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You want to build skills so your child knows how to get out of a situation where he/she is asked to drink or feels pressured to drink.

Even if your child doesn’t want to drink, they may not feel ready to resist peer pressure. Telling your child to “just say no” isn’t enough to prepare them. At the age that many children start drinking, they are very concerned with the opinions of their friends and classmates. They might be tempted to drink just so they don’t look uncool. They may think that they can get away with having just a sip of alcohol, but a sip can easily turn into a lot more drinking.

Help your child by working together to think of ways to resist peer pressure without looking uncool. For example, they can give an excuse that they’re allergic to alcohol or that they’ll get thrown off a sports team if they drink, which may be a real rule they agreed to follow. Excuses like these or “I’m not feeling good” or “I have to get up early tomorrow” are probably much easier for your child to say than “I don’t want a drink.”

You can also encourage your child to use you as an excuse. Tell your child they’re free to tell their friends that you’re always checking to see if he/she has been drinking. With these excuses, your child can seem like they have no other choice but to refuse alcohol.

Your child may also want to know how to exit a situation entirely without seeming uncool. In that case, the two of you can come up with a code word for them to use on the phone or in a text message to signal that they want to be picked up.

All of this collaborative planning will show that you understand that it can be hard to say no to peers at that age and it gets your child to think through some challenging situations before encountering them.