You are sending a very strong message to your child when you agree to provide alcohol to minors. Most importantly, you are telling them to ignore the law – alcohol is an illegal drug for those under the age of eighteen. The laws are different across the country with New South Wales having the strictest laws in this area, but what you are saying to your child when you provide alcohol at an underage party is that although you want them to obey other laws, this one they can ignore!
If you allow your child to drink alcohol in your home with a family meal or even at a family get-together, that is your choice as a parent. But providing alcohol to young people at a party is very different. There are very few parents who want their children to drink alcohol to excess. Almost every parent who gives their teenager alcohol to take to a party or provides it to those attending a party they are hosting does it for the right reasons. Often parents will say to me that they make it very clear to their child that they don’t want them to drink alcohol as they’re handing over bottles or giving them money to buy it, somehow thinking that this is going to have some sort of positive outcome. In fact the only message the child picks up is ‘my parents gave me alcohol’. This tacit approval plays an important role in how your child views alcohol.
I can definitely understand some of the arguments that parents use when they agree to provide alcohol to teenage parties, particularly if they are hosting events for young adults who are close to the legal drinking age. However, many of the arguments put forward simply don’t hold up under scrutiny. Possibly one of the most ridiculous is when parents say that they are providing a ‘safe environment’ in which their teenager can drink and that if they didn’t their child would simply go off and drink somewhere else unsupervised.
I challenge any parent hosting a party where alcohol is being supplied to underage teenagers to prove that they are providing a ‘safe environment’. Even in licensed premises where alcohol is kept behind a bar and strict rules around responsible service govern how it is provided to patrons, it can be extremely difficult for staff to keep track of how much people have been drinking. However, then, can a parent hosting a party really supervise a number of teenagers and ensure that they are drinking responsibly?
There is no handbook on how to be the perfect parent, nor is there one on holding an incident-free teenage party. Without doubt, the best thing you can do to reduce the risks is to make the event alcohol-free. If you believe that this is not an option for your child at their stage of development, make sure you take every precaution to make the party as safe as possible for all concerned.
Discussion on this topic has continued in a more recent post, continue reading here.
Writer Paul Dillon, Generation Next speaker and drug and alcohol expert. Excerpt from “Teenagers, Alcohol and Drugs”. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.
I am a 17 year-old girl going on 18 and I have been to parties where alcohol has been served and there have been a number of parents around making sure that the minors don’t drink too much.
There have been other parties that I have gone to where everyone is over the age of 18 and their drinking yet none of them are drunk until about midnight.
What I would like to know is how you would handle underage drinkers and what you would do to “stop” minors from drinking before the legal age?
I would like you to remember the first time you had alcohol and how old you were, then tell me that putting the drinking up to say 21 years old is going to stop these people from drinking, you mustn’t be thinking right.
It is all well and good that there are all these arguments about drinking and at the age of 16 the brain is at a critical time and of cause everyone knows the laws about drinking in their own states. However, has anyone considered teaching kids at school about alcohol and how to drink it responsibly? They haven’t and you want to know why kids drink at 16. Well maybe we “kids” should be taught how to have a good time and not drink so much that we get smashed.
I think there are some “kids” out there that have had some alcohol at family events and as they grow older they understand that it’s okay to drink a little but at the same time you don’t need to get drunk to have a good time.
Although some people just like to get drunk because maybe that’s how they deal with things or that’s how they think they will have a good time and in the morning they’re the ones who will wake up with a massive hang over and not remember much about the night before.
So when you say that parents shouldn’t give alcohol to minors, you think about those other kids who have been taught how to drink a little but also have a good time because instead of being taught at school they were taught by their parents.
So unless you have some way of teaching kids about alcohol and how to drink it responsibly, you really aren’t doing much now are you?
Excellent question Kate – we’ve forwarded it on to Paul Dillon, whose response you can read in the latest Generation Next blog post.
Interesting area. I am a non drinker and a health educator. When my 17 year old was going to schoolies I went with him to the bottle shop and purchased alcohol for him because I wanted to control what he bought and how much rather than allowing him to go without any alcohol and then asking older people at schoolies to buy alcohol for him. My understanding is that this is safer for him than trying to buy illegally and in larger quantities through others. I stand by this decision because I saw what happened with his mates who asked older siblings or older siblings of friends to buy for them – they purchased more and it was riskier because they were hanging around outside licenced premises with toolies rather than in the enclosed environments for legit schoolies. Also, my son had to ration his intake to last the whole week – this set a daily limit.
hmmmm – dilemma
I ask the question why young people need to drink alcohol at all? What is the motivation for desiring it? it seems to me that the need to get off their face shows a deplorable cultural deficiency. The is no redeeming aspect to alcohol consumption. They mask it behind sweet sugary tastes because it tastes bad. It puts them in all sorts of danger when they have impaired physical function and mental judgement.
Alcoholic drinks are a curse on our society.
I have a 16.5 yr old daughter. I am interested in your comments. Last night I found out that my daughter’s friend age 15 who I will call Sally, was supplied vodka by her mother. They had a party, and my daughter attended. Sally’s facebook showed evidence of having vodka shots either last night or the week before. The mother and father then proceeded to go out for dinner leaving them unsupervised. I am furious and would like to know how to respond to the parents who live 200 metres from our home.