Should you let children sip your beer, wine or other alcoholic drinks?

Yes

1 of 8

by David Chaproniere

• 

Write now Print Invite a writer™ Add to Favorites RSS Feed Contact this writer

There is one thing that children love to do, and that is to go against anything that their parents stop them from doing. The banned item or substance can become a magnet to them, something fascinating that should be pursued.

Naturally there are some things we really do not want our children to try, such as hard drugs. However, these are generally illegal substances over which, with good education and information, a child can make an informed decision when confronted with them - and hopefully to stay away from them.

In most countries, alcohol is not a banned substance. Indeed, it is very much a part of everyday life. In much of Europe, wine is the natural drink of choice served with a main meal - even with the most basic of dishes. Many people in Britain over recent years have begun to enjoy a glass or two of wine most evenings with dinner. To exclude children from enjoying just the smallest of tipples, and to make an issue out of drinking alcohol as a purely "adult" pastime, certainly can make alcohol far more enticing to a child than it should be.

I am certainly not suggesting that children should be allowed to drink to the same level as adults. Far from it: but there is nothing wrong in allowing a child to take a sip of your beer, wine or other alcoholic drink, or to have a drink with some alcohol included such as a small drop of wine heavily diluted with, say, lemonade.

When I was a child, it was certainly not an issue in my family that I drank or sipped small quantities of alcohol. My step-grandfather was partial to stout, and I would sometimes ask if I could have a sip of his "brown milk" as I called it. He would happily oblige and allow me a little drop of it. At parties, the children would drink snowballs (advocat with lemonade and lime), lager shandy or Cinzanno/Martini and lemonade. I was introduced to wine at around the age of 13, to Scotch around age 14. Brandy- or rum-soaked Christmas pudding and rich fruit cakes were allowed throughout my childhood, and I have learned to love those flavours immensely.

So, at age 43, having had all that booze as a child, I must obviously be a total lush, a red-nosed alcoholic? Absolutely not! I might have had my drunken moments at parties and get-togethers like many people, but those times are exceptional, not usual. Have I gone onto other substances, such as marijuana and harder drugs? Well, not quite. Again like many people, I have tried dope, even rather enjoyed it, but I did not become hooked on it. And hard drugs were never of interest to me. I know of the dangers, and I've steered clear of them. But perhaps more to the point, hard drugs have rarely been made available to me, are in fact in another world from mine, so I have had little exposure to them. Alcohol, though, is a part of my life, is widely available, and is a healthy aspect of family social events.

You see, I've grown up with alcohol around me, have been allowed to try it and enjoy it as a child, and so it is not an issue for me. On my father's side of the family, I saw alcohol in its proper context: as something to be enjoyed as part of a celebration, or to be savoured with a meal among friends and family, or as a treat such as a tipple of Scotch on a cold winter's night with feet up in front of the fire. Yet despite this, there is no history of alcohol abuse in any of my large extended family on my father's side.

But I have seen the ugly side of alcohol first-hand. My mother and her siblings rarely, if ever, had alcohol as children. Interesting, then, that while my father's family have a healthy attitude to alcohol, my mother's family has a history of chronic alcohol (and in her brother's case, also drug) abuse.

My sister and I fall squarely within our father's family's approach, and enjoy alcohol in its proper context, despite our mother's alcoholism. Proof if ever it were needed that introducing children to alcohol as a positive concept is far more beneficial than banning them from drinking it at all.

Learn more about this author, David Chaproniere.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.