18 to drink?

We all know what we were like as dwarfs, we wanted to be grown ups and get there as soon as possible. right?

We dressed older? We might have had fake ID's? We were scoring cheap beer or crap alcohol just to drink because we were cool.

Obviously this still  happens but it seems here in the UK its younger and younger. Maybe because the drinking age is 18 so parents start letting dwarfs drink at home earlier (from my own experience) to take the "edge" off going out and drinking or sneaking around.

I am not sure how I feel about this...I am not sure when it's ok to let your dwarfs have a drink or try a type of alcohol.  I would let the dwarfs taste something sure but when is the age you let them actually have a drink?  When do you start looking out for the signs of your dwarfs going out and drinking at someone else's house?  How do you feel about parents of your dwarfs friends buying alcohol for dwarfs and letting them drink without your permission?

We don't want to be the hard core crazy parents because we know it will happen but we want it to be handled in a calm and respectful manor. We want the dwarfs to realise the outcome of drinking and what can happen to them not just the fun side of feeling everything is funny and you and your friends are having a grand old time.

At the age of 16 here as well as the US seems to be an appropriate age to allow your dwarf to have a liquid beverage in your presence.  Now I said "a liquid beverage" I didn't say get shitfaced drunk.  We have a few cocktails in front of the kids or when out to dinner or even around friends.  It shows responsible drinking as one of us is always driving - we try to set by example. So to allow them to "try" a sip in our presence seems like a better idea then to go drink god knows what, with god knows what's been put in it with "friends." 

I know the law is 18 to purchase alcohol but the age to consume is alcohol is 5 years old in the private house with parental consent (WTH) and at 16 they can drink when having a meal with with a parent (fair enough). It boggles my mind as I know I was no princess and I sure as hell didn't drink in front of my parents until I was 17 but I was a senior in high school (starting college/university the next year).

So how do you handle it? What if they are 12,13,14, 15 ?

snow wife

I began drinking alcohol at the age of thirteen and gave it up in my fifty sixth year; it was like going straight from puberty to a mid-life crisis.
George Montgomery