Have you spoken with your child/ren about Alcohol ?
I must admit I am extremely lucky, so far Xene, Lochi and Neva have shown no interest in drinking alcohol whatsoever, Xene has mentioned on a couple of occasions that she had seen a few girls from school drinking and making fools of themselves and how utterly stupid she thought they were.
We have never shielded any of the children from drinking, they have witnessed members of my husbands rugby club on numerous occasions worse for wear when we have collected him from an away match, so I guess it is quite a normal subject in our house to discuss.
My first encounter with alcohol was when I was about 14 years old, my friend and I had organised a Valentines Party at a local Village Hall, lots of people were invited and I guess we were a little naive with our large bottles of non alcoholic pop, the events of the evening have certainly stuck with me…
Halfway into the party a number of people arrived that we didn’t recognise – they had heard about the party, from someone (no facebook back then!!) and decided to gatecrash, loaded with various alcoholic beverages, the evening passed in a blur, I can honestly say it got completely out of hand, there were kids throwing up everywhere, a window got smashed, two doorframes were pulled off their hinges, a fight broke out, furniture was smashed, it was absolutely horrendous.
The following day was spent with both sets of parents grovelling to the Village Hall owners and fixing all of the broken pieces of furniture and doors, thank goodness both of our dad’s were good at DIY!
I guess that completely put me off of drinking, certainly as a child, obviously as I got older I have had the odd drink or two, but I am usually the designated driver, so drink soft drinks all evening.
I visited the Drinkaware website for underage drinking info and have to admit,some of the information makes for scary reading, I asked the three eldest what they thought about drinking alcohol as a young person and they all agreed it is totally stupid, so I guess our open and honest approach appears to be working.
If you are concerned about underage drinking, or you are not sure how to approach it with your children, Drinkaware are holding two webinars for you to learn more about the risks associated with underage drinking and how to have effective conversations with your child about the subject.
The first webinar is taking place on 27th November on the risks associated with underage drinking. You can register for the webinar here
The second takes place on 10th December on how to address the issue of alcohol with your child and how to have effective conversations with them. You can register here.
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