to think that giving a 9 year old wine is outrageous?

[fannybanjo]

well my neighbour and her ex-husband (who I informed) don't. Fuckers. This is the same neighbour who beat up her 13 year old step-daughter on Sunday and was arrested and the Police called me and asked me to mind 4 children. Supposedly Social Services were scratching their heads as to what to do with them. She was then released with a caution.

I am slowly losing faith with Child Protection systems in this country.

Is alcohol ok to become a habit?

Is that not how you enable to body to build up a tolerance and that can easily lead to an addiction.

I also think its okay to drink. I don't think its okay to show our kids that alcohol is a daily habit or any other type of habit.

It wasn't so long ago in this country that children would have had to drink alcohol or die of thirst, or dyssentry. People are way too precious about this. Half a glass of watered down wine or a few sips of weak beer - so what? It's hardly a double shot of vodka is it?

so....people who have a glass of wine with dinner often are in some way wrong? on what basis?

And normalising alcohol in the correct context from an early age is the very best way to avoid over-indulgence in the future if you ask me.

Didn't say they were wrong, just said I don't think that drinking alcohol on a daily basis and teaching kids that is ok is healthy.

gaelicsheep

I can tell you from vast experience it is not.

i agree with you. i dont think daily drinking is a good habit to encourage. i dont drink daily, i drink roughly once every 4/5 months. my dcs have never seen me drinking. not because i hide it but because they stay with my mum when i go out. OH will have wine with his dinner on sunday. i dont think either of us have an unhealthy habit and i wouldn't consider it unhealthy to teach my dcs that drinking in this manner is ok.

I fell asleep in a corner at the age of 2 after doing the rounds of a Spanish bar tasting everyone's drinks, so I'm told. That was the first and last time I have ever been drunk!

but, moderate consumption of booze is healthy, or at least has never been shown to be unhealthy....

OK, perhaps I am understanding something different from you in the word 'habit'. I was thinking something that you enjoy, that you do fairly often. Not automatically reaching for the wine bottle as soon as you get home because it's just what you do- I agree that would be a bad thing to model, or the sentiment of 'I've had a really bad day, I need a drink.

I think of alcohol as something like chocolate I suppose- very nice and sometimes I really fancy a bit but I don't want or need it every day! That's the kind of attitude I would hope to encourage.

Ladyanonymous - how do you explain the drunken yob culture in this country then, with our strict laws, compared with the civilised attitude to alcohol seen on the continent?

I don't see that it automatically follows that allowing your children to taste alcohol in a controlled way within the home equates to drinking every day?

We rarely drink, at home or elsewhere. I'll be lucky if I consume 7 units a month, let alone a week.

What exactly is so wrong with alcohol anyway? As I said earlier, for hundreds, probably thousands of years, it was the only safe way to consume water. Why is it so bad now?

The "civilised attitude" we see on the continent is a myth.

Spain has a massive drink problem amongst their teens as do other European countries and France has one of the highest rates of liver disease - as a direct result of alcohol misuse - in the world.

Its not any worse now, its the AMOUNTS we are consuming.

Ladyanonymous, what is a healthy approach to alcohol then?

"Its not any worse now, its the AMOUNTS we are consuming."

totally agree, which is why i chose to expose my dcs to healthy attitudes to alcohol.

TBH, I don't understand how most people in this country can afford more than a couple of bottles of cheap wine a month, given the average earnings and the apparent reliance on Govt handouts that everyone's been bleating about. I know we can't.

Not to bring our children up assuming they are going to comsume alcohol.

That they don't need to get pissed in order to have a good time. Teach them how to avoid peer pressure, how to say no, and how to stay safe if they do end up using alcohol. Teach them thats its okay to ask for help and talk to someone if something shit is going on in their lives and that alcohol won't help their problems, it'll just make it worse.

Obviously speak to them about sensible limits - but most parents don't know what they are - most kids I work with have parents who not only buy them booze (which I have mixed and flexible feelings about) but also fags, which horrifies me.

I plan to do all of that. The two approaches aren't mutually exclusive. I grew up being allowed half a glass of wine during a weekend meal and a drop of sherry on special occasions. Did me no harm at all and I will do the same with DS (not yet as he's nearly 4, although apparently DH broke the law today by allowing him a sip of beer).

I would never ever buy booze (god forbid fags) for my child's own personal consumption, at home or anywhere else. That is an entirely different issue and the parents should be ashamed of themselves.

what gaelic said.

Agree that your approach is not incompatible with giving children a little alcohol, ladyanonymous. I would not automatically assume that they're going to grow up to use alcohol. I know someone whose parents had a very relaxed attitude towards alcohol, they were quite happy to allow him a drink with meals and he chose to be teetotal. I agree with everything you say about a healthy attitude, but I would still want them to try alcohol in the home environment if that's what they want.

Well across the continent giving wine to children is the norm, i come from a mediterranean family and this is customary in my family. Not copious amounts of wine, but say a bit of watered down wine.