Are kids alllowed in meetings?

Question: Tradition 3 states that the requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking. So are young children allowed to attend with parents? Also, Tradition 12 deals with anonymity. Kids do not understand that concept, so does that exclude kids from closed meetings unless they are a young kid wanting to quit?

Answer: There is no single answer to this question. As with so much in A.A., the answer comes from Tradition Four which begins:

With respect to its own affairs, each A.A. group should be responsible to no other authority than its own conscience.

Basically, the individual group decides at which meetings to allow children. Typically, but not always, children are welcome at open meetings but not at closed meetings. Most groups reserve closed meetings for A.A. members only and it would be the rare kid that would be a member.

For those new to A.A. it is worth repeating that A.A is structured with the individual group as the highest authority. There is no command council that writes rules for what is proper, though many assume there should be or must be authorities in A.A., there indeed are none. There is a service structure, but it is there to serve the groups, not to govern the groups.