Parents: When May Our Children Start Dating?

[scotrace]

BTW - our daughters changed more in the first 60 days of middle school than they had in the previous three years. That was when peer pressure really impacted them - it was astonishing how fast it worked. So if your kids haven't hit middle school (Jr. High) yet, just watch and wait. Changes will be coming.

My oldest is in 2nd year MS. Astonishing! You're so right.

 

[J. M. Stovall]

I was reading somewhere not too long ago (now I can't remember where) that some schools experimented with doing away with middle school and putting half at the end of elementary and half at the beginning of high school. The result was a decrease in a lot of problems apparently because having those kids concentrated in middle school, entering preteens and not having control of their emotions yet was the main problem. It was giving these immature kids power over the lower classmen in middle school, but seniors in high school are (supposably) more mature and so the tension was reduced. Does anyone else remember this story?

 

[scotrace]

If I remember correctly, many school systems have done away with the "Middle School" concept already, for the very reasons you cite.

 

[Paisley]

At the opposite end, young adults I know who have been either very strictly raised or smothered exploded in unsavory directions the moment the bonds were eased by distance.

I saw this when I worked at the Air Force Academy. The rules were very strict, of course, and when the cadets were allowed off base, a lot of them got into trouble.

Enlisted people (which I used to be), on the other hand, had "phases" we went through after basic training for the reason mentioned above. Freedoms were allowed gradually. Everybody broke phase, of course. However, I think everybody was more careful just because we knew we would get into trouble if we were caught. We broke rules, but probably didn't go as far as we would have had there been no rules.

Look on the bright side: if kids and parents always saw eye to eye, and if kids didn't want to live by their own rules, they'd live with their parents forever.

 

[Lincsong]

I was reading somewhere not too long ago (now I can't remember where) that some schools experimented with doing away with middle school and putting half at the end of elementary and half at the beginning of high school. The result was a decrease in a lot of problems apparently because having those kids concentrated in middle school, entering preteens and not having control of their emotions yet was the main problem. It was giving these immature kids power over the lower classmen in middle school, but seniors in high school are (supposably) more mature and so the tension was reduced. Does anyone else remember this story?

Don't know the study, but I know from experience that doing away with Jr. High/Middle School is crazy. When I started in my school district it was K-7 elementary, 8-9 in Jr. High and 10-12 in Sr. High. What you got in the elementary schools was the older kids in the 6 and 7 grade picking on the younger K-3 kids. So the younger kids had to grow up fast or be flattened. Then the district changed it to K-6 and 7-8 in Jr. High and 9-10 in High School. That worked better because you didn't have the 7th graders coaxing the 6th graders in joining them on picking on the smaller kids. Putting 13 year olds in the same school with 5 and 6 year olds is nuts. In the school district next to mine they did away with middle schools and went K-7 and 8-12. That also was chaos; you had the same problems of putting 13 year olds with 5-6 year olds, but in the High School you had seniors coaxing the 8 grade girls to do things that shouldn't be discussed here.

 

[skinnychik]

I wish the junior high model would become popular again. I teach in a 6-8 middle school, and I can't help but think that my sixth graders don't fit in. I wish thay has primary K-3, intermediate 4-6, junior 7-9, and senior 10-12, but no one in my school is asking my opinion. I think 8th graders are still too screwy for the high school, and I don't want to work so hard to keep the seniors from dating the 7th graders.

Worry about dating with a 13 year-old? I hope you are. Please keep track of where she goes and whether or not other parents will provide adequate supervision. In my 6 years of teaching, I've had 3 pregnant adolescents in my classes - the youngest was 12.

Talk to your daughter and find out where she is on dating. She may still be thinking boys are smelly. She may have a crush. If she does, I think the best thing you can do is make it comfortable for her to talk to you about it so you can help her make good decisions. She's going to grow up whether you like it or not.

 

[Close Shave]

Co Ed Boarding School

I was at a CoEd boarding school by age 15, 400 miles away from my parents house.

The rest, a gentleman leaves to his reader's imaginations!

 

[Rosie]

Worry about dating with a 13 year-old? I hope you are. Please keep track of where she goes and whether or not other parents will provide adequate supervision. In my 6 years of teaching, I've had 3 pregnant adolescents in my classes - the youngest was 12.

Sorry for going fftopic:, my very first year teaching, I had a 16 year old 8th grader who had a 2 year old daughter ! That kind of stuff never ceases to amaze me.

 

[crazylegsmurphy]

Parents have a huge responsibility in implementing morals,structure and self esteem into their children. (unless I'm just reading your post wrong..which is possible! ), I know quite a few teenagers whose parents do not allow certain things, including dating at a young age, and these kids are more than happy to comply.

Of course they do! I wasn't saying that there shouldn't be rules, expectations, and such...but I always get a kick out of the parents who sit back with a cup of tea in hand and think to themselves, "MY child isn't doing any of those things, she/he has been brought up right!"

Time for a reality check. My suggestion is go rent the movies "Thirteen" and "Kids" for a look into just some of the things that kids are dealing with these days.

My whole theory is that as a parent if you turn a blind eye and assume your child is following your rules with a smile and without complaint, then don't be suprised if you find out what they have really been doing.

I'm not saying that kids are bad, I'm just saying kids are kids and unfortunately, the pressure that is put on them by thier peers more times than not, will influence them more than a parent.

 

[crazylegsmurphy]

Sorry for going fftopic:, my very first year teaching, I had a 16 year old 8th grader who had a 2 year old daughter ! That kind of stuff never ceases to amaze me.

What never ceases to amaze me is why this stuff is still happening. Why aren't these parents going down to the store, buying condoms, and then saying, "Here is protection, we talk about sex all the time, and you know my feelings on the subject, but if you make the choice to do it, then you know you need to use these!"

 

[scotrace]

Because it's easier and cheaper to rip off her little arm and beat her senseless with it?










(kidding!)

 

[mysterygal]

What never ceases to amaze me is why this stuff is still happening. Why aren't these parents going down to the store, buying condoms, and then saying, "Here is protection, we talk about sex all the time, and you know my feelings on the subject, but if you make the choice to do it, then you know you need to use these!"

This is exactly what makes me furious about parents doing this to their children. They expect them to make grown up descisions at a time where they still are depending on their parents for guidance. Unfortunately the guidance is pushing, wether intentionally or not, into the things that are harmful for the child (and yes, I call a 16 year old a child still).
My own mother did this same exact thing with me, and without going into anything personal, I will NOT repeat this same mistake to my own girls. Really the saddest part of it was yes, these girls are told about sex as far as what physically happens, but the emotional side often gets left out. Personally, I think there is enough out there that these kids need to deal with, without adding the stress of dealing with sex at an age where they are really not mature enough to handle responsibly.

 

[Rosie]

Because it's easier and cheaper to rip off her little arm and beat her senseless with it? (kidding!)

I like Scot's solution lol .

Going off topic again, adding on to what MysteryGal is saying, since I've been home, I've been watching all kinds of trash on television and there (at least on tv) seems to be this whole, let your kids do what they want kind of thing going on. Parents (at least the ones on tv) seem to treat their children like friends and roomates instead of children. Just yesterday on some show or other, a 17 year old girl with a three year old child was ALLOWED by her MOTHER at the age of 14 to go on a weekend trip with a boy she was dating (where they conceived said child). ! WHAT?! It was so unbelievable! There are many days when I stay late at school and when I am going home, students from my school are standing on the corner, hanging out. I'm talking 7 sometimes 8 at night and these are children in elementary school.

I agree with her wholeheartedly. I'm no prude, I would say I'm a 21st century kind of woman in many respects though I do have old fashioned tendencies but the operative word here is WOMAN as in GROWN. Many children, (and this isn't a kids these days rant) are just pushed into adult situations far too early. Yes, dating is fun, love is fun, dare I say (hope I don't get banned) sex is fun but, you have your entire adult life to exerience all of these things. We are children for such short periods in our lives, it just isn't fair and doesn't make sense for children to be pushed into or allowed into situtations no matter how grown they think they are or how grown parents want to think they are. In many cases, no matter how mature a child is, they are still a child.

 

[Paisley]

Who here would hire a typical 13-year-old girl to, say, pay your bills, medicate your dog and take care of your rare orchids while you went on vacation? (For reference, 13-year-olds are in the 7th or 8th grade.) If not, why would you trust her to use multiple methods of birth control, use them right, and use them every time?

Would you trust her to pick a roofing contractor or a housekeeper? Negotiate a price to buy a car? Do most 13-year-olds you know have the ability to read people well enough to know whom to trust? Are they in control of their emotions, or vice versa?

What the "just use a condom" crowd doesn't get is that, unless you have a heart of wood, unless you don't care at all about whom you're involved with, there's a strong emotional aspect to a physical relationship. Young girls don't have the life experience to select someone good for them or the maturity to deal with the consequences of the inevitable breakup and loss of reputation.

When one of my sisters was about 13, she saw a court appointed psychologist. This psychologist told our mother, "If she wants to have a baby, I support that, and you need to butt out." (My mother told me this, and I've never known her to be a liar.) The result of letting a 13-year-old girl make life-altering decisions by herself: my sister dropped out of middle school and had two kids in her teens. (She's had three husbands, and about that many teeth left.) How are her two kids doing? Well, they were always sick when they were little. She was always screaming at them. One of them now has three girls with three different fathers; the last father has been arrested for beating her. One of the girls (my sister's granddaughter) suffers from anorexia/bulemia. How many generations of girls have to endure such misery before we acknowledge that parents need to be parents instead of letting children run their own lives?

 

[Viola]

What the "just use a condom" crowd doesn't get is that, unless you have a heart of wood, unless you don't care at all about whom you're involved with, there's a strong emotional aspect to a physical relationship. Young girls don't have the life experience to select someone good for them or the maturity to deal with the consequences of the inevitable breakup and loss of reputation.

Hell I was a wreck dealing with this one guy less than three months ago and I'm 22. (and not very experienced, so its kinda relevant)

He had a truckload of reasons that condoms were entirely out of the question, on physical, moral, emotional, and practical grounds. All ridiculous fictions or absurdities, of course, but I was shaken up that a guy I thought I was friends with, having known a while, could segue from that to yelling and name-calling, and I KNOW that just a couple years ago he could have made way more headway than he did, just based on the idea that if a guy is that mad and "hurt" something must be wrong.

 

[Briscoeteque]

Parents can make all of the rules they want, but if kids try hard enough, they will find ways around them. There is no way around this. I repeat. No matter how much your kids love and respect you, if they feel something so strongly and insist you are misguided, they will do it, no matter what you do. I love and respect my parents very much, but I willingly decieved them in an incredibly intricate way two years ago. There was NO way they could have caught me, execpt for electronic survellience, which I still did try to avoid. What I did was yes a mistake, and I know that, and I know it was a very risky situation, but it was the only thing that could have happened. I have a lengthy anecdote, but if it is not nessesary, I'd rather not reveal it. All I can say is that a 17 year old lonely male in love is an incredible force, and few things nature could've hurled at me would have stopped me. I ended it a few months later of my own, and only my own accord after a ephiany. If you don't believe me, I'll tell you it all in detail. Despite all of this, I have two well paying jobs, go to a great small liberal arts college, and have large amounts of close friends and love my family very much. Please don't think this is some kind of execption.

 

[scotrace]

Was it a lot of trouble getting your arm sewn back on?

 

[mysterygal]

Hell I was a wreck dealing with this one guy less than three months ago and I'm 22. (and not very experienced, so its kinda relevant)

He had a truckload of reasons that condoms were entirely out of the question, on physical, moral, emotional, and practical grounds. All ridiculous fictions or absurdities, of course, but I was shaken up that a guy I thought I was friends with, having known a while, could segue from that to yelling and name-calling, and I KNOW that just a couple years ago he could have made way more headway than he did, just based on the idea that if a guy is that mad and "hurt" something must be wrong.

lol ok, I'm only laughing because I went through that same kind of problem, yet got through it. I think the big reason why a guy doesn't want to put one on is it's inconvenient for him. This makes a good point for why both parties should wait. I could see it being very hard for a young woman sticking to her 'guns' while her boyfriend's making all these 'seemingly' legitimate excuses.

 

[crazylegsmurphy]

This is exactly what makes me furious about parents doing this to their children. They expect them to make grown up descisions at a time where they still are depending on their parents for guidance. Unfortunately the guidance is pushing, wether intentionally or not, into the things that are harmful for the child (and yes, I call a 16 year old a child still).
My own mother did this same exact thing with me, and without going into anything personal, I will NOT repeat this same mistake to my own girls. Really the saddest part of it was yes, these girls are told about sex as far as what physically happens, but the emotional side often gets left out. Personally, I think there is enough out there that these kids need to deal with, without adding the stress of dealing with sex at an age where they are really not mature enough to handle responsibly.

The thing is, you are right, they aren't ready...but just because you think they aren't, doesn't mean they won't. As I said in my other post, it is the parents responsibility to talk to thier kids 100% about sex.

If you know as a parent that there are excuses floating around why a guy won't wear protection, then it's your responsibility to stay informed and inform your kids.

Handing your kid a condom and just saying "Use it!" is like giving them a blindfold to watch a rated R movie, if the kid doesn't understand why they have it, they won't use it.

They expect them to make grown up descisions at a time where they still are depending on their parents for guidance. Unfortunately the guidance is pushing, wether intentionally or not, into the things that are harmful for the child (and yes, I call a 16 year old a child still).

I think you need to reword your post a bit to fit reality... Parents hope with every thread of thier being that they will attempt to make the best decicion they can based on experiance and guidence...sometimes this happens, sometimes it doesnt. Giving a child a condom isn't permission to have sex! The kid doesn't think, "whew, I'm glad mom gave me that condom, I was thinking for sure I wouldn't be able to have sex tonight!"

Sex is probably going to happen, with, or without the protection...having the protection, along with as much education and guidence a parent can give, will drastically up the odds the child will make the right choice.

 

[crazylegsmurphy]

Some more food for thought...

If you have a second, check out websites like tinypic.com, or youtube.com and you might be suprised to find a bunch of videos of teenage girls dancing around in their underwear to the latest hit song, with "Billy, Enter here! -->" written in pen on their hips.

How are these getting on the internet? Do you think that most of those parents know that it is? I would bet that most parents are sitting downstairs, with a grin on their faces thinking their daughters slumber party is full of pillow fights, games of Candyland, and milk and cookies!

The more you assume your kid is not as smart as you think they are...is the moment you have already lost.