Caught my 13 year old son trying to leave the house with 2 bottles of Magners!!

[bargainmad]

He was supposed to have been going to the local fair and left the bag outside until my husband saw it. We then told him he couldn't go as the other boys he was meeting must have alcohol also. He then vaulted the back fence and said he was going anyway.

My husband picked him up 5 minutes later and that was the end of it really but he has shown absolutely no interest in alcohol whatsoever and I am quite surprised he has done this - I thought he would be at least 14/15 before he wanted to consider hanging around the park drinking.

Or am I out of touch? My husband had a sneaky look at some texts - from girls saying they were off their heads on alcohol at the weekend and these girls are 13/14 also.

I think you need to let other parents of the children involved know and then have strategy meeting.
My ds is trying my boundaries now at the same age ish and will be interested to see how this developes. Unfortunately we live in a small town and that is all the youngsters do here but fortunately as everyone knows everyone here i'm hoping people would feel they could tell me if they knew this was going on with him.

Could have been worse, at least it wasn't buckfast!

In all seriousness, what are you thinking about doing now? I think 13 is a reasonable age to be showing interest in alcohol and this could be a good opportunity for you to introduce moderate sensible drinking by allowing him half a pint of beer/cider at the weekend? I agree with mamas12 about a strategy meeting though, kids will be kids and teenagers will get alcohol through nefarious means. It would probably be much easier on you all to have an action plan.

It sounds trivial really compared to some of the things I have been reading on this site.

The only thing is he's never said anything to us about trying lager or cider and has never seemed interested. I don't want to offer it to him until he asks. There's always lager and wine in the house.

Do I have to accept that this is what teenagers do and hope he will drink in moderation?

He would be mortified if he thought I would speak to the other parents but I suppose I will have to to see what their kids are getting up to.

My friend (has always given her son (not any of the boys in my son's circle) alcopops from the age of 13 and she condoned him getting drunk on vodka at the age of 15, on holiday with her. I think her strategy is to try and make it very acceptable so he won't go overboard and become a secret teenage drinker. Also her partner is a very heavy drinker and alcohol was forbidden when he was a teenager. She thinks reverse psychology might mean he won't drink to excess I think?

I really am not sure about her way of thinking on alcohol though - she always says to wait until my son is 15 and I might change my mind.

I used to do this type of thing at 13 and tbh, my friends who had a few drinks at that age (I never got drunk but drinking was definitely related to peer pressure) weren't my friends who used to get unconscious or be sick when they got to 18.

Saying that, I've often wondered which approach works best. Banning everything and almost definitely be lied to, ban it outside of the house and still risk being lied to (I was never bothered by drinking at home even though I did out with mates) or, condoning my children getting drunk and risking them injuring themselves (and upsetting the stricter parents).

I do youth work in my spare time and we were actually discussing with the teenagers last week what parents should do. They all agreed that parents shouldn't ask where they're going/what they're doing, that the best parents/most honest relationships are with parents who don't mind what they get up to and interestingly, those who have 'open minded parents' were the ones who get drunk the least and rarely get out of control.

That said, I still have no idea what I'll do when the time comes!

I have a nearly 12 year old, and until he is 18 he remains my responsibility. Of course teenagers don't want their parents to know where they are - it's part of being a teenager! Part of being a parent however means that you know (as much as you can) where your children are, who they are with, and what they are up to. Parents who don't mind what their children get up to are sloppy parents IMO - children need boundaries to kick against, not parents who don't mind/care what they do.

jugglingwoman - I work with looked after & accommodated young people and the 'lack of interference' thing is always what teenagers say they want but a responsible adult position is to educate and set boundaries.

bargainmad My eldest is only 7 so I'm miles away from your dilemma, I'm just remembering what I got up to as a teen. My parents were absolutely determined that I would not drink whilst I lived under their roof, so I just nicked their vodka replacing what I'd taken with water. Got hammered with my friends, waited til I was able to hide it to go home and that was that. Other than the occasional weekend drinking I was a pretty good kid, responsible in every other way, good academically and helpful around the house. I really do believe it is just something that the majority of teenagers will dabble in and encouraging a healthy attitude to it now will pay dividends.

If you have lager etc around the house and he hasn't asked, I'd maybe use that as a talking point and discuss alcohol consumption from there?

My 14 year DD recently was caught drinking (I saw pics of her on facebook with wine and a cigarrette). Had a long long chat with her (after the yelling and screaming had stopped) and pointed out the risks of alcohol at such a young age. Their kidneys and liver are not fully developed and drinking regularly at a young age can lead to long term liver and kidney damage - and it doesn't have to be excessive drinking either. I explained to her that it is my responsibility to keep her safe and out of harms way and if that means grounding her til she is 'of age' I will (dreadful thought). She has calmed down a lot and hears what I am saying (I think). It is made worse by us living in a country where alcohol is banned, so what the kids can get their hands on tends to be home brew - and god knows what has gone into that. We have used the same approach as another poster - we offer her a glass at home and she has a bit but isn't really interested tbh - I think much of it is peer pressure. Plus we took out eye off the DD ball as we were busy watching the DS ball . . . Why do problems come in batches rather than space themselves nicely ?
Jope you get it sorted.
dm

It's fairly usual now as most parents are not as proactive as you seem to be, but still fantastically undesirable. They can get into awful scrapes before they are old enough to deal with them and are still young enough not to care too much about the consequences. I would seriously knock the hanging around in the park on the head if it were my kid, and keep him busy doing other stuff (sports, hobby club??) as much as possible. Good luck daeling with it. You may have to approach the other parents as well. Ime as a teacher the parents are the last to believe that their little Jonny is hanging around in the park pissed/ out of his head on cannabis or glue, etc.. and shouting at passersby/ vandalising the play equipment/graffiting until the situation has got out of control.

I have a friend who is 'quite accommodating' with alcohol - i.e. until recently actively encouraged 14yr old DD to drink along with same aged friends before going to the local under-18's night, by providing a few cans of cider or lager. Her atttitude is 'they are all doing it, I'd rather she did it here than go out and drink elsewhere'

A couple of weeks ago, friends DD went to one of her friends straight after school. Parents were out. They consumed cider, babycham, wkd & vodka, and totally by chance my friend spotted the three of them at a bus stop absolutely legless, apparently on their way to u-18's night to celebrate on of their 15ths. Her DD ended up in A&E totally out of it & very poorly. Apparently the other two 'can handle their drink better'. (Mothers words) The vodka had been discovered by my friend the evening before, and she believed DD when she said it belonged to a friend so didnt confiscate it. The babycham had been provided by the other parents and the cider had been pinched by DD from my friends stash.

Subsequently a whole can of worms has been opened about lying, deceit, being 'tipsy' most times at the u-18 night, meeting boys elsewhere from where they were supposed to be, etc. etc. and a whole load of 'what ifs' has emerged.

Jugglingwoman, I'll just bet that most teens DO reckon the best parents are those who don't ask what they are up to/what they are doing, how very liberating tht would be for them! but I would echo word for word what paolosgirl said.

Yes indeed Mummyflood! Teens love "accommodating" parents. It's virtually our job not to be accommodating imo though. Left to their own devices, very few of them are entirely sensible- they're trying out the boundaries. They will do it no matter how we behave with them, but reminding them of the boundaries from time to to helps them to focus their compass a little better, and also in a strange way makes them feels the parents care. The OP's son may say his parents are ruining his life by stopping him going to get smashed in the park, but secretly he may feel rather loved when they stand up to him.

I don't think I wrote what I meant clearly (the effect of being on MN when at work ).

The children who had the open parents who don't mind what they get up to were more honest in that their parents knew where they were and what they were doing. They also don't allow them to get excessively drunk, more they tell their kids they can have a drink but aren't allowed to come home drunk. I still don't know if it's the right approach but I suspect the other parents find out what their children are up to through the parents in the know. In some ways I'd prefer if my children were going to be teenagers and secretive someone knew who could tell me so I knew if they were safe and if I'd need to worry.

Personally, I have started discussing alcohol already with my 7 year old. He and his friends seem to have a 'game' they play at school where they pretend to be drunk men having fights. I don't know where they got the idea (he says it was his friends') but obviously it's a concern when 7 year olds have the idea it's fun. I discussed it with DS and explained that drunk people do this as they're not in control of their body or mind and that alcohol can make you angry or sad but very rarely happy if you drink too much. He couldn't understand why you'd want to drink that much if that was the result! Obviously when he gets older his attitudes will change and I just hope we can continue to have these conversations.

I also have a young lady I used to look after during her teenage years and her parents had no interest. As a result, she drank far too much, smoked cannabis and did what she wanted (her parents split up and she lived with her Dad who became an alcoholic). When I would tell her off and set boundaries I found she respected me more as she felt I cared for her. She even used to tell me 'I need more structure!' at the age of 13.

I suspect the answer is to be open with your children (and hope they'll be open with you), set boundaries that are fair and understanding (whilst still safe) and sometimes pretend you don't know things in order to find out the true story! I used to mention 'in passing' about knowing my young lady had been drunk or seen when she should have been at school. It meant she was never sure what I knew so wouldn't behave too badly as she thought I'd find out. She also used to 'confess' to things if she thought I might know (10 years on she still doesn't know I rarely had a clue)!

I have now spoken to two of the mothers of the boys my son hangs around with. One of them, a few months ago, was taking alcohol and it was found under his bed but she reckoned this has now stopped.

I really do think this was the first time my son has attempted to take any alcohol and I think he is under pressure from girls he has started to hang around with who he does admit drink a lot (or at least they tell him they do).

It's the girls' influence I worry about as they are far more advanced than boys at the age of 13 and are far more capable of lying convincingly to their parents.

I get the impression these days a lot of parents want to be their child's "friend" and can't cope with disciplining them.

I definitely don't want to be supplying him and his friends with alcohol at this age. If he was desperate to try alcohol I would give him small amounts but I like I said above it's never ever cropped up.

Everyone's probably got a different story to tell - they could be very strict about alcohol and their children could go wild and others could be very lenient about alcohol and also their kids could go wild.

I suppose we just have to do what we think is right for our child as an individual and stick to our own principles on these things.