13 year old daughter seeking approval for (small amounts of) alcohol

I'll take it from where it started. Our eldest daughter, age 13, is applying for an exchange in Spain for a week this summer (she will turn 14 in summer). We, her parents, are requested to write a letter describing her as part of the application. My husband, her dad, wrote a page and gave it to her to read it. She was fine with everything but suggested we remove one line which said "She does not drink alcohol." We removed this line, but later on when I was alone with her I asked her why. She got uncomfortable and said that she doesn't think it's important whether a person drinks alcohol or not and it's nothing she'd want to be emphasized in a personal letter.Up until this, my husband and I have been thinking that our daughter doesn't drink and has no interest in alcohol. After some further questioning I found out differently. At first she was evasive, sighed and didn't answer me when I asked her if she had had alcohol, but after enough inquisition it was as if a lid popped off a steaming pot. She told me that yes, she's had alcohol, and she's tired of keeping up with this image of being a good girl who would never drink or do anything kids "shouldn't" be doing. She said she's sick of grandma (her grandparents live nearby and are often over for dinner) praising her for being such a good girl and saying she's not like that boy Johnny who got drunk and ruined his mother's carpet last weekend. She said that grandma doesn't even know her because grandma talks about kids out drinking on weekends and then tells her "but you would never do that".I asked her if she'd prefer grandma didn't care about her or if she was out drinking. She said she'd prefer if grandma wasn't so moralizing and liked the person she wants to be. She said she's tired of hiding herself but she feels that she has to because we'd be so disappointed if we knew who she is. She said the problem is that she has one image of how she wants to be and it doesn't match the image of who we want her to be. If she shared our ideal image of her, it would be great because then we'd be working towards the same goal, but as it is she has different values and wants different things for herself than we do. I asked her how and when she drinks and it's not much. She's just tried a beer or so when she's been out, usually shared it with someone too. I asked her what she would do if she was the parent and her daughter was doing this at her age and she said she'd be fine with it. I asked her if she is planning on drinking in Spain. She said that at least she doesn't want to go to Spain with the expectation of living up to the standard of not drinking. If she gets the opportunity, she wants to be able to make the decision then. I told her she will have to sign a contract that she won't drink on the exchange, and she said that the contract is just a formality, that several kids who went last year had been allowed to drink by their hosts.I asked her how she'd like it to be at home. She said that she'd like to be able to be herself around us, not hide things, but it's impossible because she doesn't want to disappoint us. That she wishes we didn't think drinking was such a big deal. That she'd like to be able to drink at home with us too. Right now she feels as if though she has a split personality, having a drink when she is out but then pretending wine is disgusting when she is home. She wants us to approve of the kind of girl she wants to be, and that's the kind of girl who can have a drink, but she gets it, we will judge it because we want her to be a straight-edge girl. I asked her if we allow her a drink at home, if she won't be more likely to start having two drinks then, because it's just one more than allowed. Kind of like one is one more than allowed now. She said no, she doesn't want to have more, she feels too young for more.I asked her why she drinks and wants to drink and she gave a few reasons. One to try drinks and see how they taste, one to bond with her friends, one to feel a slight mood lift so slight she'd never be able to tell she'd been drinking if she didn't know, one because it makes her feel as if she is doing what she wants and not what we want her to do, it's liberating. She asked me not to tell her dad any of this because she doesn't want to hurt him, he'd be so disappointed in her. She said it's not about protecting herself, it's about protecting him. I asked her how she felt after telling me, and she said she'll regret it if I'm going to be a pain in the ass asking her if she's been drinking every time she leaves the house, or having little talks with her trying to pressure her into not drinking.I don't quite know how to react to this. My husband and I don't say negative things about children who make choices we don't want them to make, but we do give a lot of praise to our children for making choices we approve of. I think this is where part of this is coming from. She is a sensitive child that picks up on subtleties, it's enough to give her a hint if we want her to change a behavior she is displaying, we never have to put down rules for her. When we praise her for not drinking she likely sees that as the same thing as us telling her that she shouldn't drink, just a different parenting style. Her grandparents are more directly and openly judgmental of behavior they disapprove of and will say things as "that friend you have, what's her name, the girl in your class, she's way too young to have her lip pierced, what kind of mother does she have" to her.I think my daughter is seeking not just acceptance but even approval of her drinking (there should be a word for drinking just a little because it would be a different story if she were drinking a lot) because it's important to her to have our support in her decisions. I don't know if I should really be encouraging drinking, I don't know if I should tell her small amounts of drinking isn't a big deal, it doesn't matter, I don't know if I should say she can now be the person she wants to be at home as well and she can have half a glass of wine with dinner when we do. My gut feeling tells me this is a good idea, that we're transitioning into a more sustainable adult relationship with her, but she is right and I have to admit I really don't like the idea of her drinking. I do like her being exactly the way I want her to be.To give you a better idea of the general situation, she's a perfectionist and holds herself to very high standards (which normally we approve of). She keeps her promises, she has perfect grades and perfect attendance. She doesn't have an attitude and is normally calm, but with some normal teenage mood swings which she does apologize for.Advice? via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2lM6yoR