Go on, darling, have a drink.

And there we were thinking we were doing everything right. “We” being nice liberal-thinking parents, determined that our children would have a better upbringing than our own and that they would not fear us, but instead be our friends.

To this end, and from an early age, we treated them as little adults. Not for us the Victorian notion that children should be seen and not heard. No. We took them places, brought them to parties, sat them in restaurants, flew them to foreign destinations, gave them laptops and iPhones, cash and clothes, highlights and make-up, and at a certain age, say from 14 onwards, offered them the odd glass of wine. Why not? Surely it was better to acquaint them with alcohol through a respectable glass of wine at the kitchen table, rather than having them rolling around in the bushes after a binge of Dutch Gold or Huzzar? And surely they would be safer at home having a few beers, rather than sitting in some park where they could be nabbed by the Gardaí and given a J-LO (junior liaison officer).

WHERE DID it all end? Well, with a dressing-down this week from child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr Bobby Smyth who told parents at a packed lecture in UCD they are doing it all wrong. By introducing children to alcohol in the home, in the hope that it will teach them responsible drinking, parents are being “very naive”, he told a rapt audience on Wednesday.

That means you, Dad, “spotting” your 17-year-old some cans from the fridge as he heads out to a friend’s gaff, and you, Mummy, getting all giggly with the girls as they put on the fake tan for the disco, and offering them a drink while they’re at it. It happens. You may not allow your child to drink at home, but other parents may be offering it to them – not knowing, or caring that it’s illegal. It’s okay for children to drink in their own home with parental consent but it is breaking the law to offer someone else’s underage child alcohol in your home without their parents’ permission.

Dr Smyth, a consultant who specialises in addiction, is calling it myth, this idea that we can inoculate our children against the “toxic drunkenness” of Irish society – which has one of the highest levels of teenage drinking in Europe – simply by giving them a glass of wine with Sunday lunch. There is, he says, no scientific basis that starting to drink at home helps them to be drink-aware. In fact, the evidence veers in the opposite direction. “It is children who grow up in families with permissive attitudes and behaviour around alcohol who are much more likely to develop drink and drugs problems. If they are allowed drink at home, it greatly increases their permission to themselves to drink outside the home.”

The evidence he presents is compelling. Teenagers aged 16 to 17 are now spending around €123 million a year on alcohol. The average 16-year-old will have spent up to €20.90 in the last week on alcohol and €10.70 on cigarettes or tobacco products. His talk includes a slide to show how the young brain can be affected by underage drinking.

Some of the parents who showed up on Wednesday had made a difficult choice in going. Their Junior Cert children had just received their results and really, shouldn’t they have been at home, watching for the very problems they were going to be lectured on? In the end many couldn’t resist the lecture, if only to acquaint themselves with the warning signs, the clues that Jack or Emma is drinking or taking drugs. Here’s what to watch out for: a midweek crash in mood, a new-found enthusiasm for mints or chewing gum, loss of interest in hobbies, money disappearing, and holes in trousers around the thighs from “hot rocks” – falling ash – once they’ve lost co-ordination from the drink.

To that, most parents of teenagers could add one or two more “clues” such as large rucksacks and handbags being taken on a night out, a telltale clink as they exit, and money going missing from the housekeeping stash.

But back to the parents – and yikes, does a “permissive attitude” mean the bottle of Shiraz that gets opened after a hard day in the office, that is soon gone, without so much as a splash left over for the casserole? Or the big easy-going family and friends lunch with bottles everywhere? Apparently so. The notion that offering children an early taste of wine at the family table will somehow turn them into Mediterranean-style sippers is quickly dismissed by the doctor, who has two teenagers.

“Kids in Mediterranean countries don’t grow up to have a reasonable relationship with alcohol because they were introduced to it so early,” he recently told The Irish Times HealthPlus supplement. “They grow up to have a reasonable relationship with alcohol because of those cultures: whether you are 13 or 30, it is not acceptable to get drunk.”

Getting drunk, not appreciating wine, is the sole aim of many Irish teenagers. Typically, what does it take for a 16-or 17-year-old to get drunk? According to one 17-year-old, six cans will do it for guys, four for girls, with maybe a naggin of vodka somewhere in the mix. None of them likes the taste, he says, which is why alcopops are so popular, and why girls will mix orange or blackcurrant with their vodka. The drink is generally bought in supermarkets and off-licences with kids using fake IDs. “Of course I know about the fake ID,” says one mother of a teenage boy. “They all have them, but there is so much fakery in their lives. They have these social networking pages full of fake information. They are big into lying.”

Not all parents are pushing the bottle towards their young. Some teens are subjected to mini breathalyser kits when they come home at night, have their pockets and bags checked before they go out, and their text messages and Bebo or Facebook pages read. Others are trying to find a middle ground. “I sit in the kitchen keeping an eye on them drinking outside,” says another mother. “They don’t need an ID to drink here, so I suppose that is why they stay home, but it is changing too. They want to do the illicit drinking. It’s about being out of control. And drinking with parents doesn’t tick the illicit box. Sometimes it doesn’t even tick the drink box. Some of these kids are so body-conscious now, they don’t want a beer. They’d much rather you gave them one of those protein drinks.”

Yet another parent says that her attempt to put a curfew on her teens has backfired, as they have now started drinking at friends’ houses in the afternoon. These are the parents who can bear to talk about it. Others are in blissful denial. One father interviewed for this article admitted that his daughter, at 17, drinks a lot of vodka – but not as much as her friend, whose mother still sweetly insists that her daughter doesn’t touch a drop. Another mother, asked about her daughters’ drinking, said that she finds it depressing and horrible to have to hold their ponytails when they are getting sick into the toilet bowl at home.

ACCORDING TO Dr Smyth, and it will be no surprise to their parents, girls are now drinking as much as and more than boys. “They are going one for one with the boys, but if they are drinking an alcopop, which are typically 4.5 per cent proof, and the boys are drinking beer at 3.5 per cent, the girls are taking in more alcohol,” he says.

This is going to have an effect on their adult relationships, he adds. “We grew up with the notion of the traditional Irish male using alcohol as a crutch. They couldn’t cross the dance floor until they had had a drink, couldn’t muster up the confidence to talk to a woman without the prop of alcohol. I see a danger that girls will develop in the same way.

“I would worry that Irish women will end up as socially handicapped as men. They won’t be able to have fun with girlfriends, or with men, without alcohol. That ease of being able to chat is an unfortunate thing to lose.”

Ideally, parents should just start saying no. The biggest single thing that parents can do, Dr Smyth says, is to try to delay drinking in teenagers, ideally to the age of 18, and in particular delay any movement towards drunkenness.

It’s not easy, especially when parents are used to giving in to demands. “Irish parents now have more than the generation before,” he says. “We want to give our children things that we didn’t have. It does seem to be that parents are struggling to say no to children, but while we have their best interests at heart, we shouldn’t abdicate our responsibilities.” He likens today’s over-indulged children to a generation of Nellie Olsens (from Little House on the Prairie ) but says that the term “spoilt child” has somehow fallen out of our lexicon. “Nellie was hard to like. There was a cultural disapproval of her. Now we are happy to bring up princesses. Daddies are proud of the fact that they will do anything for their girls.” He disapproves deeply. “Part of our job as parents is to prepare children for adulthood. What we are finding is that parents are giving their children all the rights and freedoms of adulthood, but without any responsibility. Parents, in other words, have become their childrens’ banker, taxi driver, cook and maid, without getting very much in return.”

Children, Dr Smyth says, and it will be music to most parents’ ears, should be contributing to the household, even if it is only an hour or two a week. “It’s important that they do their bit, that they are not just takers, because later on that is what bosses, and husband and wives, or housemates, will expect of them.” So, next time there’s a big family lunch, hand them the apron, not the bottle opener.

Dr Bobby Smyth will talk on “Preventing Drug and Alcohol Problems in Teenagers – What Parents Can Do” on Tuesday, October 6th, at 7pm at the Lucena Clinic, 59 Orwell Road, Rathgar, Dublin 6. To book, e-mail Marie.mccourt@sjog.ie or call 01-4999349

Source: Orna Mulcahy, Irish Times, 11/09/2009