Should I let my 14-year-old daughter drink coffee?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “does rebel hard coffee have caffeine“
Should I let my 14-year-old daughter drink coffee?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “does rebel hard coffee have caffeine“
No offense to anybody, but if we are going to decide for you on the basis of our personal experiences alone, then I’m gonna share mine and tell you that you shouldn’t.
My mother did not let me have coffee until around the time when I turned 18, after which I made my own decisions. Of course, she and dad would make it at home and I did get to drink it some times because I really liked its fragrance, but whenever I got to a point where I was asking for coffee, she didn’t let me.
For what it’s worth, academically, I was among the top of my batch. I was the most active student when it came to co-curriculars. During all these years of schooling I won over 40 competitions in such diverse areas that I look at my certificates today and ask myself, ‘Man, where did all that energy come from?’
And I know the answer. It wasn’t caffeine. It was the healthy lifestyle that my mother forced me to maintain.
She made my summer vacation mornings hell by kicking me out of the house to take a brisk walk of “at least 45 minutes”
She made me exercise and do all the yogasanas and pranayamas along with her
She gave me almonds and nuts and fruits and milk/vegetable juice/coconut water as my first-most important-meal of the day, and made me drink lots of water and eat lots of salads and fruits between the meals
She didn’t let me stay awake after 10 PM if there was an exam the next day that I was anxious about, and instead woke up at 3 AM to wake me up at 4, and I found how much easier morning studies can be given the freshness
She encouraged me to spend evening leisure hours cycling with friends. It is important for the child to have at least one physical activity/exercise that she enjoys
Before an important exam at 4 AM when I told her that I am not able to concentrate and am feeling too sleepy to study but have a lot of course left, she would give me a warm mug of milk, and if that didn’t work, a healthy cup of masala chai.
When I asked her why I couldn’t have tea or coffee when I needed them, her answer was that I do not and should not need them at that age, and until I am fully grown-up, it’s okay to have them sometimes for taste, but I must not get used to either and find other ways to energize myself or focus better.
I was no hyperactive child; in fact, I am lazy by nature, which is probably why she had to be strict sometimes, but this was her philosophy and it worked best for me.You have to figure out what is best for your daughter.
Caffeine has substance-dependence properties that make it easy to become a habit and somewhat difficult to get over once a habit.
Yes, having coffee might help her do well on tests at times, be more active and all, but I personally don’t see why maintaining a healthy diet and lifestyle isn’t a better alternative, even if it comes with more hard-work which is only going to build her ability to naturally stimulate herself.
I don’t think coffee is fine just because she is going to consume unhealthy drinks anyway, if that’s the case then cut down on the unhealthy drinks first and make her switch to healthier options (you could try enticing her by telling how drinking vegetable and fruit juices or honey+lemon in warm water, specially on an empty stomach, is great for the skin and a great way to look good, and compliment her on her “glowing skin” as she begins to practice this for encouragement—it can be good motivation well for girls).
Obviously, having coffee occasionally doesn’t hurt, but I think it’s important to not depend on it for any reason whatsoever. So if she wants to have coffee so that she can prepare for an exam, I would say that is not the way to go. Coffee-stimulation comes at a cost.
It interferes with sleep—to what extent, that depends on one’s own body. Sleep is the best part of this age, do you want to interfere with that?
It causes gradual yellowing of teeth. You do not know if by starting now it is going to become a habit for her later. Do you want to take that risk?
It doesn’t come with any nutritional benefits for children and cuts down on the appetite. Is it really that essential?
Do note that for every unhealthy food consumption, she loses the appetite to eat or drink something healthier and more essential for her like milk.
That caffeine is bad for the heart is known to all. Add to that the fact that all that is bad about coffee can affect children more easily than it would harm adults.
The thing is that it may not affect her growth, but it can . Now, she can drink as much coffee as may deem fit to her after she grows old enough to take care of herself, but what she learns now is going to stay with her forever.
I started drinking coffee at age 13 as a way to cope with 7:05 a.m. classes in seventh grade. I never have been a morning person. I have never stopped drinking coffee.
I wish I could tell you that, in my 40s, I’m a little over four feet tall, toothless and hunchbacked, with a spotty academic and professional record and a raging caffeine habit. But that would be a lie.
Coffee really helped me wake up and focus as a teen, and I continued to drink it throughout high school. I was not only a straight A student, I worked a series of part-time jobs, won a few academic awards, participated in extracurricular activities including drill team and the debate club. All while maintaining excellent health.
Coffee-powered, baby.
Unfortunately, once a kid turns 13 or 14, many of them NEED coffee. They lose their natural energy at an age where energy and focus start to really matter. Coffee has been drunk for millennia, and it has tons of antioxidants and numerous health benefits. Sure, it’s a bit of a stimulant, but so are colas and energy drinks, which are bad for your teeth and likely for your body.
And you can be sure that she’ll be able to get her hands on those more easily than a cup or two of high quality coffee (which you’ll make for her, right?) I’m talking plain coffee, perhaps with a bit of milk or teaspoon of sugar, though I’d recommend she try and get used to it black. Cold brew coffee is a good option, it has a milder flavor than regular drip, and she has the option of chugging it…
Pedro Henrique Bernardinelli sent me this A2A. I’m not sure this will be the kind of answer the OP wanted, but let’s see if it helps.
I live in a coffee-based country/culture. I’m putting it out there right now since it may help explain my story. Brazil has a very long history with coffee, we produce good grains that are consumed all over the world, and have been doing so since we were a colony of Portugal. São Paulo, the state where I live, has always been the main producer of coffee in Brazil, and so people here have a strong tradition of drinking coffee, much as the British have the tradition of drinking tea.
We don’t drink it for the energy, for the “have to stay awake” thing, or even because it’s popular. We do it because of tradition. Because of our history. And because we like it.
Families will drink coffee in big mugs in the mornings, people will drink a small cup after lunch and if you’re home in the afternoon, around 5p.m., you’ll probably drink a small cup with bread or cookies. You’ll surely do this at weekends in your grandma’s house. And this is where my story with coffee started.
I wish I could tell you when exactly I had my first cup of coffee. I can’t. I simply don’t remember a time when I would go to my granma’s for lunch on Saturday and Sunday and would not join for the very small cup of coffee late afternoon. I have the fondest memories of those times, having lunch with my brother in the living room watching TV since we were too small to sit at the kitchen table and it was overcrowded with my grandparents, my parents and my aunt anyway. Then going out to the backyard to play, going down to my grandpa’s huge yard where he planted fruit trees, vegetables and kept his Macaw.
We would play for some time while the adults all slept and watched TV, and then, around 4 or 5p.m. grandma would brew the coffee and call everyone to drink. Again the adults would sit at the kitchen to eat cake and drink coffee and talk, but they’d bring us a very small glass cup about half filled with black, sweet, fresh coffee and we’d drink it. It was never something anyone considered wrong for the kids, it was never something only for adults, and it was never about the caffeine. Actually, with me, it’s quite the opposite.
Let me give you a little more context before I tell you something weird about myself.
My mom worked for about 25 years in Brazil’s greatest beer and soft drinks company, so we had easy and cheap access to soft drinks. And we all know they’re full of caffeine, right? At some point my mom decided it wasn’t good for us to be drinking those things very often, so the only time we were allowed soft drinks was, can you guess? Grandma’s house on weekends.
I’m not sure, but I’m guessing all this made me associate caffeine with the comfort of being at my grandma’s, of being full of good food, of hot summer evenings playing outside or cold winter afternoons watching TV and drinking hot coffee to warm up.
Today, drinking coffee brings me so much comfort, I almost always feel utterly sleepy after drinking it. It has no “energy” effect on me at all. Even iced coffee of coffee-flavored soft drinks don’t wake me up.
And I feel I have to tell you I’m no coffee addict either. Actually, I used to drink a lot of it when I was about the age your daughter is now. I remember being about 12-15 and going on school trips and being the one who got the biggest mug of pure, black coffee in the morning, while my friends all mixed it with milk. I never did like milk. But, later on in life, at about 18, I was introduced to cappuccino and mocaccino and I started drinking those much more than I do plain coffee. And that is to say… what… about once a week? Less? I like the taste of coffee, but I won’t go out of my way to get some. I don’t even drink it in the mornings at home (I have another addiction for that time of day, and that’s Yakult), but I’m not exactly your best example of “breakfast is the the most important meal” person.
So yes, I think you should let your daughter drink it if she wants. Just take care she doesn’t develop any kind of addiction, try to instill in her the sense that drinking coffee is something she should do for pleasure, not for the quick, easy energy and wakefulness, treat it like you would tea or hot cocoa or warm milk or orange juice. It can be even healthier than most of those if she can learn to appreciate it without tons of sugar (a tip: start with sugar, then next time take a sip sugarless before you put in the sugar, it’ll taste horrible; next time, try two sips before you put the sugar; next time, three sips, until you’re used to the taste and can drink the whole thing sugarless).
Why wouldn’t you? Coffee isn’t any more harmful than any other caffeinated beverage, and some studies have shown that it actually has health benefits. It’s not like she wants to do a shot of tequila before school in the morning.
(for what it’s worth, I’ve been drinking coffee since I was about 14—in my mid-40s now—and the person who introduced me to it was my father, who was tired of trying to wake me up at 6 am to catch the bus to my high school)
I started drinking caffeinated beverages at age 13. Here’s why and how it has affected me:
At 13, I needed to be at my bus stop by 6:15 am every weekday morning for school. I usually had 1 hour before this to get up, shower, do my hair, apply minimal cosmetics, eat breakfast, pack my lunch, and walk to the bus stop. I usually did homework until at least 10 pm, and frequently past midnight. So, throughout high school I subsisted on about 5-7 hours of sleep per night. Teenagers are optimally supposed to get 8-10.
I was not a morning person, and I hated coffee. My parents drank pots of coffee every day, but I couldn’t stand it. So, I went with soda. I drank a Pepsi Max with my breakfast every morning, and I still do every single day.
The effects I’ve noticed are:
Migraines : if I skip my morning caffeine, I almost always get a migraine. I get them occasionally regardless, but not having my Pepsi every morning is a trigger.
Dependency : I actually feel relief when I take my first sip of soda. I would buy Pepsi instead of food, if it came down to that. It is less expensive than a Starbucks addiction, so that’s a plus. I can now drink coffee (with lots of sugar) or use an caffeine supplement to get my “fix,” but I prefer Pepsi.
Growth : I’m the shortest person in my family. This might just be genetics or other factors, but I am the youngest caffeine consumer among my family members. I stopped growing at about age 13-14.
School : I just graduated college with highest honors. Again, lots of factors were present that helped me to do that, but it might be good to know.
Best of luck to you and your daughter!
Edit: Guys, please don’t criticize my personal dietary choices online. We’re all strangers, and none of us will likely change our minds on this. To be honest, I wouldn’t change my behavior even if my mom told me exactly what the commenters are saying. And she does, with slightly less condescension.
Well…… I’m 18yrs old and I’m 4′11. I haven’t grown since I was 13 pushing 14.
Which, by the way, I am adopted. Which means when my parents first saw me, I was working in a coffee factory and I was drinking coffee when I was younger than three. I have not not drink coffee since I was 12–14, because I had to be retaught how to be a kid. (that’s a story for another time).
And my growth has been stunted significantly due to this fact.
As for your case, Ma’am, it should be fine. Just don’t let her drink more than 2–3 cops a day.
See, I’m ADHD (which is another side affect from long exposure from drinking coffee So early) and it mellows me out. But, for someone who is not ADHD, they most likely will get Hyped.
Every time a parent authorizes a vice for their child, be it sex, drugs or coffee, it ruins it for the child.
Let your daughter discover her guilty pleasures on her own. Get out of her life.
Of course you should! What kind of micro-managing jerk wouldn’t?
I rarely drink coffee so I can’t say that I won’t be biased. I wouldn’t reccommend coffee to anybody under the age of 20 as in truth they do not need it. Coffee is a stimulating drink which could increase concentration, dehydrates and gives a feeling of more energy.
However, with most substances that can stimulate, coffee can become an addiction. For example that people can’t get up in the morning unless they have their cup of coffee.
Various culture look at the cup of coffee as something normal and enjoying but rarely do they see the loss you can have from over consumption of coffee such as long term low blood pressure.
I would recommend coffee as a stimulus for extraordinary situations such as studying for a test, working on a project, big meeting etc. Something that requires a lot of concentration. However, I wouldn’t recommend it on a daily bases or even a couple of times a day.
Why not? I have a sister that started drinking coffee at an earlier age and she is now a highly educated and intelligent caregiver. I don’t think it had any effect on her. I can only think of several reason to not allow her to drink it; 1) it will increase your consumption thus increasing you food cost slightly. 2) she will be getting wired out easier and this might affect her sleeping habits.
Just know that caffeine is a drug and it affects everyone and in different ways. A 14 year old is still a child. They should not NEED caffeine to function during their day. I never started with caffeine until I turned 50 because herbal tea was no longer cutting it. Children are better off without stimulants. It affects sleeping and “nerves”.
My daughter had asthma and at age 2 she was sipping coffee per doctor instructions. Doctor said if we were out and she started wheezing to order coffee and let her breath the steam and sip a little. It worked well enough til we got home.
One cup of regular coffee is ok. Do not do energy drinks though, they are very bad for your heart.
I actually have a question first…fo you let your 14y/o drink soda? If the answer is yes, then I see no difference in coffee. I drank coffee at age 7. My parents were of the every thing in moderation camp. Coffee these days is a very teenage thing to do. They meet at local coffee houses and talk or study. ultimately you have to do what you believe is best for you and yours. I wish you the best.
No. As a 14 y.o. her brain and body are both still developing. She should wait another several years. I’d speculate that the vast majority of people who start drinking coffee never quit. It is the MOST widely psycho-active used in the whole world!
Yes you should. Coffee has been shown to have numerous health benefits and especially for teenagers with obscenely early school schedules, coffee can get them up and going and stop them from sleeping in class.
yes. i was literally drinking coffee in a sippy cup by the time i was 3. and the only side-effect is the fact that im now nocturnal. (im kidding btw)
If she wants to, I see no problem with your daughter drinking coffee.
I was offered coffe almost every day my entire childhood.
It is seen as some kind of rite of passage to be old enough to drink it. Most Danes can stand the taste when they get around 13 to 18 years.
But then coffee is very important and almost ritualised in the Scandinavian culture. Coffee breaks, fika, kaffeslapperas is in ingrained part of the day and it is coffee Scandinavians socialize (when we are not drinking beer )
id say no because it stunts her growth and often times after the caffeine wears off in coffee people feel tired and worse than when they did before drinking it or so i’ve heard.
I wasn’t interested in drinking coffee until I was 26 and had a toddler to keep up with, so I was willing to drink it for any energy it may help provide. There wasn’t a coffee fad while I was growing up like there is today, and only the grown-ups drank coffee. Once I started drinking coffee, it is now routine. Although, if you tell her she can’t have any until she is older, she will just want it even more and try to get some when you are not around. You could let her try a taste of some really strong coffee without any sweetner and see if she is still interested, but that may not fool her.
I’m a first-generation American of Italian decent. I’ve been drinking coffee since before I can remember: warm with milk in the winter; over ice in the summer. I don’t see any reason to restrict her coffee drinking. If she wants to drink coffee, let her.
Based on my years of research, I’m confident that one daily cup of coffee won’t harm kids over the age of 12—as long as they avoid all other sources of caffeine.
That one cup of coffee combined with, say, a can of iced tea or soda, or a chocolate bar, could put kids over the daily limit of 100 milligrams of caffeine doctors recommend. Adults should aim for no more than 400 milligrams of caffeine, which they could get from four cups of coffee.
to be honest no-one but your daughter can answer that one..what is right for some might not be for others personally id just let her as there is no harm in it
Yea, but if you make it taboo he’ll only want it more anyway.
But speaking from experience with consuming a lot of caffeine from that age when i started drinking energy drinks from the age of around 13/14 to a degree that i wouldn’t recommend as i used to drink about 6 250ml cans a day which was stupid and a bit abnormal. But luckily I’ve abstained from them full stop now.
But it never gave me any serious problems. The only problems i had made worse from all the caffeine was that it intensified my teenage anxiety ridiculously which i got very badly and i’m certain the caffeine played a significant role in it.
I don’t really recommend you to. It has been proven by many experiences in neurology, that coffee has a negative effect on brain growth. It causes problems with sleep, may make you more prone to anxiety and depression. It is also said it may hinder some thinking skills. It is advised to abstain from it until your early twenties, when your brain has finished it’s primary development. Although a sip or two won’t hurt..
I started drinking coffee when I was 6. And now I’m 13. The thing is I constantly asked my mom what the strange liquid was and she let me try it. I didn’t become obsessed with it, I thought it was a bit butter. But if you teach her how to do it right, she won’t really become addicted, she’ll know when she wants to an when she doesn’t need to. In conclusion.
Yes you should.
Victor Allen’s
Why not? Coffee is very healthy and the only risk is addiction. If you have ever drank coffee it energizes you a lot.
I’m 14 and drink coffee, energy drinks, and other caffeinated products regularly.
Not everyday though (caffeine width drawl sucks)
I’ve gone back and forth on this, I love coffee and think it’s actually beneficial, but recently, we’ve encountered a stellar reason to not allow it.
My 11-year-old daughter has been going to a neurologist for three months now, for severe migraines. They aren’t caused by caffeine, and caffeine is sometimes suggested for symptoms, but it can be a trigger and we have to monitor caffeine very, very carefully. It’s just easier not to worry about it, and give her herbal tea when she wants a hot beverage.
I wouldn’t have thought this to be so important, until I found out that the percentage of children with migraines is in the double digits. It’s just a little bit rare to have a child for whom symptoms are so severe, it causes a lot of missed school. Not that we didn’t explore 99 reasons how it could be an attempt to miss school first.
When I taught health, I added a section on caffeine as a drug, at which most kids scoffed. So I gave them a voluntary assignment to quit all forms of caffeine just for a weekend and then write a small description of how they felt.
On Monday, almost all students reported effects such as fatigue, irritability, headaches, nausea and overeating, to name a few. So, clearly, caffeine does affect the body and if you are still growing, the effect will probably be more pronounced.
I see no harm in it, myself.
I let my ten year old daughter drink coffee if she likes, and have for a while. If you wake up before dawn, like she does on alternate weeks when school starts at 7:30 AM, you’re entitled a cup of coffee if you want one, as far as I’m concerned.
Mostly, she doesn’t ask for any once the novelty wore off.
No, i’ll leave the heath issues to someone else. Prices of coffee have skyrocketed. Feed them coffee at home and very soon it is daily $5 lattes at Starbucks or Wawa. Save your future young adult the savings of $3500 per year habit and instead they’ll contribute to a savings or retirement plan.
I don’t see an issue. I’ve been drinking it for a few years ever since I was 13 years old, the only downside is the addictiveness, but the addiction is very low, so if she really wanted to stop, she can, but the withdrawal symptoms are usual tiredness and headaches for a few days. I lost a bet and I went 2 days without drinking any coffee and that’s what I experienced, the first day was the worst, second day not so bad. But like a cigarette, I was craving for some caffeine eventually.
Do you let her drink Coca Cola or Pepsi Cola? Or Surge? How about letting her eat dark chocolate? Those contain caffeine, too.
How Much Caffeine in Drinks — Coffee, Tea, Soft Drinks — Caffeine Content
Unless you refrain from ingesting caffeine for religious reasons, there’s no real harm in reasonable amounts of coffee. Obviously, using anything to excess is a bad idea. Teach her moderation, not abstinence of a widely used, non-intoxicating beverage.
If your biggest concern with your 14yo is whether or not she drinks coffee, you’re one hell of a lucky parent; but then again I question your parenting skills altogether if you have to come ask Quora such a trivial question.
I’m pretty sure she’ll need plenty of coffee to handle 7am classes.
Sure. I started at 5. My little sisters started at 2/3. Coffee is non alcoholic and isn’t bad or dangerous. It can help her stay awake to study for exams and keep her brain active for exams , it can help her have more Energy for sports and it’s great when you are in a rush and don’t have time for breakfast, so you have energy all day. But not before bed as it keeps you awake and makes you wee more at night.
If anything, then with a straw. Drinking coffee from an early age daily can stain teeth and make them an unsightly yellow. If your child were to drink on a regular basis their teeth could stay yellow permanently.
I’d recommend abstaining from coffee as long as possible, so unless your child isn’t extremely exhausted or in need of a caffeine-kick, don’t let them drink coffee. Most children find the taste of coffee too bitter anyway, so it wouldn’t hurt to let them have a taste, though
This question seems to weird to me. Why would you NOT let her drink coffee? Is it religious beliefs? Your own health beliefs?
Sonnet Fitzgerald points out that she drank coffee as a toddler. I’m multiethnic, and it was common in both my Italian family and my German family to allow small children to start out drinking coffee with a low ratio of coffee to milk. No one drank excessive amounts, and the Italians didn’t use sugar. The Germans, just a teaspoon or so.
Compared to the horrible carbonated beverages available in every school—Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Dr. Pepper, etc. coffee is medicinal. Full sugar versions are packed full of caffeine, far more than a teenager would get in coffee. They are also supersaturated with sweeteners. They’re among the most cavity-causing products available to children.
Why are you controlling a 14 year to the point of disallowing her coffee? That’s the age at which most teenagers who developed serious addiction problems with drugs start using HARD drugs — heroin, oxy and meth.
Coffee is not the gateway drug to anything. It’s a part of culture in many parts of the world. Let up on her a little. If she doesn’t have a chance to mildly rebel at 14, it’s going to happen sooner or later, and it’s going to be a lot harder to deal with.
Not all the time. I’m Puerto Rican and I used to have coffee as a child, it was very light and sweet, so not much caffeine…but health wise, it’s like saying don’t have chocolate, which also has caffeine.
Good luck!
I don’t see why not. It is the equivalent to a Dr Pepper or Coke I think, drinks like that may even be more unhealthy than coffee. She is 14, it would be understandable if she were like a toddler or something because the caffeine and sugar would probably make her sick, She is way past that age though, She will most likely be fine.
I became an expert at cleaning and reloading the coffee percolator to make my mother’s coffee when I was about 7 yrs old. By the time I was 10 she’d given up and I was allowed a half cup with milk.
I was definitely drinking coffee by the time I was 13. A cup of coffee and half a dozen apples were needed to help me complete my homework each night.
I was one of the tallest girls in my class.
I was usually in the top 7 students (male and female) in my class which was the top academic class, and always got told I could have done better, which frustrated me immensely. I probably could have if my efforts weren’t sidetracked by my concerns for my mother whose separation from my father when I was 10 left a lasting impact. None of which had anything to do with coffee!
So as long as your daughter isn’t going to have a little coffee with her sugar it won’t do her any harm. It might stain her teeth if she drinks a lot.
It’s not your choice whether or not she drinks coffee, Just like it isn’t your choice if she chooses to consu.e saltine crackers, orange juice, cantaloupe, or gatorade. Honestly, when I see these kinds of questions s I just shake my head… If something isn’t illegal or harmful, don’t lose your shit over it. Pardon my French, these troll questions are just getting really out of hand.
I hope so I let my kids drink alcohol at 14 under my supervision. Now they are grown up they respect beer where their mates don’t.
It’s fine if you want to let her. It’s up to you.
It’s not great for her.
A cup of coffee has about as much caffeine as 3 Mountain Dews or 4 cokes, so it’s a big difference in caffeine content, but as long as she’s getting enough sleep at night, it’s not really a huge deal.
It’s a good question. I suggest yes for two reasons.
Middle and high school students are expected to start their school day far too early for the bodies and energetics and coffee could offer a valuable boost
More importantly I think it is crucial for the evolving relationship between teen and parent for the parent to begin to back off in controlling their child’s choices and to afford all the latitude that is possible consistent with common sense. The more choice a teen has the more they learn to exercise judgment, the fewer thing that you will argue over, and you can focus on the limits and boundaries that are really important. When it comes to big ticket items for teen limits, coffee just doesn’t rank that high. Cigarettes are illegal for teens and can kill. Coffee isn’t and won’t. Pick your fights.
As a teacher of 14 year olds, I would be more concerned about teens that age getting their hands on other more potentially harmful substances. Coffee, while capable of inducing certain unpleasant bodily effects, isn’t actually harmful. At the age of 16, downing one too many coffees while trying to pull a pre-exam all-nighter left me with a racing heart, convinced I was going to die. It was a good age for me to learn the virtue of moderation (and completing work in good time). You can educate your child on what he/she will be putting in his/her body, but the choice is his/hers.
Yes. If not overloaded with sugar and milk – it is even healthlier than coke, isn’t it?
I agree with Sugandha Banga on the healthly life style, but that is as whole more complex topic. If you are not keeping super healthly lifestyle yourself you cannot ask your kid to do so.
I also started drinking coffee at 14, just because I had to wake up earlier for classes – and yes, I used to go to sleep late so it was my mistake. But I felt bit “adult” thanks to that, too.
In this age, when paretns put bans on such things as coffee, they create a war field for a teenager to fight for their rights; it can escalate into stupid heights. So why to start a war over a coffee?
So if you think this small “depravity” of adults is more acceptable than drinking, smoking and others, then why not to teach your daughter how to enjoy coffee?
Last one: if it is just about the caffeine I suggest yerba maté “tea”. It is much better, the caffeine is distributed slowlier than when I shoot my brain with a coffee. (If it is not about caffeine she can have decaf.)
I let my 7 year old drink coffee.
She likes the taste and helps her stay awake. She gets 9 hours of sleep but never wants to wake up for school. I promised her that if she would wake up on time I would let her drink coffee like mommy. So Every Morning She Wakes Up Excited For Her coffee like a “lady” does. I Drink Espresso, she drinks a small cup (about 4 oz) of cappuccino. There’s nothing wrong with this I think. In my mother’s culture it’s normal for kids to drink coffee so I do the same with my daughter. My sister on the other hand doesn’t allow her kids to drink any but because her kids are very active non stop. They can never stay still.
Although, my 3 year old nephew is always waiting on one of his parents to leave their coffee unattended to drink it. That child LOVES coffee.
I’m no expert, but I was drinking coffee well before I was 14. It does not appear to have caused any major problems.
I remember grinding the beans in a hand-crank coffee grinder and brewing coffee in a saucepan on the gas stove. Once I washed that pan, because it was such a mess. I never heard the end of it. It took several brews for the coffee to start tasting right again. For a while it was tricky carrying four mugs of coffee. I soon got used to it, but at first it was difficult to ignore the mugs and just walk. I was about 4 at the time.
One problem with coffee brewed in a saucepan is the grounds that inevitably find their way into every mug, It makes good coffee, but the last 1/2″ is undrinkable, or can be really nasty if you do so carelessly. I started drinking coffee when i was two, finishing off the mugs my parents left by their chairs.
When I was about 15, some days I developed a headache walking home from the school bus at about 5 pm. Years later, I realized this was probably a caffeine withdrawal headache.
That is the only downside I remember from drinking coffee.
If I’m just making the decision based on my own personal feelings, I’m saying no.
Yes, I have a reason for that.
I find that caffeine is an artificial prop, a poor substitute for the ability to prioritize. In this modern age, we have this idea, easily exploited by others, that we have to get things accomplished . Supposedly, the more caffeine we ingest, the more we accomplish. But I believe it leads to the inability to just say no to unreasonable demands.
We think we need to squeeze out every drop of energy out of our bodies, but we don’t. There is nothing wrong with working hard when you need to, and there’s nothing wrong with listening to your body, and knowing when it’s time to stop.
Again, fully recognizing that I am in the minority, my advice would be, instead of allowing the kiddo to become semi-dependent on a chemical to get through the day, teach her to figure out what she needs and wants to do the most, and save the rest for another time. In addition to not making her reliant on a chemical, you’ll be teaching her to balance her life in such a way that she can recognize which things require her energy and which do not. Not everything does.
I started drinking coffee when I was nine. This is pretty young, but I liked the taste of coffee, and my parents let me drink it. Although I didn’t drink it for the caffeine, it still had multiple benefits. It helped me focus more in school, and I was getting better grades because of the increased concentration. I began to rely on it. This continued into sixth grade. I had to be up at 5:00 a.m. every weekday, and I typically went to bed around 12:00 a.m. Before you ask, I did have good parents, and they didn’t tolerate this. I powered off electronics at 7:30 and was in bed by 9:00 at the latest. However, I had always had trouble falling and staying asleep, so I was usually sleep deprived, and got somewhere from. 4–5 hours of sleep per night. I drank coffee in the mornings and sometimes during school to combat the effects of sleep deprivation. On the days I didn’t consume some form of caffeine, I was increasingly tired, couldn’t focus on school, and I had horrible headaches.
Sometime towards the middle of sixth grade, I developed an eating disorder and stopped drinking coffee because I was terrified of the calories. This, however, didn’t happen immediately. I slowly decreased the amount I drank, so I was getting used to the decrease in caffeine and didn’t experience a rough withdrawal. I dropped from an A+ to a B- in most of my classes, and could hardly focus. This could have been from not drinking coffee, but it was probably my body reacting to starvation. I couldn’t focus in class because I was counting calories and trying to endure hunger pangs, so I can’t say whether the caffeine contributed to it or not.
For the most part, caffeine benefited me. If you truly feel that your daughter is ready, then you should let her have caffeine. It could have a ton of benefits, from improved focus to reducing the risk of deadly illnesses.
I started drinking coffee when I was 14. My sister asked me to have a cup of coffee with her and I did. I asked my dad about it later and he said it was fine if I started. My mom told me no more then 1 cup a day so that’s all I had. I was pretty much fully grown at 14 so I really doubt it had any adverse affects. I only ever had 1 cup a day for a while and as I got older I increased it to 2 – 3 cups a day. I’ve never had any problems from it and from what I’ve looked into it 2 – 3 cups a day is perfectly healthy. I’d say don’t go overboard. 1 cup a day for a 14 year is probably fine. I have another sister who drinks 1 cup in the morning as well: she is 14. I thinks it’s totally fine. It’s definitely WAY better then energy drinks which a lot of teenagers start drinking way to young. Coffee doesn’t have to be a bad thing in moderation. It might be nice to wake her up for the school day lol.
I am in a religion which does not allow coffee so i may be biased but I don’t really think coffee is necessary. I sleep the same amount of time approximately as my classmates (I’m 14) and I stay awake better than my coffee drinking counterparts. Along time ago, people did not drink coffee and they were fine.
I’m 17 soon 18 now and I tasted coffee when i was 14 and Hated it. This last year I tried instead of worm coffee I tried Iced Coffee and I absolutely loved it, but I don’t drink it 24/7, I for the most part drink when I know it is going to be a really boring class or I’m really tired. Cause then I will focus on my coffee, but I will still be awake and listening (for the most part at least). So my answer to this question is that let her taste and if she likes then tell her that it is not good with too much of it, but if she is tired or if there will be a boring class she can take with her a cup and drink it so she isn’t falling asleep or loosing concentration. (Sorry if my English is bad I’m not from an English speaking country.)
Of course not. Your daughter should easily be able to find natural energy elsewhere, without the need for caffeine. You can build up a tolerance for coffee and energy drinks very quickly, why would you submit her to that dependence at such an early age?
I am Italian and everyone has coffee here, espresso to be precise. I’ve started having it when I was 12 although my 13 year old brother doesn’t want to try it.
The only danger s if she takes too many especially if with lots of sugar.
Let her go for it!
Born into a coffee growing family, every child in my family develops a fondness by the time they turn 2. My mother started drinking coffee around the same time too but was forced by her parents with similar growth-related worries to limit it to a couple of times a month until she turned about 14, where her coffee habit became quite regular. She is in excellent health, by the way. So were my grandparents who started drinking coffee around the same age.
I always hated the taste of milk by itself and mixed it with something. By the time I turned 10, I progressed onto drinking tea (with milk) regularly and coffee about a couple of times a week. My couple-of-times-a-week coffee habit has kept me from being a caffeine addict and I have no issues not having coffee or tea for any length of time.
I don’t see why not.
The stuff is delicious. It is a bit addictive, but so is Quora. I’m 14, and I try to drink coffee as often as I can. Plus, she will learn the difference between decent coffee, great coffee, and trash coffee.
That was a hard addiction to break, I haven’t had any since I was 15, it gave me so many jitters. I’m not going to freak out if I catch my kids drinking coffee, but I will tell them not to, even though it is so, so good.
Not exactly sure when I started drinking caffeinated beverages – after all, doesn’t every kid like Coke of Pepsi.
But I started drinking coffee in my junior year of high school. I actually hated coffee but I got a part time job pumping gas in a coin op car wash. This was in Canada and, as you can imagine, during the winter it got cold (that’s with a capital COLD). If the wind was blowing the wrong way the spray would come back from the bays and, by the end of a shift, you could literally chip the ice of whatever clothes you were wearing. And yes, we did have heat in the booth where we had the cash register etc but it hardly kept up and we spent most of our time outside.
Coffee was pretty much the only hot beverage we had. So I started drinking it because it was warm. Somewhere along the line I started to like the stuff.
And that stood me in good standing when I went to university – most days early morning classes started at 8:00 and since I lived about 30 minutes from campus (and had a tendency to burn the midnite oil) I needed that pick me up. And it hasn’t stopped – ten years in academia, untold hours studying for actuarial exams while working. Without coffee I never would have survived.
Most 14 year olds I know drink coffee, I did too. Actually I drank either coffee or tea pretty much every morning throughout high school. Your daughter is a teenager and even if you don’t let her to drink coffee, she will still drink it behind your back when she’s outside with her friends, on her lunch break, or at her friend’s house. If you don’t allow her to drink coffee it might increase her interest in coffee. And seriously, coffee’s negative effects are not so much that you should ban it. Yes coffee does have some negative effects but it also has some health benefits too if drank a moderate amount. The things she eat, maybe even the air she breaths in probably has more potential health risks than coffee.
Instead of not letting her, I suggest talking to her about the effects of coffee like, “If you drink it every day, you might have this and that health problem.” “Just so you know if you depend on caffeine to wake up, soon it will lose that effect and you won’t find it helpful when you really do need to wake up.” “Don’t drink it in the evening or you’ll have a hard time sleeping.”
After that leave the choice to her. Too much control in a 14 year old teenager’s choices will be seen as oppression rather than parenting and when that’s the case, she won’t take your word seriously when you really need to control something much more serious than just drinking coffee.
So actually yes I started drinking coffee was 4 because I have hypoglycemia and it helps regulates my blood sugar it’s especially good for people who have large mood swings due to hormone like I did so I’d say yes you should it’s actually pretty healthy
You can.
By age 14, her body should be able to handle caffeine in a larger portion without her body flipping out. These are the things to try to avoid with coffee:
1) You don’t need to buy that $6 Starbucks frappuccino EVERYDAY
– I know Starbucks is cool and whatever but, coffee can be a huge money hole if you do this! All you need is a normal cup of coffee (Kurieg, coffee maker) and some flavored creamer and it tastes divine. Plus, those things are sugar and fat bombs. But let her have one occasionally.
2) Make sure she doesn’t become addicted to caffeine
– It is easy for people to become addicted to caffeine. Many regular coffee drinkers are. It is not a good addiction and can lead to health problems later in life
3) Watch her caffeine intake
– if your daughter is pounding 2 cups of coffee and 3 Monster energy drinks a day, that’s not good and can lead to heart problems.
I don’t think coffee is any more or less detrimental than any other caffeinated beverage with the exception of energy drinks…which are significantly worse in my opinion. Moderation is key with coffee as with anything else.
Cafeine is less adictive then nicotine. so yeah if she can take the bitterness of it let her have a cup in the morning. most soft drink are more cafeinated then that.
Probably so. Here’s my coffee experience.
When I was fourteen, my mom still hadn’t validated coffee. I was so sick of it. All my friends were having coffee.
So, my BFF picked me up before school and we stopped by a Starbucks together. My first coffee. Yum, okay?
Don’t ever insult Frappachinos.
I didn’t get addicted or anything. I just drank it when I was tired before school.
I think you should. But explain stuff like, “You shouldn’t have this all the time.”
It’s hard to say what age is too young for a child to drink coffee. I personally think 14 years old is okay, as she’s in high school now.
I unfortunately can’t give you advice from my own experience because I thought coffee tasted horrible when I was a kid and never tasted any I liked until I was in college. To this day, I can’t stand Starbucks.
I think, as long as you warn your daughter that caffeine can be addictive and that Starbucks is expensive, you will have done your parental due diligence. At 14, I think your daughter is getting to be old enough to make her own choice in this regard. It is also possible that, once coffee is no longer a mysterious, forbidden fruit, the attraction will wither away.
Another suggestion is that you start her on decaf and see how she likes that. Or she can make creative coffee drinks. I make Mexican coffee by mixing a teaspoon of decaffeinated coffee with a heaping scoop of Mexican hot chocolate mix, with or without creamer. It tastes delicious!
In moderation. one cup in the morning probably won’t be too bad. I would ask her pediatrician how much caffeine is safe for someone of that age.
Yes, but start small.
Does she drink tea? If not, better get her started on a cup of tea before she gets her first cup of joe.
If she already drinks tea, get her to gradually shift to coffee. First, a sprinkle of instant, then half a teaspoonful, then a whole teaspoonful. Get her used to caffeine. If she has to go to the bathroom, let her, no matter how many times she needs to go.
By this time, you can invest in a coffeemaker, if you haven’t done so already. Keurig is good for beginners. But afterwards, get one that doesn’t make instant coffee and teach or learn with her about the many ways of making your own artisan coffee. My boyfriend owns a French press, for example,…
I’ve been drinking coffee since the age of two. German background. When I asked my mother about it, she said ‘oh it had a lot of milk really’. My Italian inlaws also sent their grandson to school with a bottle of milk coffee. I
I remember having coffee brought to me every morning when I was thirteen by my father. He never used to stir the sugar so I kept a spoon next to my bed, rather than get up or complain. I remember drinking a cup of sweet hot milky …coffee..?? While still in my oversized cot at age 5. I’m pretty sure it was mild coffee! So I think is a cultural thing.
Now I teach high school and I really think some kids should have a cup. It’s an extreme tiredness that washes over them and it kills the learning.
I have about 3 instant coffees a day. It keeps my diabetes at bay as I run around more. If I drink too many it feels wrong, as I am tired but ‘wired’.
My children have rebelled against me and don’t drink much coffee. They think it’s probably unhealthy. I am quite health conscious. I know coffee has a ‘half life’ of six hours, that is , six hours later the amount of caffeine in you is at half strength of the initial dose. I also know that if I am really tired, the best thing is to give up drinking more than two coffees or I would be tired but not resting.
One way, to get benefit from coffee when exhausted to the point of needing a nap extremely badly before continuing work, is to let the coffee wear off, drink a cup, and then sleep for about half an hour, until the coffee kicks in ( if it does).
I would say it won’t really have the best effect on her since she’s so young. In moderation is ok. Try not to put her in a situation that she gets addicted enough to say she will be pissed without her morning cup of joe. It’s no harm to drink but at such a young age, I would say minimum consumption is best but it’s up to you.
Do you let your child have chocolate? Cola drinks? Mountain Dew? Tea?
The caffeine in dark chocolate adds up to less than the amount in many common beverages. By comparison, an 8-ounce cup of coffee contains 95 milligrams of caffeine, while an ounce shot of espresso has 63 milligrams. … Colas also contain caffeine, with 33 milligrams in a 12-ounce can.
Check out the caffeine chart: Center for Science in the Public Interest
Speaking as a 13 year old girl, I’ll say this much. I drink coffee when I’m really tired and need an extra kick. I try not to do it daily because of the cost. Is it perfectly healthy? Not really, but it isn’t so bad. I could do a lot worse.
It all depends on the situation, but typically, I would say there isn’t anything wrong with it. It’s just a beverage she enjoys that might help her get through her busy high school schedule.
If you have any health concerns about her drinking coffee, it’s probably fine. But to be sure, I would recommend asking her doctor if it’s anything to be worried about. Otherwise, it’s probably fine.
Don’t ask her to drink coffee if she doesn’t have it till now. if she is already having it (in moderate quantities, like 2–3 cups a day) do nothing.
Umm no. I was an avid coffee drinker until recently. It made my mornings productive, afternoons restless and nights brief and fictional. I was convinced that coffee helped me. However after going through 3/4 shots of espresso everyday 7 days a week, the whole month, for 4 years, I stopped. I had to.
My beef with coffee is not only about its effect on our mind and body but also about the “fast paced” lifestyle it nudges us into, ever so subtly, slowly, in small increments over time.
Coffee made me anxious, hyperactive, left my mind racing. It just didn’t wake me up it cranked up the noise(not the sound). I felt rushed, sometimes exasperated. Finally one day I realised I had turned into a walking zombie, neurotic, lifeless(soon after the crash) or overactive.
I switched over to green tea instead. It has just the right amount of caffeine to stimulate yet does not overwhelm. It makes me feel calm and collected, alert the whole day without the crash. My thoughts are much more meaningful. I actually feel hungry during meal times and sleepy at night. Yeah life is good 🙂
14 year olds don’t need coffee(or green tea yet), they need intense exercise, good books and lots of love and support.
Again this is my experience, coffee might work for you, it may enhance your life experience but it certainly did not help me.
IMHO: Not recommended.
My parents always drank tea and coffee and I was drinking weak tea at 7 or 8 so by the time I was 14 or 15 I was also drinking coffee, with sugar and milk – although by the time I was 18 I was drinking it black.
If she likes it. It will probably make her more alert, many children younger in Europe take small cups of coffee throughout the day and have far less issues with ADD than here.
Canada Health Guidelines ( Caffeine in Food ) recommend that a 14 year old be limited to 2.5mg/kg of body weight. So if you weighed 50kg, that would be about 125mg of caffeine, which is the equivalent of a cup of a coffee (depending on the size of the cup, brewing method, etc). Note that this represents a conservative threshold below which there is no evidence of negative effects. But each person is different, and other factors (diet, stress, etc) can impact this in various ways.
Outside of Caffeine, there isn’t a lot in coffee that you need to be concerned about. Of course, a lot there depends on what you put IN your coffee. If you’re drinking a double-quad (4 cream/4 sugar) or worse, you need to be worried about excessive calories and sugar consumption.
It would all depend on what your feelings are towards it. Talk to her doctor if you have any xoncerns. My daughter as an infant got caffeine drips twice a day to help her survive. As a premature infant, it was a constantbattle. The caffeine they gave helped her breath and helped her heart beat better.
By the time she was 2, she had a lot of stomach issues. She was constipated a lot, to the point she was hospitalized for it. Finally, fed up, I went to her doctors and we discussed our best option for her. He told me, give her just a little bit of coffee a day to help her.
Her stomach issues improved a lot. You couldn’t even tell she had ever been constipated. Her heart rate had gotten better. She goes to bed early and sleeps through the night. Shes 4 now and I have started to cut back on her intake, but she still has a bit of it every now and then.
Do you let her drink caffeine soda, cocoa? Not much difference except coffee is a natural product and soda is a can of chemicals.
I would rather my 14-year-old drink coffee than soda like I was at her age. My friends and I would go to the local gas station daily for Mountain Dew, Coke or Dr. Pepper- coffee would have been a much better choice.
Unless you are raising her in a religion that doesn’t allow coffee drinking (Mormon*) then yes. Coffee is an acceptable choice of beverage. She is 14. This is old enough to make choices about what (legally) she puts in her body. From someone who used to be a 14-year-old girl, I can tell you forbiding it will only make it more desirable and she’ll drink it when she’s not around you.
You don’t want to set up a relationship of control and hiding forbidden behavior. As a parent you should be able to have a conversation about your concerns (which if you can’t articulate may reveal your own biases in the situation) with her, and hear her argument to the contrary. Ultimately, unless it’s an illegal substant
*If you are raising her in a religion that forbids the drinking of coffee then the question is more about family values than beverage choice. The question here is if she’s allowed to make her own religious decisions yet, and if you are Mormon then she’s over the age of accountability (8) and should be allowed to make choices about her own body.
Children aren’t your slaves. You don’t let them things.
If you still do, they either obey and secretly hate you, or disobey and openly hate you.
If you are worried of your daughter drinking coffee, there’s no much you can do, but still:
Learn yourself what are advantages and disadvantages of drinking coffee.
Inform your daughter of them.
Let her make her own decision.
This is the hardest part, but: encourage her to follow her decision even if you are against it. This way she gets HER life experience, not one that YOU think she must have.
If she’s not a morning person, it might help her a lot.
Look, parents in my generation hated the idea of coffee and kids, but it was just irrational. It was even so bad that my mom and dad didn’t want me drinking Mtn Dew because of it’s caffeine content. First of all, coffee is too bitter to be likeable by most children, and secondly, by the time your child does like coffee, she’s not even a kid anymore.
So my advice is that if she asks for it, she should have it. No, it doesn’t “stunt your growth,” that’s utter hogwash. At least half of teens are done growing, or almost done, by the time they want coffee anyway. One piece of advice though, try to encourage her to just have one drink a day, as it can get addicting, and not to have any coffee past 7 pm if at all possible.
Having been born and raised in Italy I was introduced to espresso coffee rather early in life. Around the the age of 6 I was given the first tea spoon with espresso. Eventually, the quantity grew slowly and by the time I was 14 I was drinking one espresso at breakfast time and one after lunch. I have had my two espressos per day whenever possible for all my life. I am past 65. It does not seem to have created any health problem for me and for all people who grew up with me and had a similar initiation to coffee. I have been living in Canada for the past 40 years and I drink much less coffee than most Canadians I know. Moreover my “single” (“solo”), “short” (“ristretto”) espresso is about 80 ml per cup while the standard cup is 250 ml, that is my 2 espressos per day are actually equal to 2/3 of one standard cup of coffee. Only occasionally, in social occasions, I drink the third cup of espresso.
If you let her drink caffeinated soda, then coffee would actually be better, if there’s no sugar added.
If they wake up before 8, let them have some. If it is a weekend and they have no plans. Don’t let them have any, this will get them in a habit to where they aren’t addicted, but they might like it for when they start needing it as an adult.
Like many people in Scandinavian cultures, I’ve been drinking coffee since I was a toddler (about 2 years old.) It hasn’t stunted my growth, and I’m not dependent on caffeine as an adult. I like coffee, and drink it most mornings, but I go without it once in a while and don’t suffer any ill effects if I do.
I let my own children drink coffee from a young age. Our pediatrician actually encouraged me to give my oldest child coffee to drink in the mornings as a way of treating her ADD with a mild stimulant.
Of all the things a fourteen-year old can get into, coffee is one of the mildest and most enjoyable. I say let her.
Sure, if she wants it. I think the only reason it’s considered an “adult” drink is that most kids don’t like it. It’s certainly not any worse for her than soda.
I’m 14. I tried drinking coffee about 2 years ago. I hated it. The taste just wasn’t for me. Although for a small period I somehow loved it so much. I think its fine for a 14 year old to start drinking coffee! (Caffeine doesn’t work for me at all so theres really no point for me to drink it)
What the hell is wrong with coffee? I’m 14, and a daughter, and have been having coffee since a young age- maybe 3/4? To be honest I don’t think it makes me go crazy or whatever you expect her to do, and it never has- but obviously don’t let her drink like, multiple litres a day or whatever. I think it may as well make you as hyper as tea – not hyper! I don’t really see why she hasn’t had coffee before, or why this is even worth asking!
I remember my very first cup of coffee like it was yesterday. I was 13. Some extended family had arrived at our farm at 2 a.m. quite by surprise. Once everyone got settled into beds, I found myself kicked to the daybed in the den downstairs. But most of the bedrooms were right there, too, and I was coughing a lot. So I took a little cough syrup, having to open a new bottle to do so, and finally got some sleep.
My parents sent someone downstairs to wake me at 9 a.m. – super late on a farm especially with weekend chores to do. I literally had to crawl up the steps. I sat at the table feeling confused and drowsy. Mom asked if I was OK, I said yes, that I’d had a little cough syrup to help me not cough and was still tired. Well…she sent my sister to fetch the bottle.
It was half empty.
*kerthunk* A scalding hot cup of black coffee hit the table in front of me and I was told, through what I perceived as stifled laughter, to drink up!
And I’ve been drinking it ever since.
So…sure, let her have a cup of coffee once a day. It’s when the habit grows to 8 to 10 cups a day (as mine has at various times) that it becomes a problem and that would be a problem for *anybody*. Cheers!
Honestly, I don’t think there is anything wrong with drinking coffee – in moderation of course. I’d say at 14 years old, one cup a day, can do no harm. My daughter is 13 and I allow her one cup of coffee a day – mornings mostly. Black tea has caffeine in it as well, so if you are worried about the caffeine – then stay away from all sodas, chocolate, black teas and coffee – they all have caffeine in. Coffee as a beverage really doesn’t have that many “bad” ingredients. Yes, I don’t recommend her drinking 8 cups of coffee a day, but one cup a day? Really! I can’t see the problem.
Caffeine does increase your heart rate, but coffee has plenty of health benefits as well. Anything you overdue will mostly have a bad effect on your health.
I started drank coffee when I was 5.
One day, at church, I went over to the coffee table, mistaking it for hot cocoa, and the habit just stuck.
Today, I’m almost 32, 6′ 3″ (1.9 m) tall, and generally fine.
She’ll be fine. If anything, she’ll gain a few health benefits .
Better a coffee “addict” than a ton of other things she could be doing, at her age.
Just tell her to enjoy in moderation. Tell her to keep up on her routine brushing habit (helps fight the stains of tannic acid).
Then teach her how to appreciate good coffee—because life’s much bigger than Starbucks.
Caffeine and nicotine seem to be one of the most popular substances used and abused by teenagers nowadays. Although caffeine seems to be less evil than nicotine, let’s tackle these two substances one by one so that we can have a thorough and comprehensive discussion as to how they affect the lifestyles of teenagers.
According to Simmons Research, 31% of teenagers in the U.S. report that they drink energy drinks. Put simply, that 31% represents about 7.6 million teens in America. Nutritionists say that energy drinks are abundant in sugar and caffeine and it can hook kids to a very unhealthy drinking cycle. The caffeine included in energy drinks comes from multiple sources and that’s why it is difficult to determine how much caffeine energy drinks contain. Most energy drinks are loaded with B vitamins, and if taken in heavy doses, it can cause numbness and tingling of the hands and feet as well as increase the beating of the heart.
Teenagers can easily abuse caffeine since most products laden with caffeine can be bought at local grocery stores or drug stores. Some may even fulfill their coffee craving in the middle of the night since a lot of caffeine loaded drinks and products can be bought at 24 hour convenience stores.
There have been reported cases of teenagers downing several cans of caffeine loaded drinks in a row to get a buzz, and a new study even found a surprising number of poison center calls from teens getting sick because of too much caffeine intake.
Most teenagers don’t really follow the warnings and reminders of their parents about too much intake of caffeine since most teens grew up seeing their parents drinking coffee.
The reasons why young people drink caffeine is because they want or need to stay awake or they want to get “high”. You can read more in my post,
I guess yes cuz I have been drinking coffee from the age 6.
I think you should let your daughter drink coffee. I’ve been drinking coffee since I was 8, and it hasn’t stumped my growth, tinted my teeth, affected my sleep pattern, or anything like that.
What’s the big deal about her drinking coffee?
I’m not sure when I first started drinking coffee but it would have been when I about 3 or 4. That’s three or four, not thirteen or fourteen. I’ve been drinking coffee every day since.
Yes, as long as she doesn’t have a medical condition that prevents her from having caffeine, for instance my mom and I can’t have caffeine because if we do we get migraines.
Why wouldn’t you?
Caffeine is a drug.
So, when your 14-year-old daughter takes this drug in often enough, she will inevitably become addicted. It will be hard for her to stop drinking coffee, and if she misses a drink she may suffer migraines which will affect her learning.
In other words, she shouldn’t drink coffee on a regular basis, unless she actually needs to, rather than if she just enjoys it.
My mother was raised in an immigrant family and let us drink coffee or tea when we wanted it. I probably was drinking coffee by age 5. It isn’t any more harmful than canned soft drinks and probably less so since the portions are small.
It isn’t all that addictive. In my case I used to drink it several times a day, now I only drink it in the morning.
There’s a difference between drinking coffee (the drink) for enjoyment of the taste, smell, and experience associated with it, and an unhealthy relationship with–an addiction to or dependence on–caffeine (the psychoactive stimulant drug).
Like all medicinal substances, coffee should be used consciously, ideally with some understanding of and respect for its effects and the physical health and emotional state of the person consuming it.
It is not a food; it shouldn’t be consumed as such.
Also, like alcohol consumption (or consumption of anything, really), be mindful of what your daughter may learn from your behaviour and actions. For example, if you say she can’t drink coffee (which is fine) or advise her to not drink too much (also fine), yet you drink it regularly, you’re sending two difference messages.
Alternatives
There are plenty of other healthful things that she (and you) can consume and do that result in one having lots of energy–something many people drink coffee for.
There is even caffeine-free coffee available that is made from decent ingredients. One example:
Teeccino Caffeine-Free Herbal Coffee
Other examples: Coffee substitute
Though I’d stay away from decaffeinated coffee that’s been processed using chemicals. I think there are others that are processed without chemicals, but I don’t know much about that.
Further reading
You may find it helpful and informative to see what wikipedia has to say about coffee and caffeine–which is, incidentally, quite a lot! And it’s laid out quite well:
Coffee
Caffeine (probably more relevant, since it’s this which probably leads you to ask the question you did)
Susie advises that adolescents under 14 should avoid caffeine where possible, and teenagers between 14 and 17 years of age should limit their intake to 100mg or less a day. “That’s equivalent to a small milky coffee (60mg), or a couple of cups of tea (30mg each), or some [dark] chocolate (26mg/40g) a day,” she says.
You people really need to relax..she will just get it from a vending machine. Your control is an illusion. Your choice is dishonesty and lying and fighting or literally nothing whatsoever unusual. If she wants it she’s drinking it.
What on earth is wrong with coffee? Of course she should be able to chose so to do if she wishes. Better to prevent her to drink any of the colas on the market.
It depends.
I am 15 years old, and I have become so reliant on coffee that I go to Starbucks everyday. However, addiction runs in my family.
By the time I am 20, I probably will be drinking my coffee black!
If the 14 year old can drink coffee in moderation, I don’t think it would be a problem, especially if they were coffee specialty drinks, and not just straight coffee.
“Everything in moderation” as some people might say.
It’s possible for a teenager to survive high school without coffee. I’m in my 4th year and the most coffee I’ve had is to sip a friend’s iced coffee, only to make a face and ask how they can drink such a vile substance.
Just pay attention to your daughter’s health and show you care for her. My parents have offered me many things for my health, for which I will have undying and endless gratitude for. I dislike coffee, but even if I did like it, it would have no effect to making me more awake. For some reason, my body just doesn’t react with caffeine.
Your daughter is going to like and dislike the things she likes and dislike. Just make sure she is informed of the consequences of any decision she makes and affirm your position that you’re supporting her, not confronting her or being her enemy.
Yes, yes and yes!
It helps so so much to drink caffeinated beverages; in fact it improves focus and can therefore help her academic performance.
Please let her drink coffee, thank you 🙂
I have to admit I was against it myself when my daughter was that age. We suggested tea instead, which has a milder effect.
However — the teen hormones can have a pretty brutal impact on every aspect of their lives, and that includes wanting to stay up late and sleep late in the morning. But the schools insist they must attend at early hours. So … a cup of coffee in the morning seems justified for those slow-moving teens who really need the help.
Their job right now is to go to school, get good grades, and become responsible for themselves. If coffee helps, then I guess you really have to consider it.
We did ban coffee after 4:00 pm. That’s partly because I myself am super-sensitive to coffee and it will keep me up if I drink it past noon.
Coffee also has the effect improving focus and concentration in many people, notably those with certain ADHD or ADD problems. If it would just lead to cleaner rooms I’d be all for it!
If she wants to, sure. I’ve been drinking coffee almost every day since I was seven. Im still a straight-A student. I still make good decisions. There’s nothing wrong with drinking coffee, and I don’t understand why people think that it will affect them.
I’m 14 and while I don’t drink it every day, I do drink coffee when on vacation or at a breakfast food restaurant (like Bob Evans or Waffle House). My friends and I all drink caramel fraps from Starbucks when we go out, and it’s not stunted the growth of any of us.
Energy drinks are what you should beware of. Monsters, for example, are awful. Coffee is so much safer and contains way less sugar.
No, it will stunt your growth.
I lost five inches because I drank coffee when I was fourteen. I also have 33 pounds of gum in my stomach. I was very rebellious as a teenager.
Are you crazy. don’t. Get a green tea. Its detrimental to their growing bodies. Sure, you get the person who grows 7 ft tall and drink 5 cups of coffee a day. That’s just like the grandfather who smokes 3 packs a day, eats bacon for breakfast and washes it down with bourbon. It’s not the same.
Please don’t let your daughter drink coffee.
Oh, they all go to Starbucks and spend ridiculous amounts on supersweet, high-calorie crud with hardly a speck of caffeine in it.
Teach her how to do it right. Get her (at least) a drip coffeemaker or a Melitta and keep some kind of decent coffee in the house. Show her how to make it properly.
Even if she drinks it with 3 sugars and and half-and-half, it’s still better for her than Coke or artificially sweetened drinks.
Eight O’Clock
I’m a baby boomer so none of the food fad restrictions applied when I was a child. I grew a up on sweet tea with dinner and a Pepsi with a hamburger or pizza. When I was around 60 I noticed that caffeine in the evening kept me from falling asleep so I only imbibe before noon or have decaf. From my viewpoint I’d be more concerned about the sugar calories than the caffeine- and the cost in case you’re talking about barista coffee.
My family is Finnish and I remember sitting with my grandma at the kitchen table with a small cup of coffee with lots of cream and sugar and a couple of cookies. I was 4 years old. My kids were probably 12 or 13 when they started drinking coffee. I would be more concerned if my teen drank energy drinks.
Peet’s
Medically it should be fine as long as she isnt alergic and in moderation. A cup or two of coffee a day has been shown to help prevent type 2 diabetes. Also there are other health benefits to coffee and caffeine such as helping prevent the symptoms of asthma (if someone is having an asthma attack and cannot find their inhaler give them a cup of coffee while waiting for help to arrive), and helping people with certain types of ADD or ADHD to focus and maintain without the need for medications.
Yes, but encourage her not to depend on it. “I need my morning coffee” isn’t something she should rush to develop, but there’s nothing wrong with “I want some coffee”. Also encourage her to make her own most of the time since a daily Starbucks/Peet’s/HipsterCoffee habit is expensive.
Dunkin’
My mom would give me “lagrima” (Spanish word for tear), a drink which mixes 3/4 milk with 1/4 coffee, ever since I was in kindergarten. It kept me drinking milk, which I didn’t like plain.
Now I’m a 1,70 mts tall, fully developed and coffee-lover 32 year-old. Never smoked or done drugs. I don’t think coffee is a big deal.
Of course with soda we are discussing two potential addictions, sugar and caffeine. I drink a lot of coffee and some soda. For a healthier choice you may speak to your daughter about how much of the human body is water content and needs to be flushed. it will also clear up any dermatological issues for those who may be suffering from that. I can surely think of much worse interests for a teenager and if she would like to drink coffee as a social aspect at a coffee house this would be a much safer social experience than the many others that teens are sadly becoming involved with. If she has coffee drinking friends this would be a great opportunity to invite them over for a cup of Joe at your house and this way you can learn about the teens your daughter is exposing herself to. We all know that soda and some coffee is not as healthy as other choices in life and do not need to be reminded by others. Apparently some folks failed to read your question and believed you were interested in their personal opinion about your adult choices. May God be with you teenagers are very difficult. If we tie their hands over every issue nothing but rebellion will ensue. You are doing a great job mom. I am uncertain if there is any documented proof that caffeine stunts growth. No time to research right now but a great question and if indeed it does I would say let your teen understand all ramifications and then help to make the choice in a partnership with you. If not, she will fail to trust you on other decisions working as a partnership. This way you can help her call her own shots.
Honestly… I don’t see why not. I’m 20 now and I’ve been drinking coffee in some shape or form since I was little because the heat and caffeine content helped me breathe a bit better when my asthma was acting up due to the cold weather or whatever the issue of the day was. I’ve always heard the whole “it’ll stunt your growth” thing, and had lots of people try to blame my short stature on my coffee drinking but I honestly believe that it had more to do with all the medication I was on when I was growing up due to my asthma, allergies, and other various health issues that required lots of steroid based medications to “treat”. I’m 5’1″ (5’2″ on a good day) and haven’t grown since I was in 7th grade. Personally I don’t drink coffee for the energy boost to be truly honest caffeine never really seemed to do a whole heck of a lot for me in that aspect, I suspect it could have something to do with just how much caffeine I’ve probably consumed at any given time due to my love of coffee (especially flavored and with milk), tea and chocolate covered coffee beans. There was a point at which I was drinking those little cans of espresso and cream that they sell in the grocery that are Starbucks brand, partially ’cause I liked the flavor, but mostly to stay awake due to my insane schedule for school. In highschool I would be at school from like 7am – 2:30pm for the regular school day, then have enough homework to be utterly bogged down, plus have play practice (for our theater production) right after school til like 4pm basically every day of the week, concert band (which involved our performances for that and also being at every basketball game since we were also basketball band, and that always seemed to be me getting home at like 9pm or later), and 3 days a week of being at school from 6pm-9pm for Tech practice (also for theater)… so I’d be at the school from 7am – 4pm, try to rush home to eat and drop my backpack there, go back to the school for either basketball band or tech and then come home and try to stay up til usually after midnight and do homework and then end up being up some nights til like 2am… maybe 3am and have to get up at 5am to try to get ready in order to leave on time to get to school, but I digress. I’ve drank tons of caffeine over the years between coffee, teas, and pop… and I can honestly say that they’re probably all much healthier than any energy drink out there.
That depends on their parents.
Some people have religious reasons not to drink coffee.
Others have health reasons.
My daughter has ADD, but has never taken well to ADD medication. A little coffee in the morning helps her to wake up her brain and focus better, particularly in the winter in Seattle. So we’ve let her have decaf since she was 9 or 10, and now at 12 she occasionally drinks caffeinated coffee if she thinks she needs it on a morning. Given the alternatives: Meth based stimulants (what the stimulant ADD medications are) and coffee. I’ll take coffee.
Yes you should. Let her try it. Whats the worst that can happen? Its not like alcohol, worst case scenario she will just get hyperactive.
No. Let your 14 year old be a kid let her drink water and orange juice even soda if she wants. Way too many children drink coffee and honestly its not that good for you. It’s more like a trend at time for teenagers and coffee is pretty addictive. Let her enjoy her younger years before needing something to wake her up other than a good rest.
Your daughter has already 14-year-old. She is old enough to drink coffee without your permission. But I don’t think drinking coffee is a good habbit.
There is no harm in having a cup of coffee or even two. Drinking so much coffee that other nutritious drinks are ignored or displaced might be a bit too much. But coffee is not harmful in reasonable amounts.
I been drinking coffee for many year. I’m Italian and we start drinking coffee very young.
So, yes let her. There are other things u can object to later.
I think this is an American culture thing. Sorry if I’m making an assumption about the OP, but there’s nothing else to go on.
Up until I watched a few US sitcoms did I ever realise that anyone, anywhere, would consider coffee to be for adults only. The first time I saw a kid on TV ask for a coffee and get scolded and given a hot chocolate by a parent I was incredulous.
I don’t drink much coffee these days. I drink tea, but only a couple of cups a day. When I was at university I averaged about four pints of black coffee per day (well, we had pint mugs and just kept on refilling the coffee machine because everyone liked it) with no ill-effects. I probably started on instant when I was pretty young, but when I was about 9 or 10 my grandmother made me a cup of “proper” coffee as she called it, and I was immediately smitten. Drank it ever since. 14 year olds are more than capable of handling this stuff. It’s not radioactive waste.
Coffee stands up well against other caffeinated drinks, unless you’re talking about the fashion for Starbucks-style coffee, which is basically sugar and milk with a hint of coffee. I’d say advise your kid to keep those to a minimum.
I’m also one of those people who gets sleepy after drinking coffee, so I’d have a mug before bed most nights of my 20s. YMMV.
Yeah, why not? My dad used to give me a coffee bean to suck on when I was seven.
But I would stuck to decaf for now, or just half a cup a day. Coffee is actually good for you, if you don’t add anything.