Friday, December 13, 2013

Should We Make Giving a Child a Drink a Matter of Child Abuse?

   Blame the parent for this one. Blame the parent for the child turning to the bottle. Oh, it is not always the parent who brings the child up to drink. Not at all. But I fear too often it is the case.
   I opened my Deseret News to read, "More than a quarter of Utah children who drank alcohol in the past year say they go it at home with their parents' permission." (Deseret News story titled "Utah campaigns to curb underage drinking" by Dennis Romboy, Friday, December 13, 2013)
   That is a lot. You might worry about the influences bad friends can have, but what of this, the parent is the bad influence? One in four children turn to drinking at their parents behest?
   I turned two pages and found a story of an uncle who got his 10- and 12-year-old nephews so drunk they had to be taken to the hospital.
   It occurs to me, a person who drinks, if that person does not think drinking wrong, is surely going to introduce their children to drink. They may not let their children drink when young, but there comes a day they will introduce their offspring to alcohol. I'm not aware of the laws, but would not be surprised if it is illegal to give children and teenagers alcohol. Is it this, though: Is it considered child abuse? I tend to think it should be. And, with that would come the normal obligations for reporting child abuse when we hear of it. We, the neighbors, would be required to report it.
   I would think the liability of getting caught for introducing your children to alcohol would be a deterrent against doing so. Although I have not had time to give the idea much thought, off the top, it seems like a practical thing to do.

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