To not want my kids to drink mocktails or AF beer?

[Thesenderofthiscard]

On holiday with grp of friends - oldest kids are 13, youngest 8.
the 5 teens have been asking for ‘mocktails’ when we’re out at cafes/ restaurants- Virgin bloody Mary’s, Virgin mojitos - and now the little one want them too.

I’m REALLY uncomfortable with this- Have said no to my teen so now I’m the worst parent in the world. I’m not happy with the normalising of drinking = fun or being ‘grown up’ at this age.
ine of the dad’s told me in need to get real, and for an AF beer for his 13 old son.
I ask him if he’d let his son have a ‘fake’ vale or cigarette and all he’ll broke lose.

oh, and not to mention these drinks are €8/10 a pop as they’re meant for no- drinking adults

YABU - lighten up! Let them feel like grown ups

YANBU - They’re too young to be pretending to drink.

Yabu

I remember taking dd to TGI for her birthday when she'd just started secondary school and she was delighted with a mocktail. They are expensive so a special occasion drink but she was delighted. She is now an adult with no drinking issues.

I’m not saying they’re going to grow up to be addicts, I’m saying I think they’re too young to be normalising drinking,
AF beer is not fruit juice, it look a like any bottle of beer until you read the detail in the label. It looks like beer. It smells like beer.
The mocktails aren’t ‘Spider-Man mocktails’ they look exactly like the one with rum.
So much so that when the waiter was dishing out the real and fake ones, he wasn’t sure on one - so parent took a sip to check before the kid got it.
This wasn’t at some kids club, we were in a restaurant.

I think if you're sufficiently concerned about not encouraging drinking, it's a little hypocritical of you to be taking your children to places where that's the primary focus of the evening, and in the company of adults who drink.
If you're exposing your children to adults having a whale of a time while drinking, then the alcohol as desirable horse will have already bolted. A pretty coloured soft drink with a sparkler in it will be neither here nor there.

Do what you want but stop thinking it's some kind of better parenting

I'd say yes to a mocktail and no to the non alcoholic beer.
A mocktail is juice, the beer looks like grown up alcohol as it normally comes in a beer bottle or a pint and I'd be mortified.

I think there is a big difference between alcohol free beers and spirits and an elaborate drink made of fruit juices and decorated with umbrellas and straws.

I would be happy for a younger child to have the latter but not the former. TBH children are not going to like AF beers or spirits anyway I expect.

Interestingly, as I found out the other day when buying a couple cans of Lucky Saint at a self checkout, supermarkets seem to place the same restrictions on the purchase of AF beers as normal beer.

I've let mine have mock tails since they were little. They are soft drinks.

I wouldn't let them have low alchohol drinks till 14/15

They still exists they sell them in home and bargain and most corner shops.

A rum and coke can look awfully like a glass of coke. Ditto a vodka lemonade and a lemonade.

Would you have stopped the kids drinking the sodas had the table ordered spirits and mixers?

I get your point on the AF beer. But with the mocktails I think you're overreacting and cheating your kids out of some delicious overpriced drinks.

I was uncomfortable seeing our three year old DGS with a Nojito at a family occasion recently. That just felt wrong, but for teens I would not be so concerned. At their age I was drinking cans of Shandy Bass (remember that?)

I don't alcohol, but most mocktails are way too sweet for me anyway.

Yabu it's not normalising alcohol as it's not alcohol. It's a fun juice mix that's a holiday novelty. Definitely lighten up!

Agreed. Alcohol is an accepted part of many cultures. The most important lesson a child could learn is how to self moderate and not develop a dependency on it.

I grew up in a teetotal household, and don't have a great handle on where my limits are - at early 40s I've only been drinking for a few years, so I'm learning. I'm trying to show my teens by example that I don't need a drink to enjoy myself, and I don't need a lot of drink, either. This is more important to me than being po-faced about drinking entirely. I let my 13yo have a sip of wine (hates it!) and we chat about how the flavours are quite grown-up, etc.

Mocktails fine - bloody expensive obvs - but fun and harmless on occasion

Fake alcohol - no, not appropriate

I always had the rule "a fancy drink or a pudding" - I drink alcohol and do not have pudding whilst DH is tea total and loves a pudding so this worked well for us 😂

It’s up to you but your kids will most likely still go out and drink for fun when they’re older mocktails or no mocktails.

The comparison to the fake fags is a good one, I remember those as sweets when I was little and one has to ask why we dont sell those to kids anymore?

You can still buy them - rebranded

How many of you let the kids have tattoos? Albeit fake ones?

Ds is 13 and on a recent holiday asked to try a Nojito and loved it. We had a drink package which included them so he had a couple each evening as a change from lemonade or squash.

If you don't want your kids to have mocktails then fair enough, you are their parent.

But you were being very unreasonable for judging one of the other parents for buying his child an alcohol free beer.

No I was joking 😂

The only thing that puts me off mocktails for children is the price of them.

I make mocktails at home. Fruit juice, sparkling water, crushed ice. Glacé cherries and pineapple on cocktail sticks with mini umbrellas. It’s fun and dc quite like designing/ naming slightly ridiculous concoctions. I would not be happy with alcohol free alternatives like af beer or seedlip af gin type stuff.

I don't even think it's unhealthy to normalise one or two alcoholic drinks with a meal on a special occasion like a holiday - that's actually a very healthy and responsible approach to alcohol, isn't it?

Teaching them unhealthy approaches to alcohol would look more like lining up shot glasses and have them downing multiple shots of cola, or drinking to excess in front of them yourselves.

Mocktails, i.e. ones with no alcohol free substitute spirit, I’m fine with as it’s just fruit juice.
However, drinks that are still made to taste like their alcohol counterparts, definitely not

This. The adults drinking around them will be far more influential and normalising than having a fancy fruit drink.

Of course she's not being serious!

Phew!