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Teenagers

Parenting teenagers has its ups and downs. Get advice from Mumsnetters here.

Original poster

DS (15) wants to take alcohol to a party - advice please

201 replies

LoveBeingAMum555 · 07/06/2016 22:03

Hi

DS is 15 and has never really shown any interest in drinking - so far. He has been invited to a party this weekend. The party is at the house of a nice family who have a quiet, well behaved daughter.

Everyone is taking alcohol to the party he says - and he can show me the facebook messages to prove it! I have said that I am not sending him off to this party with cans of cider/lager. He is only 15, I dont want to be responsible for him getting drunk at this party and if I do give him alcohol I dont know who else is going to end up drinking it.

But am I being too strict here? Would you be happy to let your 15 year old go to a party with alcohol? I am going to try and speak to another parent whose kids are going to this party but I need other opinions.

OP posts:
80Kgirl · 10/06/2016 15:46

So, Bolograph, do you think there is no harmful affect of people under 25 "binge" drinking (4 or more drinks in one session) twice or more a month?

meowli · 10/06/2016 15:55

it's simple

No, it's not. How is it simple to have a blanket ban on parties/gatherings (which are a huge part of socialising among teenagers) which are going to have alcohol, when all parties/gatherings involving age15+ teenagers are going to have alcohol.

Bolograph · 10/06/2016 15:56

I have no idea. No harm relative to what? 30 year olds? 1 unit per day 5 days a week? Tee-total?

You just need the evidence. Do a good study and let us know. My guess is that half a bottle of wine twice a month has no health effect you could measure at the limits of any practical study. But you've read hundreds of papers so may have a better knowledge of the field. The papers you have so far indirectly cited are pretty rubbish, though.

Bolograph · 10/06/2016 16:02

FWIW smoking has a risk ratio of about 10 (ie, you are about 10 times more likely to die of lung cancer as a smoker than not). Proving that was hard. Aside from deaths from cirrhosis, health effects from alcohol are diffuse and/or indirect and very hard to measure, and establishing levels of drinking is very hard. You appear to be of the "stands to reason, innit?" school of causality. Scotland has poor health outcomes: diet, booze, poverty, genetics, climate, soil, culture, smoking, epigenetics, housing, healthcare differences. Which? Hard, isn't it?

needacar · 10/06/2016 16:03

My dd must be weird then as none of the parties she went to last year except one had alcohol.

80Kgirl · 10/06/2016 16:06

Sounds like she is lucky to me needacar.

Bolograph · 10/06/2016 16:07

Or so needacar's daughter told her, anyway.

needacar · 10/06/2016 16:08

She takes medication which means she can't drink alcohol so she's pretty trustworthy. Now she's 16 it's a different story but at 15 lots of her friends didn't drunk at all.

needacar · 10/06/2016 16:08

See above bolograph Hmm

80Kgirl · 10/06/2016 16:09

So, you've come on the thread, muddied the waters and actually have no idea whether it is worth our time as parents to go against the social norms on drinking for the sake of our growing children. Thanks.

Bolograph · 10/06/2016 16:17

You came on the thread claiming it was illegal. If you want certainty without facts, flip a coin.

Littleballerina · 10/06/2016 16:20

I rung the host parents when dd was that age to make sure it was ok to take alcohol. She never took much and I never got bad reports back.

PaulDacresMicroPenis · 10/06/2016 16:33

Why on earth are you not ringing the host parents op? It's up to them whether they want 14/15 yo's bringing alcohol to the party, the answer could range from zero to "we don't care" and if it's don't care then I wouldn't be sending my DC anyway.

badabadabadabwee · 10/06/2016 16:34

Who uses research from 1999? Grin

80Kgirl · 10/06/2016 17:20

Bolograph, I'm not sure what your point is. Why you want to be in the conversation at all or what you have to offer. I find your general tone to be hostile.

I wasn't the only one confused about drinking ages. I learned more detail on that from this thread. I hadn't heard about the potential ill effects of normative teenage drinking on the brain. I was initially exposed to that in this thread. Then you call it all "crap" without the curtesy of any context or explanation. Then you provided a lot of statistical bluster which I don't frankly have the interest or the energy to slog through. So we've all accepted for the purposes of this thread that you are the expert and "right". Finally, I ask you whether you think we should consider alcohol a risk to the developing teenage brain and you have nothing useful to offer.

Frankly, I'm back where I started. I think I'll believe the NYTimes, the BBC, and NPR over you. In a situation where respectable sources urge caution, and even you won't say it's safe, I will choose to err on the side of caution. So for me as a parent, it's a case of weighing up a likely risk against the very real need for children to navigate the realities of the culture that they live in.

When I asked if you worked for Diageo before I was joking, now I wonder.

MrsJayy · 10/06/2016 17:22

Dd2 never drunk at 15 I know that's true because she over shares some of her friends did I honestly don't think they all drink

nuttymango · 10/06/2016 17:27

It's illegal to buy alcohol for under 18s to drink so no. It's legal if you buy alcohol for you and they have some.
DS is 17 and wanted to take some alcohol to a party, DH had some cans of beer in the fridge so he took two of those but if we hadn't had any in we would't have bought it specially.

SeraOfeliaFalfurrias · 10/06/2016 17:32

I obviously grew up in a different century (well, yes, of course I did but you know what I mean!) and still live in different one. Or just grew up in a completely different culture. Neither I nor my friends were allowed to drink before we were 18, and at 17, maybe, we started testing those boundaries and snuck a few drinks at parties here or there. It would never, ever in a million years have occurred to me to ask my parents for alcohol to take to a party before I was 18.

I was also reading the thread where most posters thought it draconian to expect a 15 to be off his phone and in bed by 10:30 on a school night. There were suggestions that this is how a 10 yo should be treated. My 10 yo has no phone and is in bed by 8:30, and is still tired and grumpy in the morning. The idea that she should be spending her spare time on social media instead of playing imaginative games, drawing, reading and playing Lego, and staying up as late as I do is just appalling to me.

Life is long and childhood is so short. Why is everyone in this country so hell-bent on treating children like adults as soon as they hit secondary school? Are we seriously taking it as given that 15 yos can't be expected to have fun at a party without alcohol?!?! Why can't we let our children be children?

badabadabadabwee · 10/06/2016 17:39

I completely agree with you Sera. It's a race to the bottom!

titchy · 10/06/2016 17:39

nuttymango you might want to read the thread - it's not illegal to buy alcohol for under 18s unless you buy it for them to consume on licensed premises!

motherinferior · 10/06/2016 17:46

Dear lord, my lovely 15yo is certainly not 'racing to the bottom'. She has just gone out to Hang About Pointlessly with her friends in our local park. (Hanging About Pointlessly is of course a major activity at this age.)

It is entirely possible that some of this Hanging About Pointlessly involves a bit of booze. I've talked to her about alcohol and about how if she does want to drink please can this be lager not alcopops (I'm wary of alcopops and lager is sufficiently weak and nasty not to want much of it). I am not going to police her. More to the point I can't.

motherinferior · 10/06/2016 17:48

And I'm 53 and remember plenty of drinking and smoking at parties when I was younger than her.

meowli · 10/06/2016 17:48

It's illegal to buy alcohol for under 18s to drink

No it isn't. It's perfectly legal to buy your 16 year old an alcoholic drink if you are having a meal in a pub.

This is a really informative website.

Ratty667 · 10/06/2016 17:52

I'd buy week beer. He will drink.

dodobookends · 10/06/2016 17:55

My DC (17) went to a party recently with two small bottles of weak cider, and brought one of them home again undrunk.

OP - actually perhaps it is a good thing that your DS is willing to talk about alcohol with you, and if you allow him to maybe take one or two weak cans then you are showing him that you are trusting him to manage his own intake and be sensible about it.

I've never understood the 'total ban until you are 18' scenario, it becomes a forbidden delight, and they're far more likely to drink behind your back and get totally off their face at the first opportunity!