Alcohol and Children

[Hulababy]

So some expert - chief medical officer - has said that parents should not allow children to have even a taste of alcohol or they will become problem drinkers in the future.

So, what do you think?

Personally I am not convinced.

Here's a quote from the American Medical Association:

The brain goes through dynamic change during adolescence, and alcohol can seriously damage long- and short-term growth processes. Frontal lobe development and the refinement of pathways and connections continue until age 16, and a high rate of energy is used as the brain matures until age 20. Damage from alcohol at this time can be long-term and irreversible. In addition, short-term or moderate drinking impairs learning and memory far more in youth than adults. Adolescents need only drink half as much to suffer the same negative effects.

Actually France has a similar problem with alcoholism in terms of numbers as here- it's just more hidden because it is frowned upon to be obviously drunk in public there.

The problem with the Southern European model (Italy and Spain) versus here is that there alcohol is a something to be drunk lightly with food. It is considered a part of the meal. Here, alcohol is a means to getting pissed.

I don't see why people need to introduce alcohol to children - even in a diluted form. What is the point? Actually, I also think it is inappropriate for children to see their parents drunk or tipsy. It normalises drinking alcohol in excess, and is highly irresponsible.

I am not a prude, and love my wine (a good wine, with food, and never more than 2 glasses), but I think that if children are going to learn to be responsible drinkers, the parents must also be responsible drinkers.

Plus re the teenagers, that same program said something really scary.

That the effect of alcohol on young people is depressed somehow, so they can drink far far more than adults and not seem to get as drunk. BUT that at the same time, measure for measure the alcohol damaged the young person's brain more than the adults.

I have always thought that I was able to drink far more when I was younger, amounts that later in life would be way too much. Interesting to find that it was a real effect.

On that basis I would say that yes actually young people shouldn't be drinking. But we're talking anyone under (vague guess) 21 here, so that's totally never going to happen.

I think it's all about moderation. My parents wouldn't let me drink alcohol before I was 18. Mum would occasionally drink wine with Sunday lunch or if they had friends around, but my sister and I were not allowed it. When I was a 6th former, I couldn't get away with going out drinking as we lived in the countryside and I had to be picked up if I'd gone into town. I had a massive row with them about it, after having a couple of halves of cider one evening, and decided it just wasn't worth the hassle of getting into so much trouble, so didn't bother again. I went to university very soon after my 18th birthday, and drank so much in the first few weeks that I barely remember anything. I really do think that had my parents not been so strict, I wouldn't have been quite so desperate to experience what I felt my friends had been experiencing for months.

I think it's more sensible to introduce young people (not small children) to alcohol in a sociable, controlled family environment, so that it's not seen as a big deal. It's the same as kids who are not allowed chocolate except at the weekends rushing out and stuffing themselves full of it when their parents aren't looking.

I am gobsmacked by how much people drink here in the UK. I thought Australians were big boozers but we are lightweights in comparison.

I intend to do the same with my kids as was done with me. An occasional sip here and there of what the adults are drinking, does no harm whatsoever.

A beer, a glass of wine, a cocktail now and again is what DS sees us drinking and that is pretty much how we were raised as well, I agree there is probably a genetic component.

It is probably wrong that we refer to all the alco-pops as KiddiBooz, I blame Dylan Moran.

I think we're simply bored morloth.

There's fuck all else to do, and it's sooooo cold...

Plus we need to get over that famous british reservse somehow. We'd die out without alcohol to ease those intial romantic liaisons

totally agree with shinyshoes. I grew up in Spain where I saw my parents have a small glass of wine with dinner almost daily. I was allowed a small sip if I wanted to, and to this day, I have never bing-drank, and I regularly go for weeks without drinking at all. It looses the appeal when it stops being taboo. If you forbid children to taste alcohol before 18, all they do is go out on their 18th birthday and end up in the gutter.

Yet again, a government spokesperson tells us what to do without laying out the ubiased evidence to back up his claim.

I wish these people would stop treating the public as though we are stupid. We aren't all are we?

I think if the government is serious about reducing the drinking levels of young people then it needs to ban the manufacture of alcopops. Young people will drink, whatever, but allowing them to be targetted in this way; making alcohol palatable to them, affordable and the type of 'sexy' for want of a better word, advertising that goes with it doesn't help matters.

I wouldn't give alcohol to an under 15 because of the effect it may have on their body not because I think it will turn them into raging binge drinkers. I had small tastes of booze early and did binge drink - my children didn't, one drinks for England, one is as good as tee-total. Go figure.

Is there actually a reason for giving alcohol to children under 15(ish)....I use that age rather lightly, it's not that I think it's ok as soon as a child hits 15.

But really, why? They don't need it. Their bodies certainly don't need it, even if it is watered down loads. Why don't we just tell them that it's something you have when you're more grown-up and leave it at that?

How 'grown-up' you feel your child ought to be is up to you, but surely 13, 14, 15 isn't it.

There are many other privileges that children have to wait for...shouldn't an adult activity like drinking alcohol be one of them??

Let's face it: people here drink to excess in part because it's seen as socially acceptable to drink to get drunk.

AND, there is no real negative conseqence to being openly drunk and even a nasty drunk.

The police mostly just send people home or break up arguments.

In some countries, being publicly drunk means fines and even going to jail. Crimes committed get punished big time.

Also a lot of people don't learn to have fun any other way. They come to associate a good time with getting drunk.

I never thought of this until I was talking with some ERASMUM university students, one from Italy and one from Germany, and they asked if I knew anyone who liked to play cards (is the Pope Catholic? I love playing cards).

They despaired, 'No one here plays games. They just want to get drunk. There's nowhere public to have fun here in the evenings besides a pub.'

There is truth in that statement, and as long as that and the attitude towards being publicly drunk persist, you'll have teens killing each other and themselves in every city centre every weekend.

Things like minimum pricing and studies and what not won't work until you start cracking the stick at public drunkenness.

sorry, ERASMUS.

I think that children learn by example

As a child i was allowed an acholilic drink at Christmas for as long as I can remember.

As a 34 year old, i enjoy an occasional glass of wine or a baileys and my children have a sip once in a while.

I am (hopefully) teaching them that you can enjoy a glass of something once in a while and that you don't need to consume huge amounts as that is irresponsible.

I dont think anyone is advocating giving children enough alcohol to get them drunk.

I don't see the point in giving children alcohol at all, either.

But I don't see things changing here, because people see it as the done thing to get slaughtered.

I have an elder brother and sister; we are all quite close in age and were brought up together under pretty much the same conditions. We are so completely different people, not just in our attitudes towards alcohol but in so many other aspects of life. We have made our own paths, and things we did or were taught as children have not necessarily had a lasting effect on us.

Indeed there are some things I always do because we did it as a family and yet my sister doesn't do them, precisely for that reason! (And vice-versa).

We also have completely different drinking habits.

I think that giving children alcohol early on could either teach them to drink safely or could turn them into raging alcoholics....it completely depends on how the child grows into an adult and especially in which situations they find themselves (such as going to University for example).

I don't think parents are going to win, so probably the best way is to at least protect their children's bodies and brains until it becomes the child's own responsibility to do so.

We spend so much time going on about how much salt or sugar a child should have, or whether to give them allergy-inducing foods...I think it beggars belief that some people think it's ok to give them a brain debilitating chemical, especially before they have the ability to say "No thanks Mum"!!!

so that they wont think it's a big deal, and so that they will learn to be responsible with it. Alcohol is everywhere, they cant avoid the issue.
It is definitely a teenage thing anyway, the word "child" conjures up images of a small child, so its easy to talk at cross purposes.

It is all about how you introduce them to alcohol. A blanket "no" from teh government because parents cant be trusted, is not that meaningful. But obv not a good idea to give your 10 year old an alcopop to try, while getting sloshed yourself, either.

My mother gave me a cigarette to try when I was 7 - what would the govt say about that???
it tasted so horrible that I never tried smoking when I was a teenager, I could still remember the foul taste...

I was allowed a half glass of wine from a fairly young age (maybe 10 or 11 or so) if we were having it with Sunday dinner or at Christmas. Never did me any harm .

Alcopops are a different matter entirely. I just don't "get" them.

However, the thing with "problem" drinkers is that surely the main problem is the anti-socials who go out, get p**d and throw up on the street are more of a problem than the "middle class alcoholics" who down a bottle of wine a night? I don't think a taste of alcohol early turns you intro the former, but it is more easy to slip into the latter.

the problem is people, teen and adult, who drink too much and cause problems and crime.

the problem is an all or nothing approach in the UK.

the problem is 'drink to get drunk or nowt'.

the problem is no negative consequence to people who drink too much and cause anti-social problems and crime.

and the biggest problem is governments who don't acknowlege that and DO something about it.

who beat around the bush about it.

it's in the culture to behave this way.

okay. it's not the only culture who do so.

you've poured billions into 'education'.

it's still going on.

so put away the carrot and get out the stick and use it so those of us who use alcohol responsibly or not at all can live our law-abiding lives in peace.

I think the first step is regarding drunks as disgusting rather than cool by young people. It should be a stigma and people should not want to be seen as drunks.