Children who try a sip of alcohol before sixth grade may be more likely to start drinking by the time they enter high school, a new study suggests. 
 
 Researchers found that kids who had tastes of an alcoholic beverage before they started middle school were five times more likely to have a full drink by ninth grade, compared with their classmates who had not tasted alcohol. 
 
 These "early sippers" were also four times more likely to get drunk or binge drink by their first semester of high school compared with their peers who abstained, the study showed. 
 
 Although there is a widespread belief that sipping alcohol at a young age may be a protection against later heavy drinking, the study shows that such sipping is actually associated with an increased risk of drinking, as well as using other substances, by the time kids enter high school, said Kristina Jackson, a co-author of the study and a researcher at the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. [7 Ways Alcohol Affects Your Health] 
 
 Many of the kids in our study reported that parents — either knowingly or not — are a source of alcohol, Jackson said. 
 
 Young sippers 
 
 The study looked at data collected from 561 middle-school students in Rhode Island, who were followed over a three-year period, from the time they started sixth grade until they began ninth grade. The kids were surveyed several times a year about their use of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana and other drugs, according to the study, which was published online today (March 31) in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. 
 
 The results showed that by sixth grade nearly 30 percent of kids had tasted alcohol that was not part of a religious celebration, and they typically had this first sip by age 7. Most of these first sips were of wine or beer, and came from parents offering their kids a taste of their drink at home. 
 
 By the time they got to ninth grade, about 26 percent of the early sippers had consumed a full drink, and about 9 percent had gotten drunk. In comparison, among their nonsipping peers, 6 percent had consumed a full drink and 2 percent had gotten drunk, according to the study. 
 
 These findings dispute what some have dubbed the "European approach," of exposing children to alcohol at a young age in hopes that this will protect kids against subsequent drinking because it makes drinking seem less taboo. 
 
 "We need to be very careful not to assume that early alcohol consumption will somehow protect children or teach them how to drink safely," Jackson told Live Science. 
 
 The study shows that early sipping is not necessarily harmless, she told Live Science, noting that although alcohol problems among teens may be lower in some Southern European countries, that's not the case in Britain, Ireland or Northern European countries. 
 
 Some weaknesses of this study are that it only included kids in one state and may not reflect alcohol patterns in the rest of the U.S., and it's also not known whether similar results might be seen in children whose first sips of alcohol occur at an older age than the kids in the study. 
 
 "Our findings underscore the importance of advising parents to provide clear, consistent messages about the unacceptability of alcohol consumption for youth," Jackson said. 
 
 She said offering your child a sip of your drink is not advisable, as it may send the wrong message. It may suggest to young people that drinking is okay, especially when alcohol is offered by a parent. 
 
 "Younger teens and tweens may be unable to understand the difference between drinking a sip of alcohol and drinking one or more drinks," Jackson said. 

 Join CNN digital correspondent Kelly Wallace for a Facebook chat "Kids and Alcohol: What parents need to know" Thursday at noon EST. 
 
 (CNN) If you've already allowed your kids to take a little sip of your beer or wine from time to time, you probably won't be pleased when you hear the findings of a new report. 
 
 The study, published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, found that children who had sipped alcohol by the sixth grade were about five times more likely to have a full drink by the time they were in high school and four times more likely to binge drink or get drunk. 
 
 "I don't think parents need to feel that their child is 'doomed,' " Kristina Jackson, one of the co-authors of the study, said of parents who already let their kids have sips of alcohol. 
 
 She noted, in an email interview, that only a quarter of the sippers reported consuming a full drink by the ninth grade and that less than 10% said they got drunk. 
 
 "I think the most important thing is to make sure that children know when drinking alcohol is acceptable and when it is not," said Jackson, a research associate professor at Brown University's Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies. 
 
 The study involved surveys of 561 middle school students in Rhode Island over a three-year period. A little under a third of the students said they had sipped alcohol by the start of middle school, with most of those saying they got the alcohol from their parents at a party or on a special occasion. 
 
 Even when factoring out issues that could encourage problem drinking down the road, such as how much their parents drink, a history of alcoholism in their family or having a risk-taking personality, the children who sipped were more likely to be drinking in high school, said Jackson. 
 
 Twenty-six percent of the kids who had sipped alcohol said they had a full drink by the ninth grade versus under 6% for the kids who never sipped alcohol, the survey found. Nine percent said they had binged on alcohol (had five or more drinks at one time) or gotten drunk versus under 2% for the non-sippers. 
 
 "I would say that it is advisable not to offer your child a sip of your beverage, as it may send the wrong message -- younger teens and tweens may be unable to understand the difference between drinking a sip and drinking one or more drinks," Jackson said. 
 
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 This latest study follows a report last year, also in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs (PDF), that analyzed a number of studies all coming to the same conclusion: Offering even small amounts of alcohol to children could lead to negative outcomes. 
 
 A 2011 study in Sweden of 13-year-olds found that when children were offered alcohol by a parent, it was associated with a higher likelihood of heavy episodic drinking in girls but not in boys. A 1997 study of fourth- and sixth-graders in the United States found that when parents offered children a small amount of alcohol, the children were more likely to initiate alcohol use on their own. 
 
 In addition, another study compared seventh-graders in the United States with Australia, where adult supervised drinking for teens is allowed. About 36% of the Australian teens had problems with binge drinking, compared with only 21% of American teens, according to the 2011 study. 
 
 However, one study that was done over a decade ago seemed to come to the opposite conclusion. It found that early introductions to alcohol could actually reduce the likelihood of binge drinking later on. 
 
 That study, conducted in 2004 and reported in a lengthy Time magazine story in 2008 , found that children who drank with their parents were about half as likely to say they had alcohol in the past month and about one-third as likely to admit to binge drinking than kids who did not drink with their parents. 
 
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 "On initial glance the findings seem to be in contradiction, but the important difference between the two studies is the comparison group," said Jackson. 
 
 She said she believes that earlier study compared children who got alcohol from their parents with kids who got it from adults who were not relatives or from underage friends or acquaintances, or who took it from home without permission. 
 
 "Our comparison is with children who did not drink at all," she said. 
 
 When I did a story last year on whether it's OK to drink with your kids , I heard from plenty of people who strongly feel that introducing their children to alcohol while they are young will lead them to have a healthier attitude about alcohol when they get older. 
 
 But this new study -- along with the previous research -- could give some of those parents pause, because it does seem to raise concerns about letting children have casual sips of wine and beer, or any other alcoholic drink. 
 
 The issue may be the messages we don't realize we may be sending our children, said Jackson. 
 
 "One theory is that some of these children are getting a message that drinking is okay, especially when it is offered by the parent," she said.
– Middle-schoolers who take the occasional sip of wine or beer are more likely to drink on their own as they become teens, a new study suggests. The research out of Brown University merely notes the association and isn't asserting that parents who allow the sipping are doing a bad thing, notes a post at EurekaAlert. Still, the lead researcher says it should at least sound a note of caution about the so-called European model—the idea that letting young kids indulge a little will destigmatize alcohol and make them more responsible drinkers later. "We need to be very careful not to assume that early alcohol consumption will somehow protect children or teach them how to drink safely," Kristina Jackson tells LiveScience. Researchers followed about 560 sixth-graders in Rhode Island over three years and found that the early sippers were about five times more likely to have had a full drink by ninth grade (26% of them had done so) than their peers. They were also about four times more likely to have gotten drunk (9%) or to have engaged in binge drinking. "I think the most important thing is to make sure that children know when drinking alcohol is acceptable and when it is not," Jackson tells CNN. (Critics are worried that new powdered alcohol will make it easier for underage drinkers to indulge.)