Stanton Peele, psychologist and author of "Addiction-Proof Your Child", advocates parents reconsider how they teach their kids about alcohol. His position is that by allowing them to drink early (the author's own daughter was allowed to drink at home at 14), they learn to drink responsibly--thereby lessening the chance to become alcohol addicted later in life. His contention is that by forbidding it, parents make the temptation to binge more attractive and therefore more likely. A major defense he uses is that other cultures already practice this, and underage drinking is not a problem in many other nations. I personally don't subscribe to such a notion, and raised my own daughter to be very analytical in her thoughts and observations about alcohol. She's 23 now and drinks very little, only socially, and will absolutely not drink in situations where she needs to get behind the wheel of a car. Every parent's process with their own children is different, and it's an individual decision, but I personally do not advocate giving alcohol to 14 year-olds.
The full story from CNN appears below:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/09/27/kid.drinking/index.html
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very weird...ya know i have a lot of friends who parents didn't let them drink at home, and they turned out fine, then some who I know now that are bingers...i think the key is in example of the parents...and likely a boy will follow his dad's lead, and a girl their mother's. the adult sets the example...then again i know people who had alcoholic parents that wont touch anything. i think the key to reducing binging is the same with anything else - the parent sets the example ( i would hope not promoting getting severely intoxicated!), and then the child makes up THEIR OWN mind as an adult. People choose to take that first drink - its all the one's after it that shape their life.
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