{"id":131655,"date":"2025-11-10T05:57:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T05:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/131655\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T05:57:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T05:57:07","slug":"ive-changed-my-old-stance-on-teens-and-alcohol-its-snus-and-vapes-that-are-the-problem-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/131655\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019ve changed my old stance on teens and alcohol \u2013 it\u2019s snus and vapes that are the problem \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou\u2019ve changed\u201d. If someone says something like that to you, it\u2019s rarely feels like a compliment. Rather, there\u2019s an insinuation that you\u2019re somehow not being true to yourself, take a winners-only approach to supporting a football team, or have had a complete and total ideological shift that the sharer of the observation does not approve of.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, you get context beyond the two word sentence.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, your working-class roots can make you more sensitive to any suggestion of change.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, being a Liverpool fan isn\u2019t as much craic as it was last year.<\/p>\n

And, sometimes, your kids<\/a> just want to guilt trip you into giving in to something you\u2019d have agreed to in the past.<\/p>\n

And they\u2019d be right. I have changed. I\u2019ve changed my stance on some things as more information came my way. What\u2019s the point in living and learning if you never put the learning to good use. When I was pregnant with my first child<\/a>, my doctor said it was okay to have the odd glass of wine, but I couldn\u2019t have nuts. A couple of pregnancies later that advice had changed, no wine was allowed but monkey nuts at Halloween were back on the table. <\/p>\n

So when a parent recently reached out asking if I had come across a situation where parents were not only allowing their teenagers to drink but openly facilitating it for their teens and their friends, I found myself reflecting on how normal a practice this has become in Ireland.<\/p>\n

So normal that we don\u2019t talk about it enough. A bit like vapes and nicotine pouches (affectionately called snus) openly and widely used by teenagers or how it is that they\u2019re so accessible to children.<\/p>\n

But more on that later.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Say \u2018goodbye\u2019, not \u2018day day\u2019: why parents should speak to their child like an adultOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Anyway, back to alcohol. I suspect few enough of us reached 18 before having our first alcoholic drink. Many of us may even have been offered have that \u2018first\u2019 drink at home in our mid-teens so our parents could see how we reacted to it. \u201cI\u2019d rather them do it here than in the fields\u201d being the argument. \u201cAt least I can see how they react\/keep them safe at home\u201d, the justification. And look, it\u2019s an understandable position. I even bought into it myself at one stage. <\/p>\n

Parents do it with the best of intentions, in the hope ultimately of protecting their children. So it was no surprise to me that when I asked a group of parents about their approach to teens and alcohol, that so many kind, caring parents who are wholly invested in their children\u2019s wellbeing shared that they had introduced alcohol to their mid-teens children at home. In fact this was the position of the vast majority of respondents. <\/p>\n

But with research pointing to the harm alcohol does to the developing adolescent brain, and their overall health and wellbeing, not to mention the potential for addiction, it\u2019s a position that can no longer be justified. <\/p>\n

Yet, here we are in the age of prinks where parents facilitate teenage pre-night-out drinks at their house. Or parties where parents send their child with two cans and a promise to have no more. And, of course, legend has it that a child who has consumed alcohol is best placed to make excellent decisions such as keeping that promise, and more. <\/p>\n

Still, at least we\u2019re having these conversations, albeit too irregularly. Whereas the conversations around childhood vapes and snus use are not happening as they should. Partly because parents don\u2019t always know it\u2019s an issue. Or, as I discovered when speaking to parents, in plenty of cases, haven\u2019t even heard of the latter.<\/p>\n

As mentioned snus is the term colloquially give to nicotine pouches which sit under the lip and against the gum \u2013 and are therefore far less detectable by teachers at school. And like vapes, they\u2019ll likely serve the tobacco industry well as our children become hooked on nicotine, with all it\u2019s wonderful withdrawal effects. <\/p>\n

If you want to know how big an issue it is in their peer group, ask your teens. And prepare to have your eyes opened (or be lied to. Who can tell?)<\/p>\n

\u201cI just asked them, and they said \u2018yeah\u2019, like I was thick as a plank\u201d, one parent replied having put the \u2018snus\u2019 question to her children. \u201cJen, what the f**k?!\u201d she said, horrified by her obliviousness. She was far from alone. In fact, it appeared a national \u201cwhat the f**k?\u201d was taking place in my Instagram messages as parent after parent messaged having learned from their teens, that yes indeed this was an issue in their peer group. <\/p>\n

So yes, I\u2019ve changed. I\u2019ve changed my old stance on teens and alcohol. But I can make my peace with that one. Now if only we could open some eyes to quite how serious an issue vaping and snus is.<\/p>\n

Because children\u2019s health is far too important to be swept under the carpet. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cYou\u2019ve changed\u201d. If someone says something like that to you, it\u2019s rarely feels like a compliment. Rather, there\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[76750,103,61,60,1786,11760],"class_list":["post-131655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-children-s-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-parenting","tag-parents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}