Is letting your teenager try alcohol sensible or irresponsible?

[Clue1ess]

I have two young teenagers and at the moment, I don’t think they are interested in alcohol yet. But, I’m undecided what my approach would be if/when they do show an interest.

I know some people let their young teenagers drink small amounts at home occasionally. Their argument being that it’s better at home than somewhere unsafe and it becomes ‘less’ of a forbidden fruit.

However, could this back fire? what age did you let your kids drink?

iabu: Yes to letting teenagers drink
ianbu: No, wait until they are an adult

“There are good reasons why buying alcohol is illegal for under-18s. Alcohol can be harmful to children and young people, with health risks including acute alcohol poisoning, an increased risk of becoming involved in violence, and damage to still developing organs like the brain and liver.1,2

That’s why the UK Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) recommend that an alcohol-free childhood is the healthiest and best option.”

The above is from Drinkaware UK

Absolutely featured. Obviously it’s not an absolute but studies show that problem drinkers were encouraged to have alcohol at home. Not that all those that were given alcohol at home became problem drinkers.

I think offering it to under 16s and giggling away about it and thinking that will stop them problem drinking with friends is incorrect and actually quite shit parenting. They may have been the type of teen / person that doesn’t have alcohol at all and you’ve encouraged them to think it’s something they should be doing. Well done 🙄

“Drinking alcohol can damage a child's health, even if they're 15 or older. It can affect the normal development of vital organs and functions, including the brain, liver, bones and hormones.
Beginning to drink before age 14 is associated with increased health risks, including alcohol-related injuries, involvement in violence, and suicidal thoughts and attempts.
Drinking at an early age is also associated with risky behaviour, such as violence, having more sexual partners, pregnancy, using drugs, employment problems and drink driving.”

From the NHS website

Don’t understand why parents are keen to push it on kids or “introduce” them to it gently?! Wtf. Do you do the same with weed?

I let mine, they had wine in france fairly young (12 ish) also I remember dd2 having cider in Normandy around 11 (2% restaurant gave it to her as it counts as a soft drink) both are adults now, one barely drinks, the other is sensible too

I've not encouraged mine, but happily shared my glass of alcohol through the years if they've asked to try it.

Both are in their late teens and don't drink at all. One could buy their own alcohol and chooses not to, as they don't like the taste or what it does to their head. The other calls alcohol "cringe".

As for me, I remember regularly buying cans of Shandy Bass with my pocket money from the age of 6ish, as I loved the taste. Amazing to think that a 6 year old could buy alcohol in the 80s.

Not sure I would be telling people if I had given my 11/12 year olds cider and wine 😔. Not your finest parenting moment was it?

@PomegranateOfPersephone

From what study though? That's not medical facts more a philosophy. Making alcohol a forbidden fruit makes it more desirable. Mine never snuck off to parks nor used fake id because it was available at home, the eldest really wasn't bothered, the younger drank more but had a taste for decent wine rather than sweet pre mixed drinks, as did some of her friends ... one had a wine tasting party for her 16th!

Why on earth would you let your small DC have alcohol?

It's not so much it will do harm; it certainly has no basis for being advisable.

The study quoted earlier showed that view to be bollocks. It doesn’t have to be “forbidden fruit” Victorian parenting table thumping no alcohol in this house etc. Just Why the hell would you actively encourage your children to try something harmful?!

My parents never encouraged us to booze at home we did the standard teenage drinking from 16 plus with Fri then settled into moderate adult drinking. .Lots of this generation don’t drink at all into fitness etc.

I’ve allowed mine to try it when they expressed interest (tended to be around 15). On the whole they don’t really like it initially, then start to like things dubbed alcopops or ciders. They get more of a worry when they are legal drinking age as they can get into pubs and clubs and drink freely. I found with mine that allowing them to understand how alcohol feels when they are a bit younger and at what point they personally feel unwell helps them make sensible choices when they get older.

Growing up my friend was forbidden from trying alcohol and she reached a stage where she was drinking to be rebellious, not because she really liked it, she just knew it annoyed her parents.

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I was raised in an incredibly permissive house hold and my parents let me and my siblings drink young and in the house etc. All of us had different relationships with alcohol but now in middle age only one of us still drinks at all and they drink sparingly.

I never did this with mine because we didnt really drink in our house (I don't drink at all).

My DCs are now adults. One doesn't drink and one hardly drinks as they cannot handle it at all and hates it but will occasionally try when their friends are drinking.

Overall I have no strong feelings about it. I thunk it depends on the adult and DC.

I hate alcohol generally, I think it's an awful drug and it's awful how normalised it is. But pretending it isn't a huge part of our society and clutching my pearls at parents letting their kids try it is just obtuse.

Not clutching pearls about it I like wine myself but reserve the right to think that giving 12 year olds cider is shit parenting.

“France has one of the highest alcohol consumption rates in Europe, with the country trailing behind only Estonia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic in the quantities of alcohol it drinks, according to the World Health Organization. This drinking culture – largely attributed to wine, which represents 58 percent of France’s total alcohol consumption – on Monday prompted the public health agency and the National Institute of Cancer (INCa) to launch a national campaign, with recommendations for the maximum daily intake of alcohol.

“For your health, alcohol should be limited to a maximum of two glasses per day, and not every day either,” they wrote, a limit that 24 percent of French adults regularly surpass. Alcohol is the second-biggest cause for preventable deaths in France after tobacco, killing some 41,000 people each year.

“That’s about 10.5 million adults who drink too much. In any case they drink in proportions that increase the risks to their health, including cancers, high blood pressure, cerebral hemorrhage, and cardiovascular diseases,” Viet Nguyen-Thanh, head of the public health agency’s addiction unit, told FRANCE 24.”

From an article in France 24

My parents are French so I drank wine from a young age. In my case, it worked out fine - I was used to drinking nice wine with a good meal but actively disliked being drunk, so cheap booze held no appeal and I've hardly ever been properly drunk.

Attitudes to alcohol have changed since I was young, though, and my children have had a different experience. I've given them the opportunity to try alcohol at home if they want to, but they've never wanted to. We live in a tourist area popular with hen and stag parties, so they've seen the negative side of alcohol from a young age (dodging the pools of vomit while walking to the library/park/swimming pool/church was a standard part of their weekend from toddlerhood) and not drinking us far more socially acceptable these days.

I do worry a bit that they might start drinking after they've left home and that they won't be able to learn their limits in a safe environment, but I talk to them about alcohol safety anyway, just in case.

Here is one by Kelli A Komro et al. 2007

“Findings: Student report, at age 12, of parental provision of alcohol and home alcohol availability, and parental report of providing alcohol to their child and the accessibility of alcohol in the home, were associated with significant increases in the trajectories of young adolescent alcohol use and intentions from ages 12-14 years. Student report of receiving alcohol from their parent or taking it from home during their last drinking occasion were the most robust predictors of increases in alcohol use and intentions over time.

Conclusions: Results indicate that it is risky for parents to allow children to drink during early adolescence. When these findings are considered together with the risks associated with early onset of alcohol use, it is clear that parents can play an important role in prevention.”

My DF, me and my DS were all raised with the idea that you can have some alcohol even in early teens and none of us had/have issues with alcohol or were/are even drinkers.

I much preferred my DS and his mates to have a drink in a safe environment at home. Of course he has had his fair share of alcohol but I've only seen him really drunk once.

And another by Haske van Der Vorst et al 2010

which found that drinking with parents increased the amount which adolescents drank outside the home and concludes that delaying the age of onset of drinking should be recommended to parents.

“Conclusions: Taken together, adolescents' alcohol use increases over time, regardless of setting or with whom they drink. According to these results, prevention workers should focus on making parents more aware of their role in delaying the age at drinking onset.”

I think that the older we are when we first drink alcohol the better we will handle it. We know that the brain is developing during teenage years and that it is a time with poor judgment and poor impulse control. The longer time for brain development, being further along that path to maturity has to be a benefit when/if drinking and partying begin. From the evidence I have seen the later the better.

We have a strange attitude to alcohol, we don’t think we need to gradually introduce our children to other harmful substances in the hope that it is somehow protective against addiction to or misuse of those substances later.

My dp and I are both teetotal now. Myself due to medical reasons, and him due to personal reasons. I have let my dc have a small sip of this and that over the years just to try. Alcohol isn't a big deal, but we'll have to see what their relationship with it will be when they turn 18.

I had a similar experience growing up, and I first got really drunk on millennium night aged 14. I looked older than my age, and I could get into over 21s aged 16. This was a few years before everyone had to carry ID. I had a few drunk nights until I turned 20 and learned to drive. I became a mother at 22, and I really haven't been out of it drunk since. I've always either been driving or looking after children. I now have a medical condition where I can't drink at all without becoming extremely unwell, so that's that.

I would like to think I will allow dd now 5 the odd drink at home when older

far better to get drunk first time at home then out somewhere without me

I was brought up with teetotal parents so alcohol was a bit of a mystery and I definitely binged as a 17/18 year old.
Recently my teen asked what my wine was like. I did offer her a sip but she smelt my glass and walked off muttering about it being vile and why would anyone drink that stuff!
Most of the teens I know are health conscious and aren’t interested in drinking. They seem to view it in the same way they view drugs, a poison for their bodies.

I think a lot of parents don't realise studies have been conduced into this issue and all have shown it's not a great idea to introduce teens to alcohol early

A lot parrot the 'it's better for them to try and get drunk at home first' line but unfortunately it's not better for that to happen at home at 15.

I don't drink so I'm not going to bother offering the dc's alcohol.
I have wine in the house for cooking but it usually gets frozen.

As others have said, there are plenty of studies that have debunked the idea of ‘demystifying’ alcohol to stop teenagers going nuts when they do start drinking. People who were allowed to drink at a younger age typically drink more when they’re older, not less.

I can back this up anecdotally, as someone who was allowed cider and alcopops with my parents from about 14/15 and turned into a massive binge drinker from uni until my mid-30s (I’m teetotal now). By contrast, the people I knew whose parents were much stricter with alcohol tended to be much better at moderating when we got older. Even if they had the odd night when they got carried away, it definitely wasn’t such a regular thing for them.

Obviously there will be many other factors involved and it won’t be as simple as ‘give alcohol = kids become binge drinkers’ but if you do decide to introduce your kids to alcohol, don’t kid yourself that you’re reducing their chances of becoming problem drinkers by doing so, when all the evidence suggests otherwise.

It’s kind of the equivalent of giving a young toddler fast food rather than puréed veg to “get them used to it” “better they have it at home”. Why? If something is bad for you why encourage it at all?

If they go out and experiment when old enough that’s on them but really weird the prevailing attitude is to encourage unhealthy habits at home at impressionable age.