I think there is no fire-proof way of handling this that will work with all, or even a majority of children. (And parents.) Teach your kids to handle it, do it wisely, but if the best way is a puritan approach or a market value approach as above, I think it depends which is best.
Edit: to elaborate, I think it depends on many things. One that comes to mind is, how strong is the "dopamine" effect vs vs the "oh, sudden insight into how market economies work" in the child. (And parent, as a mirror and role model.)
If the reward response is very strong, I can't help but thinking about the knowledge we have about alcohol and children: we know it's harmful when parents try to teach children to drink responsibly and "let them try in controlled conditions". It works much better to not let children drink at all.
> we know it's harmful when parents try to teach children to drink responsibly and "let them try in controlled conditions". It works much better to not let children drink at all.
Do we? In French culture it’s not uncommon to let kids as young as 12-13 take a few sips of wine at weddings, family meals, etc; and having attended university in France, the UK, and the US, my experience is that French students are by far the most reasonable in their consumption. Some might get hammered once or twice a week during their first years of university, but there’s not much that approaches the frat party levels of debauchery one witnesses in the US.
> France has one of the highest alcohol consumption rates in Europe, with the country trailing behind only Estonia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic in the quantities of alcohol it drinks, according to the World Health Organization.
Maybe? There's a lot of other things to consider, such as the number of drinkers and whether it's customary to drink throughout the day or only during a small window (night).
Drinking 4+ glasses of wine all at once is quite different from drinking one glass at each meal and one before bed. Extrapolate that to weekly statistics and someone who drinks a lot of wine culturally can look worse than someone who only drinks at parties, and they could even look like an alcoholic.
This thread starts by talking about "alcoholism" which is an unhelpful term because problem drinking, harmful drinking, and dependent drinking are all problems even if they're not accompanied by physical addiction.
Both the things you describe - one person have 4+ glasses of wine on a night out, and another person have one glass of wine at each meal and another before bed - are worrying.
Binge drinking (and 4+ glasses of wine is definitely a binge) significantly increases risks of a number of harms from things like accidents, STIs, unplanned pregnancy, etc. The advice strongly recommends against binging, but if it's only occasionally it's probably not that harmful.
The other situation is a bit more complicated depending on serving size and wine strength.
A small glass of wine is about 150ml. If the wine is 9% ABV that would give us 1.5 UK units per glass. Two of those a day, 6 days a week, is about 19 units. That's more than the recommended limit which is 14 units per week, and it doesn't have more than one drink free day.
A larger glass of wine is about 200 ml. The wine might be stronger at 12.5% ABV. That gives us 2.5 units per glass, and 30 units per week. This is probably problem and harmful drinking.
For alcoholism we're probably talking about people who need a medically assisted withdrawal from alcohol.
A medically assisted withdrawal from alcohol would be considered if the person is drinking 15 units per day. That's two 750ml bottles of 10% ABV wine every day. This would be an outpatient programme.
An inpatient medically assisted withdrawal would be considered if the person drinks over 30 units per day. This is 750ml of 40% ABV spirits, or 4 bottles of that 10% ABV wine.
Again, apply my reasoning about games to this issue too. In France, you have an entire country as mirror and role model for drinking without mayhem. That is one data point to consider. :)
> we know it's harmful when parents try to teach children to drink responsibly and "let them try in controlled conditions". It works much better to not let children drink at all.
Uhhh no we don't know that. Because it's not true at all.
When I was 16, this was the legal age to drink beer. I always thought it was a good idea to first learn what alcohol does, before you learn to drive (which is 18, where I live).
Aaanyway, at some point we did raise the legal drinking age to 18 (afaik, this was for no other particular reason than the Christian Democrats being in power).
I'm still awaiting the reports that binge drinking among kids and young adults has decreased. Because it hasn't.
Except now some kids will wait 2 years before they learn to not abuse alcohol the hard way. But they would anyway (by which I mean, some of them. I know enough people who are perfectly responsible or not drinking at all). Maybe it's a slightly tougher lesson because you're not 17 any more.
But all in all, if parents raise their kids, guide them, and can make sure their first experiences with alcohol are in fact responsible, this teaches the kid valuable lessons and it's good for them in the way they learn about alcohol and its dangers and how to deal with it, instead of having to figure it out alone, when adult. Parenting can be an extremely powerful positive force in the upbringing of a child and really I would need to see some strong evidence to the contrary.
You are talking about actual controlled conditions with the parents playing an active role. I really need to see evidence that that could possibly have any negative effect what-so-ever.
Edit: to elaborate, I think it depends on many things. One that comes to mind is, how strong is the "dopamine" effect vs vs the "oh, sudden insight into how market economies work" in the child. (And parent, as a mirror and role model.)
If the reward response is very strong, I can't help but thinking about the knowledge we have about alcohol and children: we know it's harmful when parents try to teach children to drink responsibly and "let them try in controlled conditions". It works much better to not let children drink at all.