We all want to protect our kids’ innocence as long as possible. On one hand, we’re there to protect them; on the other hand, we’re supposed to prepare so they don’t need our protection. In a bittersweet way, our job is to make ourselves unneeded.

Sure, it’s heartbreaking when they stop trying to talk to bugs or cease using words like “lasterday,” but we’re RAISING our kids, not PRESERVING them.

So, there’s a hard reality we parents have to face as our kids get older. If they don’t learn about something from us, they’re bound to learn about it from somewhere else. And some of those somewhere-elses can be horribly wrong and stupid.

With the internet and social media, it’s even harder for us to shield our kids from obscene or idiotic things. Like a digital sewage line exploding, we’re all now surfing a cultural of wave of misinformation, pranks, hoaxes, and even “fake news.”

Even if you keep them off social media or the internet, “media” is inescapable. There are TV screens in some bathrooms and checkout lines now, folks.

Most parents know the hot topics they’ll need have “The Talk” about when it’s age-appropriate, but quite often talking about alcohol and responsible drinking gets overlooked or comes up pretty late. Maybe it’s from the assumption that it won’t matter for a long while, since the legal drinking age is 21, but it’s obscenely naive to think that a kid won’t start forming thoughts and opinions about it more than a decade younger than that.

I partnered with TalkEarly to give you fellow parents a judgement-free, good-spirited nudge to connect with your kids about adult beverages before they’re teens. So they can soak up whatever good common sense you have to offer them about it. Rather than whatever a kid gets from watching a drinking challenge on YouTube or seeing someone get a little too festive-faced on SnapChat.

Whether you enjoy drinking yourself or not ““ cheers, folks! And don’t forget to start a conversation early with your kids about it.