by Nan Einarson

Created on: April 07, 2008

I find this question to be more about how we teach our children to make responsible, independent choices, than it is about drinking alcohol,specifically. How they choose to drink alcohol responsibly, or smoke cigarettes or weed, or drive defensively, or respect curfews, or address any other challenges they may experience, are all derived from the same values system. I believe that if this question is addressed only when the children are old enough to drink alcohol, it is already too late to expect responsible decisions from them.

By teaching our children, at an early age, to make wise choices based on consequences, when the time comes for them to make decisions about alcohol, smoking, driving, curfews, etc. they will have a lot of experiences from which to draw, in order to make responsible choices. Have your children learned to make their own lunches, do their own laundry, make their own beds, take out the garbage, etc.? Are your children expected to do chores in order to earn their allowances?

When children have been exposed, from an early age, to making responsible choices and have received praise for responsible choices, they come to understand the difference between good and bad decisions, and drinking alcohol responsibly becomes a moot point.

In our house, our children were started off with a full "trust account". That is, they knew that we trusted them to make wise, informed, responsible choices. They received positive reinforcement for their good choices and their trust accounts remained full unless/until they made a decision that resulted in a "withdrawal" from their trust account. The level of withdrawal directly related to the choice/decision. No choice was ever so wrong that the trust account could not be refilled.

Imagine if our school systems started each student off with an "A", and children worked to keep their "A", or had opportunities to recover their "A" if they made a mistake? Imagine what that perspective would do to our children's self esteem!

In our house, our message to our children (who are now grown, with children of their own) was that everyone makes occasional mistakes/wrong choices (including us,their parents). None of us is perfect, and it is through our mistakes that we learn and grow,as long as we find the lessons and try not to repeat our mistakes. They knew that our love and support for them was unconditional. Having said that, they also knew that their choices and actions had consequences, and that negative decisions/actions would

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