Would I give beer to my child? Of course.
Wine? Why not?
Booze? Well….
I have long thought that America’s attitude towards alcoholic drinks is way out of whack with the rest of the world. CNN recently had an article about psychologist Stanton Peele‘s book, Addition-Proof Your Child, which talks about how introducing alcohol to your children at a young age and dispelling its mysterious, “adult” qualities helps them to form a better, healthier attitude about it and makes it less likely that they will end up binge drinking or otherwise “partying it up” with their friends when they can legally do so.
The fact is, Europe and other areas of the world have a much more relaxed attitude towards the entire issue and you see a lot less abuse of it than you do here in the U.S. Kids end up having their first drinks with their parents at a decent age instead of 18 beers in a cornfield under the cover of night, trying to chug as much as possible while not getting caught.
My wife and I have talked about this many times and our children will have exposure to alcohol, under our close and purposeful supervision, starting at an appropriate age. This may be as young as 6 or 8 or perhaps around 10 or 11, it will depend a lot on the emotional and psychological maturity of the child in question. We will
teach
respect, but
not fearWe will teach respect, but not fear or mystery about it, as that leads them straight to it during their upcoming exploratory years, and that’s the last thing we want on their minds as something to be “rebellious” about.
Yolanda brings with her a lot of different viewpoints on alcohol due to her being Australian and the attitude being very different from America’s. Even I have experienced a much more relaxed attitude about it towards youth. Sure, there weren’t 12-year-olds stumbling down the street in a drunken stupor, but at the same time, nobody got bent out of place if a kid asked for a sip and a glass of wine during an event wasn’t uncommon. Alcohol simply wasn’t a skeleton in the closet, but a part of normal life.
Sadly, the societal attitude towards alcohol and children in this country is led and perpetuated by mis-informed groups who have completely missed the message that people like Peele and myself are trying to send to other parents. Their agendas break through and overpower any rational thought about alternative ideas being proposed to address problems like teen binging and alcohol abuse, because, as we all well know, it’s working so well.
A quote from the article has Calvina Fay, the executive director of the Drug Free America Foundation sounding like a complete twink:
“That’s ridiculous. By allowing teens to drink,” Fay says, “you are giving permission to your children to do harmful things.” Fay also says Stanton Peele doesn’t take into account other consequences of teen drinking, such as unsafe sex and drunken driving. “You don’t have to be addicted to be harmed or die because of drugs and alcohol.”
Despite her assertion that this is a call to have all parents haul their spawn out for a hazy night of bar-hopping and gawking at fishnets, the point of Peele’s book is to instill into children correct attitudes about alcohol use, not to give them permission to go off willy-nilly with a bottle in hand. It has Jack M. Squat to do with allowing teens to go off drinking on their own; instead, this is a plan to introduce your children to the ways and means of alcoholic drinks in a controlled, supervised, and managed environment before they are presented with the situation on their own and have to make the critical choice. I do not condone my children going off and drinking with their friends before they are 21 years old and they that do will quickly learn the feel of my foot in their ass. I do, however, want them to have the appropriate knowledge and tools to make the right choice at the right time.
I will provide my children with small, appropriate drinks, starting when they are younger in age, and including many, many discussions, learning opportunities, and instruction on the use and abuse of alcohol, its effects, pleasures, detriments, forms, appropriate and inappropriate uses alike. If we see a drunk at a party, it’ll be a learning opportunity for my kids. If I give them a drink, I’ll describe what it is, where it comes from, that it is alcoholic, is a drink usually enjoyed only by adults and why, and its possible effects. They will know that having a drink means having the maturity to handle it and its consequences, and they will learn that if they have that maturity, they may enjoy a drink infrequently with our supervision.
It’s all about attitude and knowledge, I think, and I plan to arm my offspring with the appropriate measures of both in this and many other areas of life. I can do no less as a parent.
How about you, my gentle reader? If you are a parent, or plan on it someday, what are your thoughts on this different way of looking at alcohol and your children?
I agree with you completely. I don’t have kids, but I’ve thought about things like this quite often lately. I group alcohol and marijuana in the same category (as far as recreational use goes), and I’d rather my kids growing up with a full understanding of the “drugs” rather than not. I value open, honest relationships and the effect such an upbringing would have on children. It teaches them respect and gives them that feeling of responsibility they are always looking for. As long as it is in the privacy of my own home and not out where they can get themselves into trouble, I have no problem with a taste of something new, within reason. (They will be lectured about hard drugs and the many dangers that come with them.) Maturity and good behavior will always be rewarded in my house.
I was allowed alcohol as a small child. It wasn’t much.. a sip here or a sip there. Dad would even pour me a vegemite glass of beer from time to time (for those of you who aren’t australian we used to have these very small glasses that once contained vegemite and you could recycle them for the glass). Probably only contained 50-60mls. We thought we were soooo good! It didn’t stop my brother and I from binge drinking in our teens however. But I think it made us more open about things we were doing to our folks! I will have no problems giving my two year old girl some sips of beer or wine when she hits around 5 or so. It’s all about common sense and moderation.
I would have to agree – in families where there is less taboo and more conversation, kids grow up with more of an understanding about it all, rather than jumping in and getting involved just to prove something to themselves. It’s how I was raised, and I turned out alright!
I’m all for allowing a sip here or there, but my old lady is strongly against.
Raivyn: I’m not experienced in the “art” of Mary Jane, so I’m unable to speak to that particular substance, although I will probably avoid introducing that to my children at the dinner table.
But…that being said, they’ll know what it is and what its effects are in a realistic manner.
Nicheplayer: I’d be curious as to know her reasoning behind that?
Nathan: I should have made myself a little more clear in my above comment. LOL. I’d never introduce my children to “the green” until at least 15 or 16, depending on their maturity, and only if they ask about it. I’d never smoke in front of them, for fear of them developing a poor image of what it is and who I am. But as I stated above, I’d rather them do it (only once in a while) in the house where they are safe rather than a place where they could get into trouble. With me being bipolar and my partner’s inherited anger issues, I can only imagine how troubled my kids could turn out to be, and they’d eventually learn about the medicinal properties of the plant. For the alcohol thing, they’d be treated on special occasions with a small glass of wine or something starting at maybe 10, something to celebrate as we do. (I was raised pagan, so wine is very common during celebrations)
Oh Boy…I’ll be the voice of opposition here. I was not raised with alcohol or drugs in my home. My parents (mom and step-dad) did not drink. It was a non-issue really. We had family friends that drank on occasion and in social settings, but it was never in our home. Now, as an adult and parent, I don’t drink often. There are occasions where I’ve drank but I have never allowed my son to drink nor has he ever asked for even a sip — I would not allow him to have a sip if he asked either. Simply put, he is too young and my fear is fostering a taste for it that would cause him to want it more and thus sneak it. Do I think he may drink as a teenager? Maybe, but he has also been taught to be responsible and be the one going against the grain when his friends are doing something they shouldn’t.
My biological father is here quite often as is my brother and they both drink beer. My son has never asked about it. I’ve talked to him about being responsible and drinking responsibly. I’ve taught him that drinking alcohol is okay but as long as it’s treated with respect and responsibility. SO — I see what you are saying, and I understand it. Much like the European attitude towards sex (they have way less issues than we Americans do) I get it. But I don’t want my son to be a beer guzzling, doobie smokin’ waste because mom said it was okay. So I’ll keep saying, “When you are grown up and can be responsible — and you can buy it yourself.”
My parents always offered me the option of having a sip of what they were drinking, i however
always thought it smelt nasty so i would wrinkle my nose and not try it. Thus, never making
drinking taboo or something that I had to sneak. I was also encouraged to drink a glass of wine
at the table when i was in my late teens but not 21 yet. I think that’s why I later never went crazy in college
as a result. I felt way above it all
Patti: I understand your position, and I’m glad it appears to work for your situation, but I wonder if it works universally, and there has been in the past a lot of emphasis on “don’t let them touch it, teach them the dangers and that it has to be used responsibly, and they’ll be fine”, yet we see a lot of binge drinking and experimental drug use in unsafe environments. A big part of me says that is because they have been marked as “verboten” by us adults and what do kids do when they get adventurous? They head for the banned items in life…porn, alcohol, etc. You say your son has never mentioned anything about it when he is exposed to others drinking beer, but have you tried asking him about it? Maybe he *is* curious about it, or has secretly wished that he could be partaking, too, but isn’t going to say anything.
The thought of Peele and myself is that it helps to give kids the opportunity to see alcohol used in a responsible manner in everyday life and to let them try it out to soak the mystery and “forbiddenness” out of it, making it less of a target for their later years. I certainly would never, ever condone letting my child become a dope or a drunk, and I don’t think this endorses my children using these substances in that way; rather, it opens more doors for controlled exposure and educational opportunities. “Are you feeling warm? Yes, wine will make you feel like that when you have had a little, but more than that starts to make you lose some control of yourself. So in the future, if you have any alcohol, that warming sensation is your clue that it is affecting you so you can stop before it becomes a problem.”
I never had exposure to alcohol as a kid and I wished I had instead of my parents simply saying, “In general, it’s bad” and leaving it at that. A bit of knowledge would have made me more mellow when it came to drinking situations in college and might have prevented some experimental nights, or at least given me some more tools.
This all, of course, depends on the child, their maturity, and the situation. No way am I going to let my kid wander off with a beer at a family gathering and disappear for 4 hours only to reappear drunk of his nut. However, if wifey & I have wine at the dinner table for Christmas, good chance if our kids are old enough and want, they will get a splash of wine in a glass as well. Regardless of being a bit more open about it, I never will hand my kid a six-pack and a dime bag and shoo him into the basement.
Well Paul as a very different attitude about alcohol and kids than I do, which leads to some deadly stare’s. I am a bit stricter, I was brought up with plenty of alcohol around, but if I ever asked it was a strict NO!, and like some have when it was just me, liked bringing up the kids in the same way. It defiantly did me no harm, it was not till I left home at 17 did I start have the occasional one but never got blotto drunk till nearly 19 as I was pregnant while I was 18. Though saying that I have no problem my eldest 2 having communion wine a church every Sunday. Paul has a more liberal attitude and the kids now know this, not that Paul drinks, in 12 months he has not gone through a 6 pack of beer, but when he has had one, or my father in law is having a glass of wine, when the kids ask if they can taste and small glass they have no issue’s in saying yes.
I have also seen my nieces grown up in a more liberal attitude and once they became teenagers and they went to parties, they saw no reason to say no as their parents always allowed them at home, unfortunately when the parents were not there to supervise they went overboard, and there where older males to take advantage.
I have mixed concerns with this subject, and I know I am overprotective to, but like all parents I will always try my best to not put my child in harm’s way and to bring my kids up in the best way possible.
in germany you can drink beer and wine from the age of 16. but you can drive a car with 18. so with one is more important???
Thank you for sharing!
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