[wutamess]

Originally Posted by JD10367

When I was around nine, my dad was smoking. I tugged on his jacket and pointed at the cig. He said, "What, you want to try this?" I nodded eagerly. He handed it to me. I took a drag and choked, and spent the next half-hour coughing. He laughed his ass off. I never wanted to smoke cigarettes again. Around the same age, he would buy me little nips of blackberry brandy to try. While other kids were grousing about their parents not letting them drink, I was bragging that my dad bought me nips of blackberry brandy. Obviously I was only sipping on them occasionally, but the simple fact that it was not "off limits" to me made me not want to do it more. He also said, "If you want to get shitfaced, I'll go out and buy you all the beer you want, and you can get shitfaced right here in the house. If you try to go out and do it, I'll beat the crap out of you." And, of course, because that was more of a hard-ass line, I crossed it repeatedly, especially between 17 and 21 (drinking illegally at heavy metal concerts, driving while buzzed, etc.,.). But as soon as I hit 21, my drinking fell off to almost nothing. So I guess my dad did something right. (But I know, in today's world, you could never buy your kid nips of blackberry brandy. They'd take your kids away and throw you in jail.)

This makes a world of sense but you know how scary that approach could be. You coulda turned alcoholic, etc. Don't believe in trying that approach. Just trying to go about the way we were raised and the way my mother raise my sis. She often heeds of mistakes around what age she made.

One of them was giving her freedom around the 12-14 range. Sister took it and ran with it.