers for the weekend maybe once or twice a month but she would space them out.

She turns 18 in a few months and I'm not too worried about her drinking to excess when she can buy her own.

ChanceNorman · 27/04/2022 07:33

I've seen many a thread on MN where the parents are buying alcohol for young teens to take to parties. With the justification that "all teens do it" or it's something they "all have to go through"
Yeah, nah. It's not. It's just lazy "let's be besties" kind of parenting

I agree.

If my 14 year old wants to drink at a party he can damn well put the effort in himself and stand outside the corner shop until a loose-moraled stranger agrees to buy it for him, like I had to 😂

MrOllivander · 27/04/2022 07:34

I was introduced to alcohol about 11. As in, having a try of pimms and allowed a half measure with lemonade. Grew up in pubs
Went through the usual binge drinking at uni etc, now 37 and don't drink unless I'm out. Might have one if I'm having a meal but I can go years without alcohol

RealBecca · 27/04/2022 07:43

i think you're conflating the issues.

It's not that your child wants to drink, it's that your child doesn't and others do. You know you cant stop or change other childrens behaviour.

the problem is your childs values and idea of fun dont align with their friends. So can you widen the opportunities for friends? Youth clubs, sports, they tend to not be hig drinkers from what I remember. Basically your kids needs other people to hang out with on a friday. She can just see her school friends at school and idnoffernto let her blame you saying she isn't allowed out some fridays for some reason and is always busy sat nights. Hen she has to Just Say No a few times. Then they can always do cinema with those friends.

RealBecca · 27/04/2022 07:45

Amd you need to be careful your teen doesnt make societies problem theory personal crusade. They may bot like their friends drinking every weekend but the reality is either tag along and find a way to be ok with it or find new friends.

MsTSwift · 27/04/2022 07:54

You are quite right op. Dh found a study that showed that the “let them drink at home to learn” view is totally wrong. Young people with parents that did that actually drunk more and had more negative outcomes because in doing that you are just endorsing drinking to them.

lizziesiddal79 · 27/04/2022 07:56

Drinking in pubs aged 14 or 15 in the 1990s was so normalised it’s strange to think about. IDing was very lax and if you were female, you were rarely challenged. As a previous poster said, because you knew you weren’t supposed to be there, you behaved. Now ID is more strict, drinking for under 18s has moved elsewhere into homes and house parties - out of the adult domain. I don’t know what the answer is. Teens will always use alcohol as a way to rebel. I am teetotal now, but drank way to much from 14 onwards until mid 30s. I definitely think consuming too much alcohol in later life had its roots in very early drinking and the ladette culture of the 90s.