TIME: Should You Drink with Your Kids?

[question everything]

Thursday, Jun. 19, 2008
Should You Drink with Your Kids?
By John Cloud/San Diego
TIME

(snip)


Ray DiCiccio is a well-tanned, mild, bespectacled 60-year-old who has served as executive director of the San Diego County Alcohol-Policy Panel since its founding in 1994. The organization is a county-funded nonprofit whose main mission is to reduce underage drinking, although in pursuit of that goal DiCiccio often fights for policies that restrict adult drinking as well... DiCiccio and his top deputy, Patty Drieslein, feel that the alcohol industry has become so powerful that American culture has turned into a binge-drinking culture... Like many other people in recovery, DiCiccio and Drieslein--and by extension the county organization they run--take an all-or-nothing approach to alcohol. The policy panel and many groups like it around the country now maintain that all kids should wait until they turn 21 before having their first drink. That may sound uncontroversial; after all, isn't underage drinking illegal? Actually, no. When Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act in 1984, it explicitly allowed kids to drink at home or in "private clubs or establishments." Similarly, under most state laws, it's legal for those under 21 to consume alcohol under certain conditions. Only six states, mostly rural ones, ban underage alcohol consumption completely.

(snip)

So in the '90s, DiCiccio and other alcohol officials around the country began to shift their focus from education to what is known as environmental prevention--banning alcohol in public places, for instance, or restricting alcohol licenses near schools. Prevention officials began working less with teachers and more with cops. In a way, the new strategy worked: fewer kids drink now because it's harder for them to obtain alcohol. But as psychologist Stanton Peele writes in his 2007 book Addiction-Proof Your Child (one of his 10 books on addiction), "When alcohol is presented as impossibly dangerous, it becomes alluring as a 'forbidden fruit' ... The choice between abstinence and excess is not a good one to force on children."

(snip)

A few years ago, a team of North Carolina researchers, led by public-health professor Kristie Long Foley, examined whether adults' approval or disapproval mattered when adolescents were deciding whether and how much to drink. Foley's team analyzed surveys of more than 6,000 people ages 16 to 20 in 242 U.S. communities. One predictable finding: kids whose parents gave them alcohol for parties were more likely to binge-drink. That discovery underscored years of research showing that the earlier people start to drink, the more likely they are to become alcoholics. But another result was surprising: if kids actually drank with their parents, they were about half as likely to say they had drunk alcohol in the past month and about one-third as likely to say they had had five or more drinks in a row in the previous two weeks. As Foley and her colleagues wrote in a 2004 Journal of Adolescent Health paper, "Drinking with parents appears to have a protective effect on general drinking trends." How this approach would work in any individual case depends, obviously, on the kid and the parent. Peele, the addiction expert, raised his own daughter (who is 20 and will be a junior at New York University) to drink a "few sips" of alcohol at family meals until she was about 16, when she could have a full glass of whatever the adults were drinking. "You give them sips as smaller kids, and you don't make a big deal about it," says Peele, 62. "Around 16, give them a glass of wine. A second glass probably doesn't make sense, but making hard-and-fast rules creates the sense that alcohol is some magical potion."

(snip)


Most social-host laws give police expansive powers. According to data compiled by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, an organization based in Calverton, Md., that studies alcohol policy, only eight of 67 U.S. jurisdictions with social-host laws require that the homeowner have "actual knowledge" of underage drinking at the house to be charged with a crime. In other words, you can violate most social-host laws even if you are in another country when your kid decides to party. And under many social-host laws, a meal with wine served at a dinner table is treated no differently from a kegger if neighbors are present with their kids. In short, we are encouraging kids to leave their homes (presumably by car) and drink in parks or abandoned warehouses or anywhere else they think they won't get caught and their parents won't get arrested... In other words, the social-host law appears to have broken up big house parties into many smaller ones. Possibly because fewer adults are present, the parties are less supervised, and more kids are getting so drunk they end up in the ER.


(snip)


http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1816475,00.html

[Mojorabbit]

1. My Mother is Portuguese

As a child I had wine diluted with seven up with dinner. When I got older I was allowed wine with dinner. Our dinners were long affairs where we all caught up on the days activities.
I was surprised when I learned most of my friends were never allowed to drink at all in their homes though they did anyway by raiding the liquor cabinet. Drinking was never a big deal one way or the other for me.

[Warpy]

5. Wine with club soda and beer were common dinner drinks

when I was growing up. I didn't discover drunkenness until I was 13 and it didn't last long. I was way over it at 15.

Raiding the booze never occurred to me. I found a greasy spoon where they'd serve myself and a friend beer in a paper cup with a straw in mid afternoon if we sat in the back booth. We'd save our lunch money and get buzzed a couple of times a week on the way home from school.

Like I said, it just didn't last long. The thrill was quickly gone.

I think if it isn't a big deal, kids just lose interest in it. Parents who supply alcohol for parties are making a big deal. Parents who dilute wine or pour a 4 oz. glass of beer at the dinner table are not.

[Maine-ah]

12. My grandmother is Portuguese

my parents always let us have some wine with them if we wanted. :hi:

[Greyhound]

32. My experience too. The "forbidden fruit" association makes it cool,

so kids get it, have no experience, and inevitably cause harm. Those of us that grew up with it and have always had access know how to handle it and don't have problems with it (excluding genetic alcoholics of course).

As anybody with eyes can see, prohibition not only doesn't work, it increases the harm done by that which is prohibited.

[Lorien]

2. My parents always served my sister and I the same alcoholic beverage

everyone else was having. We weren't forced to drink it, but we were asked to try it every time. Kids naturally hate the taste of alcohol, so when we hit our teens we had no desire at all for beer or hard liqueur (I still hate beer; I remember getting sick on it as a kid).Now days I like many of the drinks I was never exposed to as a kid, but it took me much longer to warm up to drinking socially than most my age.

[On the Road]

23. I Offered Beer or Wine to My Daughter Many Times

She would generally smell it and turn up her nose. Hopefully, it has the same effect of inoculating against heavy drinking.

[RagingInMiami]

3. I used to live in Colombia when I was 15

I had been sent down to live with my grandparents because I had gotten in too much trouble in Miami's schools.

Anyway, at the time, I was able to walk into a grocery store and purchase alcohol. There was no age limit in Colombia.

But the only time I did it was when I was bringing something back for the family, which is the only time I drank.

It was my uncle who taught me how to drink. How to manage my alcohol. How to enjoy it without going overboard.

In fact, in Colombia, it's very common for teenagers to drink at parties, which are generally supervised by adults. But the teens don't get crazy with it.

When I returned to the States, my drinking consisted of hanging out with friends in parks and beaches, funneling and shot-gunning beer and basically just getting crazy with it.

So yes, I believe parents should teach their kids how to drink in the safety of their home because if they don't, the kids are going to do it on the streets anyway.

[TreasonousBastard]

4. Who'da thunk it-- if Prohibition didn't work with adults...

it won't with kids, either.

[sasquatch]

6. DUH!! Fucking Jackasses!

[sakabatou]

7. I drank...

sodas at the table for kiddush, while my parents drank wine.

[PDJane]

8. I drank what my parents drank..........

Including kosher wines, which I liked less than most alcohol, and have been drunk only once....and that was an accident, really. A friend was trying to get over a nasty break-up, and I kept her company while trying to convince her that a boyfriend higher up the food chain was a good idea anyway. (It took this man 7 years to figure out that Jill was an artist, and a free spirit.)

I do drink socially, but neither I nor my brothers are much on the stuff.

[Karl_Bonner_1982]

9. Very few other nations have a drinking age of 21 or higher

Ours is especially troubling because so much of our entertainment is in no-minors venues, which introduces an ageist element into concerts and social life.

Perhaps 19 would be a better age as it can be more easily enforced since most under-19 drinkers are quite close to family members where there is a second arm of enforcement. But if we're going to keep it 21, let's make damn sure that younger audiences can see their favorite bands perform, even if it means wearing "No Drinking" armbands in the pubs.

[riverdeep]

19. Back in the sixties the saying was

"You're old enough to die, you're old enough to drink."

or the corollary

"You're old enough to kill, you're old enough to drink."

[Cleita]

10. After I turned eighteen, my dad and I would go out

for a few beers after we had done something, like going shopping or going fishing, mostly in the late afternoon before we went home for dinner. My mother didn't drink.

[JDPriestly]

11. If you want to know more about why people become alcoholics, here is a fascinating

article.

http://www.drug-rehabs.org/articles.php?aid=531

It probably has more to do with your metabolism and your genetics than with whether you drink with your parents or not.

Some of us just are genetically made up to not care for the stuff. And, maybe it is just as well, become if we are genetically so made up, it probably is not very good for us.

[H2O Man]

17. True

The genetic risks factors that you mention are absolutely an essential part of the message that parents need to be talking to teens about. If there is a history of abuse/addiction on either side of the family tree, teens should be aware that it increases their individual risks.

Still, having parents "role model" responsible drinking can have more to do with teaching about avoiding a range of other alcohol-related problems. It's the idea of showing that many people can have a good time, including consuming alcohol, without engaging in the "high risk" behaviors that pose dangers that are not limited to addiction. Drinking and driving is one example, "binge" drinking another.

There are many influences, both good and bad, on young people today. Parents are not going to be the sole influence on their teens' decision on drinking and experimenting with other substances. But they have the ability to play a significant role. I think the discussion on genetic factors should be part of family discussions when children are fairly young. It should happen in all families. The role-modeling is another option, which may be of value to many -- though not all -- families.

[CTyankee]

25. I"ve thought about this a great deal. I travel to Europe once or twice a year

if possible and see that drinking is just part of a meal in some parts of Europe. I've mostly been in Italy, where family dinners in restaurants always have bottles of wine and the nonna or papa takes the baby around table to table to show off and the family is having a nice, somewhat loud dinner. It's all part of a culture that treats alcohol as part of the daily meal. (Italy is the only place where I drink wine at lunch, BTW, and I don't get all foggy probably because wine there has no nitrates). And not just the wine, but also the aperitivo and the digestivo (altho Grappa after dinner is something I'll never be able to tolerate).

I just think we're all too screwed up in this country about alcohol...

[JDPriestly]

34. I lived in various places in Europe, including for a number of years a wine-growing

area. There were lots of alcoholics. I know of a couple of men who died of diseases or conditions related to alcohol, and I knew many more who were/are alcoholics. Alcohol messes a lot of people up, and drinking it with meals doesn't make it any less addictive or safer.

[Lorien]

22. I have several Native Americans in my family. They can't touch the stuff

because their bodies take to it like cocaine. My cousin grew up on a reservation and saw many families torn apart by alcoholism. My uncle's father and brother are lifelong alcoholics also, so my uncle refuses to even take a sip of beer. Another friend is 1/4 Native and his half native father has had so many accidents due to drunk driving that his license is permanently revoked. At least the people I know understand the genetic component and know what the stuff will do to them. Others may not-and they're the ones at risk.

[PassingFair]

13. I refuse to discuss this.

It is OBVIOUSLY the government's outrage du jour.

Billboards,
Radio Spots,
Television,
Newspaper Articles,
COMMERCIALS, for gawd's sake....

WHY?

Were they tired of "abstinence only"?

[no_hypocrisy]

14. Both my parents had me taste their beer or cocktails, just a sip or two.

There was no mystique, no forbidden fruit. I just accepted the sips and had no particular desire for more.

I think in the long run, it was the best approach and introduction to alcohol where I am concerned. I like an occasional drink, but I don't need it.

Ironically, in adulthood I deferred on alcoholic beverages while my parents freely imbibed at restaurants or dinner at home.

[Analitico]

15. Should we break the law?

The question basically is a challenge to the law that minors shouldn't drink alcohol.

[H2O Man]

18. In NYS,

it is not illegal for parents to allow their children to have a sip of alcohol, or for older kids to have a glass of wine with a meal (at home). There are, of course, common-sense restrictions. I assume it is the same in many, if not most, states.

[fishwax]

21. it's not against the law to drink with your kids

not in most places, anyway :shrug:

[Inspired]

16. Why would a person want to?

[CTyankee]

26. Why not? In Europe people sit down to dinner with a bottle of wine every night and sometimes

at lunch. It's a family meal and part of the family's culture going back centuries. Ask any Greek, Portuguese, Spaniard, French or Italian individual.

Good lord...

[anigbrowl]

27. Because it's enjoyable?

I'm a light but frequent drinker, I have a bottle or two of beer every other day or enjoy a glass of wine with a meal. It's very enjoyable in moderate quantities. That's how I was brought up, most European countries have a drinking culture.

[Inspired]

30. I'd rather drink with my girlfriends. Kids? Not so much.

[riverdeep]

20. It depends on how you do it.

Doing it around the dinner table, at family gatherings, seems to work to take away the romance and mystique of it.

[question everything]

24. Or during religious services

Blessing of the wine is common in some religion. Should the government tell us how to conduct our rituals? As long, of course, as we do not release drunken worshipers into the street..

[Iggo]

28. Hell yes, you should drink with yer kids.

If it's good enough for Hulk Hogan, it's good enough for me.

[Coexist]

29. Wow, I just learned that Florida is a purchase and possession law

not a drinking law.

[LWolf]

31. My sons are grown men.

One drinks no alcohol, for health reasons, and because he saw enough alcohol abuse in his father's family to make the connection.

One drinks socially, and, before I became insulin resistant, we'd have a beer together now and then.

Neither of them were ever allowed to drink, with me or not, before the age of 21.

[RandomKoolzip]

33. No, but you SHOULD smoke pot with them.