Just a few short months ago, a study involving 10,000 teenagers in England supported the idea that it might be better for parents to provide alcohol to their kids, rather than letting their kids obtain the goods themselves. 

According to this article, the study concluded that "carefully introducing alcohol to children 'may help them prepare themselves for life in an adult environment dominated by this drug' and that “parents who choose to allow children aged 15-16 to drink may limit harm by restricting consumption to lower frequencies.” The study also suggests that teens that drink via their parents are less likely to binge drink and warned that parents that ban alcohol might shift the problem from the family to the street."

But before you fill your glasses and toast the New Year with your tween or teen, read this: the British government's chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson has condemned this "middle class obsession of giving teenagers a small taste of alcohol to "wean them" and said "no alcohol for kids under 15 at all." 

Many parents, myself included have been through their own "to drink or not to drink with your kids" dilemma and come to their own conclusions without the help of these conflicting studies and opinions.  In my house, despite my daughter's insistence that everyone else's parents let them have "wine with dinner" we held firm and said NO. I naievely assumed  this was the case in most households but boy was I wrong.   it turns out that 28% of families allow  partying with their progeny (and perhaps your progeny too!)  and are firmly planted on the other side of the drinking debate.  They are clearly of the "kids are going to drink, so better under my roof" theory. 

I too know they are going to drink or experiment with alcohol, but I choose not to make it any easier or worse, make it really easy. The number of kids drinking as early as 7th grade is rising, and along with it the number of kids suffering from early onset substance abuse.   To make mattes worse, these early abusers have a much harder time trying to manage their addiction as adults.  It's a vicious cycle to say the least.

I'm sure new reports will continue to surface, but ultimately, parents will have to make their own decisions about encouraging or discouraging their kids from drinking.  But hopefully, this latest news coming out of a country steeped in a culture formerly supporting imbibing as a "family affair" will make more people think twice about cracking open a bottle with their kids.