Max and I had very different childhoods. I was still playing with my Barbies (secretly!) at 16 while he had been partying very hard indeed for some time by that age. I came from a household where taboo subjects stayed taboo, whether alcohol or sex or anything in-between and had a curfew of midnight even at 18; he was treated in a very adult fashion from really very young. Neither approach prevented our tricky teenage moments; I took to lying to my parents, resulting in their cautious approach actually meaning I found myself wandering down a dual carriageway at 4am when I was 16 to get back to where I was supposed to be and Max… well, let’s just say there were a few instances he is probably not too proud of 😆
I’m not proud of my late teens when a series of sad events catapulted me into a period of time when I used alcohol for the worst of reasons – forgetting. Travelling the underground one night, the worse for most of a bottle of Barcardi, is up there with things I would prefer my own daughters never to actually do. I was extremely lucky that a college tutor happened upon me and got me to somewhere safe.
With 4 daughters, 2 of whom are heading into teenagedom now, keeping the lines of communication open is something I think a lot about. So far we’ve been very lucky; we’ve tried to be open parents, with no subjects off limits but tread a line between that and a firm, guiding approach. Of all the parenting fails I fear, becoming a mother/daughter relationship where there is shouting and silence rather than talking and openness is at the top of my list.
Alcohol falls firmly into an area that can trigger this I think. Kids who start to drink socially, in the family or with friends, are a very visible illustration that they are growing up and that is hard, even though it is a joy to watch them grow and develop. Wanting to protect children from anything that could harm them, which alcohol certainly can, is natural but refusing to discuss it and the best way to learn to drink safely may not work.
When I was 15 I spent 10 days on an exchange in Germany with a group of kids from our local comprehensive. In the town, there was a bar for 16 year olds to legally use and at our hosted meal times we were given watered wine. On the nights out, all my group got repeatedly and horrifically drunk, while the German teens looked on in slightly baffled manner. A more open approach there meant alcohol didn’t need to be abused in the same way. While current guidelines do suggest children should have an entirely alcohol free childhood, a more measured and gentle approach to learning to manage alcohol and it’s effects while still under parental guidance did seem sensible.
This fantastic interactive video, which allows you to make choices through a conversation about drinking with a teenage girl, is a brilliant way to think through some of the possibilities of how you handle the “can I have some wine?” question with a emerging adult. My girls and I have spent an hour going through the different options, talking through the effects of different approaches and discussing alcohol from a heap of different angles. It has been really worthwhile. Currently all 4 of mine swear they are “never going to drink alcohol EVER” but I expect that will change and it will be useful to revisit the video, the Drinkaware website and the conversation over the next few years. Perhaps when they ask for wine, I’ll now be able to say “What do you think I should say?” and “Why do you think that is the right answer for me to give?” and see if they come up with an answer I approve of 😉
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Our children started asking for wine at family celebration meals when they were very young – they maybe four or five when they twigged that we were not drinking the same Ribena as them. My In-Laws answer was “yes, I’ll dilute it with lemonade” – their thinking that they would be able to think they were “joining in” whilst drinking something that was essentially coloured lemonade. For the sake of peace I went along with it, though I didn’t really agree.
Gradually over time Hubby and I had a conversation about it and decided that from then on if the children wanted to drink alcohol then they had to know that it wasn’t an alcopop, and they had to be allowed to taste it “as is”. This we did, and have always done since. One sip was almost always more than enough as their faces turned inside out!!!
They are 12 and 14 now, and their “thing” is that they get “a bottle” at Christmas from my Mum. This “bottle” is always a small bottle of Babycham for Faith (classy choice, huh? 😉 ) and a small bottle of posh shandy for Jack. They can still taste anything at an appropriate time, but they have to drink it as is (apart from spirits, which are always mixed somehow).
They know that alcohol isn’t evil, taboo, or forbidden, but neither is it essential for a good time. At celebration meals they almost always choose not to have whatever wine is on offer. It’s not attractive, it’s not unattractive, it’s just another choice alongside gravy, mint sauce and more carrots.
We bought Champagne this Christmas just for the novelty of it for them – so they could say they’d tasted it. Jack didn’t like it at all, and poor Faith found that she was allergic to it!
Maggie, just out of interest, why are spirits mixed and not ‘as is’ like everything else?
My older lot swore they’d never drink alcohol ever and so far at aged 22, 21, 20, 18 and 17 they haven’t. I don’t know if this is good thing or bad yet. I have yet to experience the off their face teenager staggering up the stairs being sick all night.