Tip: Rather than taking it out, consider leaving the alcohol in the fridge down where your teens will be with friends staying over and take a pic to be able to look back on if you get a gut feeling that they have stepped over that line and consumed some…
Noticing early that they are experimenting gives you a chance to have conversations and set limits with them before drinking with their friends becomes a ‘thing’.
If drinking is something that your teen is doing or asking to be allowed to do then Google Nathan Wallis or Paul Dillon. Both work from research findings and offer useful suggestions for how to help you child navigate their teen years where alcohol gets tricky because it is natural for them to want to both take risk and to in ‘fit in’.
Supporting them to take care of their brains and stay sober enough to make safe and respectful choices across those years is the focus.
Lots of parents feel that buying their child a couple of drinks to take to a party serves to help set a limit and have them ‘not feel left out’…Paul points out that after those two drinks their decision-making capacity for what they do next in terms of having more drinks, sexual activity etc will be hampered and gives several reasons for not getting onto that slippery slope with them and that there are more useful ways we can help them gear themselves up to get through safely.
Lots of great fodder for reflection.
Sing out if you would like a hand thinking through whatever you have going on over there.