Parents serving alcohol or allowing it in their homes

[Anonymous]

I cannot believe how many parents are having teens over and providing or allowing them to drink. My daughter is a freshman and there have been several occasions where this has been the situation. Makes it hard to parent! And what are they thinking? This is private school kids FWIW, but I’m sure that part doesn’t matter.

[Anonymous]

[Anonymous]

It's the thing at the homes of popular kids, so parents go along. We never did but it cost our kids socially. We knew this and still refused.

[Anonymous]

Dunno. I drank at my parent house with them at dinner parties. Wine mostly. If other kids were present I didn't get to drink. Unless they were there with their parents and those were my parents friends and of the same mind about wine at dinner.
They never offered just alchojol to a bunch of kids they didn't know. But then we are not from the US. I've never had a problem with alchohol and drank less in college than I did at home in hs since I didn't like cheap beer or the feeling of being drunk and it wasn't a forbidden fruit so not interesting to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's the thing at the homes of popular kids, so parents go along. We never did but it cost our kids socially. We knew this and still refused.

Addition

Our neighbors were "cool parents." A kid died after leaving their house and getting in a wreck. Their son ended up in rehab, their marriage broke up and so did that of the kid who died and the parents of the kid who was driving.

[Anonymous]

Parents who do this are just asking to get, at the very least, sued, at worst, thrown in prison. They can't control what happens after the kids leave. In my view, they are showing worse judgment than the teenagers.

[Anonymous]

They are thinking their kids are cool and they want to promote that. They are thinking that they are the "cool" parents. They have the idea that it's better for the kids to drink at their house than somewhere else. They aren't thinking about the risks and the liability.

I drank as a teen, with my parents, in our home (not often, but at special dinners and the like). But they did not serve alcohol to other kids. You can make that decision for your own kids, but you can't make it for someone else's.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely not. I don't have an issue with exposing kids to it to teach moderation but you never ever serve it to another person's child, especially without permission. We tasted things as kids and teens. Both my sibling and I rarely drink. It took away the novelty for us.

[Anonymous]

My kids are allowed some wine with special dinners and on Friday nights. However, I would never offer it to a kid whose parents I didn’t know well. We have some family friends with same age kids who follow the same basic rules we do, and their kids are offered wine with dinner at our house just as our kids are at theirs. I can’t imagine offering it to a kid in any other circumstance.

[Anonymous]

God help any parent who serves my child. I will end them.

[Anonymous]

I never will, but I know plenty that do.

[Anonymous]

Aren't there huge fines for parents who allow this? If a kid leaves a house/party and has an accident on the way home, the party parents will be in trouble.

[Anonymous]

When I invite parents and children over for dinner, and serve wine at that dinner, I ask the teens if they want to taste, with their parents' permission. We are French, and this how children start drinking responsibly in France. A sip, not more.

I can't imagine offering alcohol to minors without their parents' express permission, let along letting them drive themselves home afterward.

[Anonymous]

It's pretty obvious OP is NOT talking about kids being allowed to have wine with adults at dinner parties, etc. She is talking about kids partying either with parents approval or with their actual provision.

My mom has a bunch of siblings and 2 of her younger siblings have 4 kids clustered in age together within 3 years. They do a lot all together and kind of raised them all together. They are the "cool" parents. Nothing happened to their underage kids, thank God, maybe bc they also chauffered them to all their parties and picked them up (drunk). But it definitely did NOT stave off them partying hard in college and adulthood. It just carried on the same really as before. The idea that 15 year olds will learn how to drink and then have limited alcohol in college seems to be a bit of a myth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dunno. I drank at my parent house with them at dinner parties. Wine mostly. If other kids were present I didn't get to drink. Unless they were there with their parents and those were my parents friends and of the same mind about wine at dinner.
They never offered just alchojol to a bunch of kids they didn't know. But then we are not from the US. I've never had a problem with alchohol and drank less in college than I did at home in hs since I didn't like cheap beer or the feeling of being drunk and it wasn't a forbidden fruit so not interesting to me.

I am from the US and this is what we've done with our kids too, once they are in high school. DH owns a few bars and we have a full bar at home. The kids have made milkshakes with booze after dinner a few times, and they pour into shotglasses to sip from. Once you've left for college, when you come home for breaks, you're given a wine glass at dinners.

We do not serve to kids unless their parents are there and they okay it.