DS 14 drinking alcohol?

[elizabethh87]

Hi, found empty vodka bottles/beer cans in DS14's room. Talked about it with him, and he agreed to stop, but nothing has changed. Goes out with friends and gets drunk a lot, quite concerned. What am I meant to do about this?

Impressed he is bringing his empties home for recycling!

For me 14 is way too young for this, both alcohol intake and the groups that hang about and so this, and I wouldn't condone or enable. I'd be explaining my concerns and the risks, stopping access to money, would want to know where he was going when out and encourage widening his friendship groups as not all dc are doing this at 14.

Coming home drunk would result in removal of the usual privileges (wifi, mobile data, ps5 etc).

But every dc is different, it worked with my ds at 15/16 after a few incidents, but he is generally not confrontational, listens to and thinks through logical arguments and likes his home tech. He switched friendship groups twice between 14-17 due to problems with them starting excessive and frequent drinking and now has a solid group of friends.