I’m with @Dutchess_III Letting them takea does demystify alcohol. My parents let me taste if I was curious, nothing was taboo, and alcohol was not really presented asan adult drink. Basically, my parents rarely drank, especially my mom. My dad would drink at parties now and then, or try a glass of wine if it was suggested to him. No one in my family drank regularly growing up, and I am glad.
All kids eventually hit a point where they want to be like grown ups, I am very glad the message in my family was basically void of alcohol being related to being a grown up. I did know it was something we kids were not supposed to do, but I didn’t see it as some exciting think adults got to partake in that I was left out of.
When my friends started drinking in Jr. high, I didn’t think it was an adult cool thing to do, I thought of it as a thing my friends were doing that they shouldn’t.
Alcohol being natural means nothing. Most drugs are from nature.
I have read that actually alcoholism in Europe is quite high, and that they might want to believe drinking a glass of wine with dinner every night is just cultural, it actually in fact too often is alcoholism. Many of those people would be pretty uncomfortable without their regular alcohol. If you look at death rates related to alcohol countries like France are more than double America.
Alcohol to me is not the same as candy and soda regarding children. Sure it is better if kids eat fruit, vegetables and drink water, but alcohol is just never ok to me to serve children. It’s not that I think a little water downed wine will hurt the child in the moment, I worry about the long term consequences.