Should I curb my teens' drinking?

My son seemed to think nothing of sinking several pints of beer and our daughter wanted cocktails and asked for wine with every meal.

They were drinking almost as much alcohol as we were, whereas when we were their age we considered alcohol a rare treat. I’m worried they may be laying down bad habits for later life.

A To some extent you have to allow for changes in society. When you were their age a bottle of wine was an expensive luxury. Now you can get cheap plonk for the price of a couple of posh loaves of bread, so there’s little financial reason not to drink it several times a week.

And students and young people have much more expensive lifestyles, too. When I was a student we hardly needed to pay for anything except food, a pad of paper and a pen. Now every student needs a mobile phone and a computer – so by the time they’ve paid their phone bill and the price of a laptop a few pints of beer seems like no expense at all.

Your children are probably picking up expectations from other teenagers and their behaviour may be the norm among their school friends. Admittedly, this doesn’t make it any healthier, so you are right to feel concern.

If they can’t enjoy a meal without alcohol or have a good evening without several pints, they could find themselves addicted by the time they are in their 20s. The fact that their friends will be too is not much consolation.

As always with teenagers, there are three approaches that seldom go amiss when tackling a dilemma: first, try to discuss the topic openly; next, emphasise the positive; lastly, examine your own behaviour and the example you are setting them.

Find a time when you are all in a good mood and there is plenty of time to talk about it. Then, affirm what they are doing right. They are drinking in the safety of their family home, generally at meal times, supervised by older people and they are not abusing alcohol or making themselves unwell. All this is quite an achievement – and the most wholesome way to enjoy drinking – so ,you should praise them lavishly.

To be brutally honest, the most revealing thing you say is that they have been drinking nearly as much as you. The example you set them is going to speak louder than any words and if you think they are drinking too much, you almost certainly are as well.

So the next thing I believe you should say is that you’ve all had more alcohol over Christmas than would be healthy throughout the rest of the year, so how about a New Year resolution of drinking only at the weekends or when you have company? Of course, you must stick to it too.

Lastly, you might want to ask them where they developed such habits. If they and their friends are breaking the law it is very foolish and you should be strict about this, though they will find it much more palatable if you let them continue to drink with you.