Young drinkers

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/04/25/offering-kids-a-taste-of-alcohol/

Growing up the fellow kids I knew who grew up around alcohol most, if not all, of their lives (mainly on wineries or parents were ITB) tended to be the kids who didn’t binge drink at parties as much and were far less likely to sneak-drink it.

IMO, take the “taboo” out of it, drop the whole teetotaler mentality of the religious nut jobs, and lets move out of the stone age and into the 21st Century…I’ve never understood why someone can make their own decision to join our military, drive a tank, work on fighter jet, man a nuclear missile silo, die for their country at 18, but they can’t be trusted to buy a beer until they are 21 [head-bang.gif]

Interesting conversation whenever it pops up.
I have exposed my own children to ‘sips’ since five years old(son), and 11ish(daughter). Never pushed.
Today, both of my children have an immense respect for wine on the table. The last part is telling; the moment my son went too far was with friends and I was called on by his mother to discuss him coming home what pretty much amounted highly drunk from bottles (3) I had sent home with him for consumption with his mom and her family around some holiday. He was about 18 I guess and we walk-talked down by the beach. He understood our concern and assured me it was a one- off thing, and it does appear to be just that. He’s now 26 and can enjoy wine responsibly. I know because he is in one of my tasting groups.
My daughter enjoys it when we get together over a meal. They both have pretty good palates.

My parents did not drink, and did not keep alcohol in the house. Subsequently, when I went off to college, I had no frame of reference for a healthy relationship with alcohol. Several years worth of bad decisions and hangovers later I managed to learn moderation.
Wine (and alcohol in general) is most often part of a meal now. That is how I intend to introduce it to my future children, with the hope that they will learn to think of it as A) not taboo and B) not a party drug.

The contra:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/04/25/offering-kids-a-taste-of-alcohol/?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=Moth-Visible&moduleDetail=inside-nyt-region-5&module=inside-nyt-region&region=inside-nyt-region&WT.nav=inside-nyt-region

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2016/02/24/peds.2015-2611

I imagine many here have excellent first-hand experience. This being a (pro)wine board, there a probably many pro examples.

What are some of the seasoned opinions?

That’s because teenagers in the military are usually far more mature, and almost always better supervised around dangerous equipment, than teenagers in the civilian world. Seeing as the human brain doesn’t finish developing until around 25, I think it would be better to raise the drinking age or severely limit people under 25. You’d see MUCH less under-30 alcohol related fatalities on the road once the idiot YOLO / Jack Ass mentality disappears after the frontal lobes finish maturing and common sense with a fear of mortality starts setting in.

John Barleycorn must die!

Someone recently suggested to me that maybe the “right” answer is that one is also ineligible for military service until age 21…Never thought of that one on this issue.

the ABC has a decidedly different view on this.

My parents always let my siblings and I have a small glass of wine at dinners and none of us became alcoholics. Some of my friends with more strict parents had problems when they went off to college.

I’m not sure that this comports with my real world observations.

I had my first wine at 9 days old, and sips of wine growing up at Passover, but not much else. I wonder if the study explains why they exclude religious exposure.

My kids have had wine at the table when they’ve asked for it since a young age (little or diluted, not sips, but their own glass). (5% of the time they passed on the opportunity. I don’t think alcohol is unduly alluring to either of my kids as a result.

The problem is how many in this country treat wine in general.
If you create an mystical aura around it kids will become curious and obviously want to find out what the big deal is. If you place it on the table as any other food-stuff it becomes and remains just that. The government overstepping? What a shock.
In this case the parent actually does know what is best for their own kids.

In general I fully agree with the idea of small tastes when young, making it seem less of a taboo to break when older. I don’t think it prevents the kids trying binge-drinking, but I think it makes it less likely, or at least more likely they’ll get over that quickly.

Another positive influence is to get them to taste the good stuff - great beers, wines and spirits. Once they’ve got a taste for that, the cheap & nasty volume stuff will be less appealing.

Finally though, a note of caution. Kids growing up in a family that drinks regularly to excess, may just learn bad habits, whether they themselves have tasters or not.

Sorry but this is wrong. The “kids” in the military are just as likely if not more so to over indulge as anyone their age. They do not get any training in alcohol and are no more mature then college students. Drinking is a learned behavior and much of it cannot be fast forwarded. You can’t teach drunk, you have to experience it. If we waited for brains to mature, there would be no military as the soldiers we depend upon would have the “common sense and fear of mortality” that comes with age.

+1

Bold part for sure. Or to quite Chief Wiggum: What is your fascination with my forbidden closet of mystery?

I know many kids (me for sure) who headed off to college and all of a sudden it was “hey I can drink all I want now, no one to stop me!” And boy did we! I’m hoping my kids will arrive with a “Oh a keg of Miller Lite? How quaint.” I recognize that’s probably a long shot, but definitely preferable to the puritanical approach.

A bit from the pro side:


http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/well/2016/04/28/do-children-in-france-have-a-healthier-relationship-with-alcohol/

don’t know about that one.

“man, my dad is such a moron, I told him I only got wasted that one time and he bought it! Can you believe it?”

We have always let my stepson, age 7, taste our wine if he wants to, and he usually says he likes the taste. Only a couple of weeks ago, he came home and told us about his health class that day, where they talked about “The Dangers of Alcohol.” Since then, he doesn’t want to try it anymore, even though we talked with him about how it can be dangerous, if you don’t respect it, but it can also be delicious and fun. Score 1 for Health Curriculum.