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Here's a solution for parents who wonder whether they should allow their children to sip beer, wine or other alcoholic drinks.

Many parents are torn between the desire to have their children become accustomed to alcohol, and see it as a normal part of a social mealtime, and the fear that tasting alcohol at too young an age may lead to developing a taste for it, and problems with alcohol down the road.

Our forefathers had no concerns about this. Alcoholic beverages - cider, stout, and even rum and gin - were routinely given to children with no concern at all, except perhaps for the cost. But then our forefathers drank, as a rule, a great deal more than we do. And you could tell, in colonial times, who the biggest drinkers were by the size of their apple orchards, which provided the apples for their hard cider presses.

When it comes to alcohol parents today feel that they're in a double-bind. If they permit their children to sip alcoholic beverages, at special meals or on special occasions, they may be setting their kids up, they feel, for real problems with alcohol down the road. But if they prohibit alcohol, if they turn it into the forbidden fruit, they may create the desire in their children to experiment with it, without providing their children any experience or training in its responsible use.

They fear that, when their children have the opportunity to have access to alcohol, perhaps when they go off to college, they'll have the desire to sample the forbidden fruit, but no experience in handling it, no practice in responsible drinking.

What then are parents to do? Is there any way out of this double-bind?

Here's the answer to the dilemma. It doesn't matter whether you let your children sip alcohol or not - it won't make a bit of difference in the world to their health and well-being down the road; do whatever you're most comfortable with -provided that you do this one thing too: teach your children about the full effects of alcohol.

This won't be pleasant. It means learning about fraternity pledges who die of alcohol poisoning. It means driving through parts of town you'd prefer to avoid, and showing your children first hand the glamor of skid row. It means looking at pictures of a diseased liver, and reading about a car accident caused by a drunk driver. You don't have to exaggerate anything for effect. The truth about the dangers of alcohol needs no exaggeration.

Then, if you care to model social drinking for your children, and allow them to take a sip or two themselves, that's fine. If you don't want them to drink at all, after you've gone through the above process with them, that's fine too - they won't be in any great hurry to try it.

If you show your children what alcohol can really do if it's not treated and used with respect, that there is nothing glamorous or romantic about getting drunk, or dying of cirrhosis of the liver, or being killed in a car wreck, then your children won't be at risk of recklessly experimenting with alcohol regardless of whether you let them sip it or not.

Learn more about this author, David Riel.
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