Marguerite
Active Member
It IS hard. And Fran's point about the law is important too. In Australia the legal age is 18. But our kids can't get a drivers licence until 17 and are then on provisional licence (no blood alcohol allowed while driving at all - they even have to be careful of cough medicine). So there are bound to be cultural differences.
To allow OUR underage child A SIP in our own home can be argued, legally, the way we did it. If we allowed enough to be endangering the child we could be charged but parents are allowed a little discretion. But any other kid not ours - not on because we are not the parents. Example - my sister left her toddler son with neighbours for a few minutes while she ran home to get something out of the oven. When she came back she found the neighbours dipping the boy's dummy into their beers and putting it in his mouth. She was furious - so would I have been. And totally unacceptable to do this, a toddler cannot make complex judgements about something he hasn't the capacity to understand.
So of course 18th birthday parties are traditionally a time for getting the birthday kid totally wasted. I hate it and try to sabotage it when I can - I told my kids, "You're 18, which means you're believed to be responsible enough to know to not overdo it, so don't overdo it just because you now can legally, and just because your friends want to have fun at your expense."
What we did was what we did, in our country with our cultural differences to many other places, and with our laws. A lot of people think of Australia as a nation of alcoholics, but I think the per capita consumption of alcohol is actually not that high. The trouble is, I think most of it is drunk by kids and young adults at parties.
Here, if your house is hosting a party and underage kids are drinking there (that is underage kids not your own) you can be charged. Adults who openly allow alcohol to be brought into their home, or who bring it in themselves for the express purpose of fuelling an underage drinking party - they would be charged. If it can be shown that all the alcohol was brought in by gatecrashers (a big problem in our society) and the police were called, the parents are NOT charged.
Getting hold of bulk drink underage is a big problem for us. A lot of shops don't ask for ID when they should. Often a person who works in the shop deliberately breaks the law. Or the kids beg someone old enough to buy the grog for them. Or they steal it from the shop or their parents.
When we've given our kids a sip at a young age, we've found it really works as aversion. They get no more than a sip, so they don't get any 'buzz'. But generally the taste puts them off and they are happy to go back to drinking lemonade out of a champagne flute on special occasions. And since I'm also drinking the lemonade (or the water) they don't associate the alcoholic drink with something all adults do. But at least they stop begging to be let into this big adult 'secret society' and are less inclined to sneak some for a taste.
It does seem that whatever we do, kids will try to find out for themselves. When they do this will depend on a lot of things, including what sort of supervision/support they have had, what sort of parental example they have had, what sort of friends they hang out with and sometimes - what sort of kids they are, independent of everything else.
But over all, I do like Stressed's methods. I showed that post to difficult child 1, whose advice is, "Let the kids find out about alcohol at home where it is safe. I've seen too many of my friends experiment with absolutely no idea of what they were playing with." But he now knows about the perils of pink nail polish, he's forewarned. Not that he's a problem with alcohol - I suspect some of his drunken mates are in for a shock at their next sleepover!
Marg
To allow OUR underage child A SIP in our own home can be argued, legally, the way we did it. If we allowed enough to be endangering the child we could be charged but parents are allowed a little discretion. But any other kid not ours - not on because we are not the parents. Example - my sister left her toddler son with neighbours for a few minutes while she ran home to get something out of the oven. When she came back she found the neighbours dipping the boy's dummy into their beers and putting it in his mouth. She was furious - so would I have been. And totally unacceptable to do this, a toddler cannot make complex judgements about something he hasn't the capacity to understand.
So of course 18th birthday parties are traditionally a time for getting the birthday kid totally wasted. I hate it and try to sabotage it when I can - I told my kids, "You're 18, which means you're believed to be responsible enough to know to not overdo it, so don't overdo it just because you now can legally, and just because your friends want to have fun at your expense."
What we did was what we did, in our country with our cultural differences to many other places, and with our laws. A lot of people think of Australia as a nation of alcoholics, but I think the per capita consumption of alcohol is actually not that high. The trouble is, I think most of it is drunk by kids and young adults at parties.
Here, if your house is hosting a party and underage kids are drinking there (that is underage kids not your own) you can be charged. Adults who openly allow alcohol to be brought into their home, or who bring it in themselves for the express purpose of fuelling an underage drinking party - they would be charged. If it can be shown that all the alcohol was brought in by gatecrashers (a big problem in our society) and the police were called, the parents are NOT charged.
Getting hold of bulk drink underage is a big problem for us. A lot of shops don't ask for ID when they should. Often a person who works in the shop deliberately breaks the law. Or the kids beg someone old enough to buy the grog for them. Or they steal it from the shop or their parents.
When we've given our kids a sip at a young age, we've found it really works as aversion. They get no more than a sip, so they don't get any 'buzz'. But generally the taste puts them off and they are happy to go back to drinking lemonade out of a champagne flute on special occasions. And since I'm also drinking the lemonade (or the water) they don't associate the alcoholic drink with something all adults do. But at least they stop begging to be let into this big adult 'secret society' and are less inclined to sneak some for a taste.
It does seem that whatever we do, kids will try to find out for themselves. When they do this will depend on a lot of things, including what sort of supervision/support they have had, what sort of parental example they have had, what sort of friends they hang out with and sometimes - what sort of kids they are, independent of everything else.
But over all, I do like Stressed's methods. I showed that post to difficult child 1, whose advice is, "Let the kids find out about alcohol at home where it is safe. I've seen too many of my friends experiment with absolutely no idea of what they were playing with." But he now knows about the perils of pink nail polish, he's forewarned. Not that he's a problem with alcohol - I suspect some of his drunken mates are in for a shock at their next sleepover!
Marg
