Historically, sipping or tasting alcohol has received little research attention.
There are several reasons why it is important to study sipping or tasting alcohol in childhood.
On average, they initiated sipping or tasting 1.2 years (SD = 0.66) after baseline.
No previous studies, however, have examined its role in the initiation of sipping or tasting in childhood.
Sipping or tasting alcohol is one of the earliest alcohol-use behaviors in which young children engage, yet there is relatively little research on this behavior.
This study focuses on the earliest transition in the youngest population, specifically, from abstention into sipping or tasting alcohol among children.
This study extended these analyses longitudinally to identify antecedent predictors of the childhood initiation of sipping or tasting alcohol in a multiwave study.
Identification of the antecedents of sipping or tasting should contribute to a better understanding of this behavior's role in the development of alcohol-use involvement.
Whether these family and peer environment correlates are also antecedents of childhood initiation of sipping or tasting alcohol has yet to be examined through prospective longitudinal research.
The present longitudinal research replicates and extends previous cross-sectional studies that suggested the importance of the family alcohol environment for children's sipping and tasting of alcohol (Donovan and Molina, 2008; Jackson et al., 2012, 2013).
Commonly cited stages include abstention, sipping or tasting, ever drinking, current drinking, binge drinking, heavy drinking, problem drinking, and alcohol dependence (e.g., Donovan and Molina, 2013; Guo et al., 2000; Jackson, 2010; Lanza et al., 2007).
