Skirting the Issue: I drank alcohol aged 14 I realise the irony of me, as a non-parent, talking about this. You may say it gives me no right to comment. But I can speak as someone whose parents gave her a teeny-weeny bit of alcohol on the odd family special occasion, from when I was around 14, and the good that this has done me. I remember my father specifically saying that he wanted us girls (me and my sister) to try a bit of alcohol now so that when we were older, and got to the pub, aged 18, we wouldn't go straight to the bar, down three pints in a row and become a complete idiot in front of all our mates, carrying on, well, like we'd never had a drink before. No, those days came much later on, when I was old enough to know that would happen. It worked, too. I remember on my 18th birthday, I headed straight for a bar where I had a respectable few pints and went home practically sober. I didn't feel the need to "get wasted" - I was sort of used to alcohol and its effects and knew better than to drink blindly until I lost control. Again, those days were reserved for when I was at uni. You see, my dad saved me from the looming embarrassment of looking like a right plonker and being the laughing stock of my mates, having had too much booze at the age of 18. That, in my book, is good parenting. When I was older, and did indeed look like a right plonker in front of my friends thanks to one too many tequilas, that was of my own doing, my choice - it didn't catch me unawares as it would have done otherwise on my 18th birthday. I can't say the same of my friends, who upon turning 18, headed straight to the nearest bar and got so drunk they ended up puking on the streets outside. Disgusting behaviour, I know - but can you really blame them? They had no clue what alcohol, or more to the point, alco-pops which taste like lemonade, would do to them. They'd never tried booze before and were so desperate to do so they didn't spare a second thought for the consequences of drinking too much. I don't know the exact time somebody coined the phrase 'binge drinking' but that night over 10 years ago may have had something to do with it. So next time someone is "shocked" at the latest survey showing teenagers in Britain are trying alcohol under the safe supervision of their own parents, I hope they stop to think about the consequences of not doing so - which in reality could be far more shocking.