<p>I agree with mini.</p>
<p>Fowora, you forget - we parents were all teenagers too. We are not ignorant of what the social lives of teens are like, nor of college students. If you are so convinced that gaining experience with alcohol will save lives, I will find the link to a CC’r who was a student at Cornell who prided himself on only drinking with experienced drinkers so that he would stay “safe.” He died of alcohol poisoning after a St Patrick’s day party at UVA (I think this happened 2 years ago?).</p>
<p>I agree that parents must have a dialogue with their kids, and a degree of trust (although trust must be EARNED, it is not a right). Parents who never let their kids go anywhere will usually end up with kids who rebel. But this thread was started to discuss how far to safely let kids go, and how to allow them to have a social life without giving them complete free rein. </p>
<p>There is a reason it is never been legal in the US (at least not in the last 75 years) for people under 18 to drink.</p>