It is not ok for kids to drink alcohol

[Really123456789]

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!

@UndertheCedartree I've said he should try to avoid spirits, but I've also said that if he gets himself into any situation where he needs us to come and get him for whatever reason, we will do that with no judgment.

We will look back on these days of feeding kids alcohol in the same way pregnant mothers would happily chain smoke in the 60s and 70s. Progress leads to greater awareness.

I’d have a drink from 12/13. My parents bought me sours and similar from 14 to go to other kids’ houses. We often actually ended up in the park.

After GCSEs I drank spirits. I went out maybe 2 times a week during sixth form and 4-5 in 1st year university (normal compared to everyone around me). I’m 23 and haven’t had a drink since I was 19 except one cocktail this Christmas.

I got it all out of my system without taking it too far and my parents always knew what I had and how much I’d drank

I don't live in the UK, but grew up there (and was allowed wine etc. by parents in a social/dinner party context).
The discernible difference I can see between the UK and other places appears to be the context. I do not know of any other country (in Europe) where the pub is the social hub of the community.
We learned about wine etc. in the context of wine with food, either in restaurants or on holiday doing tastings and then later looking for the right wine to pair with food we had cooked.
There was never any race to get drunk, far from it, and there was never any pressure to have an alcoholic drink if not inclined.
Mind you there were no alcopops or manufactured drinks aimed at the teen market either.

I will add I don’t think I’d do the same for my kids but lots of my peers were taking drugs which I never touched so this was definitely a better alternative.

so many stood outside of shops asking strangers to buy them god knows what. It’s difficult to navigate as if teens want it they will get it. I do think you shouldn’t make it easy for them

I think you assessment is very fair felicity

Wine pairing and tasting is very different from downing shots and drinking cans of cider to get through an evening. The motivations are different. One is to eliminate pain and stress, the other is appreciation.

someone sounds as though they might hve a problem and trying to normalise

There is a difference between drinking alcohol and getting leathered. I was allowed wine at home pretty much from age 12 (didn't like it at that age) and as I got older, the glass got bigger. So once I was 16/17 and going out with friends etc, alcohol was no big deal. My cousins, on the other hand, were banned from it, so once they hit college age and could do what they wanted, they were getting drunk every weekend!

My parents let me have alcohol like that. Soon I was binge drinking and drinking ever bigger amounts of alcohol. I really don't see how parents letting you have alcohol at as a kid stops you using it recklessly.

mari With respect I think you are missing the point, no one is 'banning' anything. We are just being respectful of our teens choices not to drink. If a teen does not drink due to free will, they are very very unlikely to wish to get leathered at college. Banning and not introducing are entirely different!

I'm a dreadful mother. I allowed mine fruit cider or a glass of wine from age 14, usually with a meal, sometimes in the evening.

I allowed them to drink a little when they had events, we talked about limits and personal safety and how alcohol can affect your judgement. We also talked about taking care of your friendship group.

Dd is my youngest at 17. When she was 16 on New Years Eve my dsil brought lots of flavoured vodka from Poland so we spent the night drinking shots. Dd included. It was a safe environment for her to find her limits- she stopped drinking before us through choice. This New Year she spent with friends and had a couple of ciders.

Ds1(21) is at university and as far as I'm away only drunk to excess a few times and all were with friends. They take it in turns to be the sober/ light drinker to get everyone home safely.

Ds2 (20), lives at home, has a good job, loves whisky and has never gone out and drunk to excess.

None of them drink if they have work/college/university the next day or if they know they have to drive the next morning or later that day.

Our approach on their education on alcohol seems to have had a positive effect so I disagree that allowing dc to drink at 14 is intrinsically bad.

I was also encouraged to drink from a young age. I got blind drunk on nights out and then moved onto drugs. Drinking young does not protect you from alcohol misuse.

You are promoting building up alcohol tolerance in children?!!!!!

It is just a real eye opener this thread.

Building tolerance
Teaching moderation
Preparing for university
Special occasion cider

Do parents actually believe this is what they are doing? With all the awareness we have now. I find it absolutely baffling that people are justifying and excusing their choices. It is like a different world, I know of no one at all serving 13/14 year old alcohol. Absolutely no one and if a parent asked me if was okay at a party the answer would be no and I would be very surprised and slightly unnerved that the subject had even come up.

Actually I strongly feel that teaching your child to drink is way better than just letting them on their own at 18.

Any other adult only experiences you feel the need to teach them? Maybe our society wouldn’t have such a problem with drinking if we didn’t teach our children to drink and instead taught them not to.

My parents were fairly relaxed about alcohol. We could have wine with meals if we wanted and as teenagers they were ok if we had a couple of beers or cider when we went out. My mum wasn’t a drinker and made it clear that this was an option too. My two siblings and I have completely different attitudes to alcohol. The other two did the drunk teen thing, I didn’t. Our attitudes to alcohol were shaped by our young adult experiences. My brother was in the services so drinks like a fish, my sister’s first live in relationship was with a guy who drank to excess on nights out and regularly in the home, she still does that now. I was a student with absolutely no money who worked in bars so didn’t drink that often. I have rarely been drunk in my life and I haven’t had a drink in about 15 years as I hate hangovers.

In my group of school friends there was the whole range of strict no drinking parents and relaxed, anything goes parents, looking at how they are as adults there is absolutely no link between their parents attitudes to alcohol as adults.

The myth of “you need to teach them to drink” only serves to introduce children to alcohol in a way that can be damaging to a growing body’s health.

Not for you rose but that is lucky, for millions of others that is precisely how their drinking problem started. The idea that no fun can be had without a few drinks is the problem.

Sure, but that's not what I'm teaching them. People are oddly assuming that people allow their teens a drink without any other parenting going on or life skills being taught. My parenting style is to be relaxed about things generally so nothing becomes a forbidden fruit, and to teach them how to be sensible and have good common sense and not be so unreasonably strict that they go off the rails at the first chance of freedom, whether it's with alcohol or food or anything else in life. And I also model good behaviour myself - everything in moderation, living a healthy lifestyle with plenty of exercise, providing them with a stable, kind and loving home life. I'm not saying they will never go off the rails or have a problem with addiction but I'm doing my best in every area to produce well-rounded, healthy, confident and content young women.

I don't believe in "teaching them to drink" or "building up a tolerance" either, FWIW. That wasn't my argument.

My mum completely took the cool and taboo factor out of drink and drugs for me, I rebelled by staying in my room listening to sad indie music lol

Pubs aren't the heart of the community in the UK any more and people drinking in a pub is largely not the issue (other than with the social problems some areas have)- people mostly drink at home and that can be an issue.

When i was thag age i used to go out and get pissed, my parents certainly didnt allow it and they didnt even know i was doing it.

Teenagers are sneaky and your niave if you think they're all being allowed to drink

it's the whole culture of selling kids the idea that large quantities of alcohol are required to cope with the stresses of normal life and to have fun.

I agree. Anyone who doesn’t drink is seen as some sort of killjoy. I love a night out and can have fun without having a drink. I can wind down after a stressful day without having a drink. I remember talking to a young lad at work after yet another “funny” story about his night where he spent it getting drunk with his friends. I asked him if he ever spent time with them without them being drunk and he couldn’t remember if he had. I asked him if he ever wondered why he needed to be drunk to have a good time with them.

rose forbidden fruit makes it sound enticing, when for lots of teens it is seen for what it is a chemical that is poisonous to the human body. Not every teen sees it as something exciting or interesting, many show a fair amount of indifference.
Your early introduction to the children prevented them from having the opportunity to explore life without alcohol in fact, you took away the decision that was theirs to make as they matured, to consider a life without drinking however moderate. By installing drinking moderately into the heart of the family, and making things 'special' you have indeed elevated its status.
A stable home and a loving home are wonderful things to offer any child, but also autotomy about what goes into their bodies, choices and values that are different from yours and modelling no drinking as a perfectly acceptable choice too.
Today many teens think drinking is harmful and they are not wrong.

Pubs aren't the heart of the community in the UK any more and people drinking in a pub is largely not the issue (other than with the social problems some areas have)- people mostly drink at home and that can be an issue.

By 2025, 63% of spending and 41% of volume consumption in the Alcoholic Drinks market will be attributable to out-of-home consumption. So, the split is fairly even.

It is the addictive quality of alcohol that makes it so dangerous, and with the mental health explosion and lack of support and care available, the combination is very risky for young people.