When did you start letting your kid drink alcohol?

I hope this is a troll, 21.

IcySexy wrote:

When did you start letting your kid drink alcohol?

2009.

We started giving our kids alcohol at conception.

Insufferable Know-It-All wrote:

We started giving our kids alcohol at conception.

Of coors you mean just before conception, eh?

Did your wife drink at all during pregnancy? Did you start the kid off on some kind of breast milk eggnog formula?

My two oldest are both over 21 and have no interest in alcohol despite my encouragement and hilarious stories of at least 20 years of piss-artistry. Where did I go wrong? Kids today.....

IcySexy wrote:

I've heard of people who have been drinking since age 6 and are in great health. My son turns 11 next month and I might start having wine with him. Obviously I'm not going to get him inebriated on his first time, but a glass a day can't hurt him right? I don't want to get advice from a doctor just to get the answer that is parroted by all "medical experts". I'm sure most of them have no clue what they are even talking about so I turn to the experts here at LetsRun. Anybody have experience in this? When did you start drinking with your kid or when did your parents start drinking with you?

2007

When hell freezes over

14 (son) and 15 (daughter). We were really concerned about our kids being popular and fitting in when they started HS, so we let them hold parties where we supplied alcohol. Yeah, there were minors but we made sure they all had rides home if they got drunk. My job was also to make sure no one had sex on our property. Obviously, if they left the property, there was nothing we could do.

In the end, we feel like the kids learned some valuable lessons about alcohol use that they hopefully carried into adulthood.

What do you mean "let?" Like when you become openly permissive toward it? You realize your blessing is not a factor that your kids will take into consideration, right? If you can keep things OK until 16, you've done great, after that there is no point in even trying anymore.

I don't have any kids, but as a Jew I grew up drinking wine on Friday nights and on holidays. In college when everyone else was binge drinking dangerously, I knew my limits already, and never had a bad experience. If I have kids, I will definitely let them drink small amounts of alcohol at holidays and family gatherings.

Every day sounds excessive for a kid though.

Asdfghjkl wrote:

What do you mean "let?" Like when you become openly permissive toward it? You realize your blessing is not a factor that your kids will take into consideration, right? If you can keep things OK until 16, you've done great, after that there is no point in even trying anymore.

To be honest, during my teenage years I felt that my parents' blessing made alcohol much less appealing, since it wasn't rebellious in any way.

I've allowed my teenage kids to have a glass of wine with dinner on special occasions since about 15 or so.

I never "let" them. Both were out of the house before they were 21.

xenonscreams wrote:

I don't have any kids, but as a Jew I grew up drinking wine on Friday nights and on holidays. In college when everyone else was binge drinking dangerously, I knew my limits already, and never had a bad experience. If I have kids, I will definitely let them drink small amounts of alcohol at holidays and family gatherings.

Every day sounds excessive for a kid though.

Same here

I don't have kids, but as for my experience - probably around the age of 13 I'd try small sips of wine but that's kind of common over here (UK). I was never massively interested in alcohol in high school due to athletics but on the odd occasion like someone's birthday in the sixth form I'd go out and drink.

An 11-year-old acts drunk all the time, anyway. So I'm not sure why he needs to have a drink. You can have a drink and enjoy the same kind of brotherhood, if that's what you want from your father-son relationship.

I can't imagine drinking with my son until at least he suggests it, which I suspect will be college. No doubt he'll drink with friends before that. But I'm still very much in the authoritative parenting frame of mind. Do a little reading on parenting. Psychology research has demonstrated pretty convincingly that "permissive" parenting isn't good. It's associated with a whole host of negative outcomes.

Asdfghjkl wrote:

What do you mean "let?" Like when you become openly permissive toward it? You realize your blessing is not a factor that your kids will take into consideration, right? If you can keep things OK until 16, you've done great, after that there is no point in even trying anymore.

Thanks for the input. My wife and I realized that our kids would be exposed to alcohol in HS, so we encouraged them to experiment with alcohol so they'd be more prepared. By hosting the parties ourselves, the kids are in the safest possible environment. In my opinion, there's only upside here. We took what is typically a negative situation and turned it on its head. Our kids are closer to us than we ever expected, they have no addiction issues and are regularly under the supervision of an adult when they drink. Someone commented about how kids won't think it's cool when parents are involved, but we found just the opposite. Our kids made plenty of friends who knew full well that we condoned and allowed it. Yeah, obviously there would be a few who would ask if we'd purchase alcohol for them, and although I'm sure some parents might have done it, we're a lot more responsible than that and never did.

Yeah, and when you wonder why their liver goes bad at 55 and why they have an alcohol addiction by 25, you'll know why.