Navigating tween "romantic" relationships

[FlatpackHater]

My 10 year old DS has his first "girlfriend" and I feel we're in a weird hinterland between the cute faux-relationships they have when they're young and the more serious business of the teenage years, and I'm not entirely sure what my job is as a parent here!

For instance - they've been friends for years and I think nothing of leaving them to play Lego for hours in DS's room. But recently DS has told me the girl has been asking him for kisses and cuddles and to lie on the bed together. They're the same age but the girl is definitely closer to/at puberty unlike DS who is young for his age.

Do I just leave them be? Do I need to have some kind of talk with DS? Do I need to change the way we manage playdates and their time together? I feel a bit out of my depth!

If she’s pushing for that, then there would be no more playing in the bedroom in my house…public rooms only

This is tricky! I would protect your son here as it sounds like he's not on board/ready for this. Agree with pp re no more playing in the bedroom. Reinforce the message that they're just friends

A peck of a kiss is fine but ’kisses and cuddles’ IN the bed, no.

Play downstairs or they can get comfy on the couch for a movie.

Do you know her parents, are you friendly with them? If I was her mum I’d want to be kept in the loop, I find girls and boys so different at that age. Girl could be getting her period and going through so much where boys can really still be babies at 11/12.

It's kind of crept up on me as they've been friends for years and always had quite a demonstrative relationship with hugs and holding hands etc. But it's clear that the girl has developed a bit of a crush on DS and DS has been happy enough to go along with it - he refers to her as his girlfriend now, but it's still in that quite innocent way of childhood (he talks about when they're going to get married and live together).

So up until the last couple of occasions they've got together it's all felt very sweet and innocent - it still is really I'm just conscious of where that line is

You need to speak to the school safeguarding lead really if you wanted to do things properly, or her parents at the very least if you have a good relationship. You can’t really ignore this.

I’d be concerned where kisses and cuddles specifically on the bed is coming from. Not saying she is being abused, but access to inappropriate internet content films, older siblings exposing her to ‘older’ behaviour

if they were in secondary school, year 8 or so with raging hormones- you could navigate between you and her parents, but this is all very young for this behaviour.

Yes we're friends and on the same wavelength so it's definitely something we'll talk about, I've just not had the chance to speak to her yet. But I thought it'd be helpful to canvass opinions as I'm genuinely not sure what we should be doing - oddly I feel better informed about managing a teenage relationship than this.

I’d be concerned where kisses and cuddles specifically on the bed is coming from. Not saying she is being abused, but access to inappropriate internet content films, older siblings exposing her to ‘older’ behaviour

I know you can never 100% rule out anything, but this seems very unlikely knowing the family. I will speak to her mum and I'm completely confident that she would be alert to any concerns.

I've probably made it sound a bit more intense than it is within the OP. As far as I know there's been two occasions (at the girl's house, rather than mine):

-once DS lay down on the bed because he was tired and the girl lay next to him. Girl was quite excited that they'd snuggled together.

-once DS reported that they had a "smooch" together - I asked what a smooch was and he gave me a kiss and said "like that"

Both occasions younger siblings also around. There was some ribbing from younger siblings about them behaving like boyfriend and girlfriend.

So I don't feel we are in safeguarding territory but I'm conscious that the girl has been using times when there's been no parents around to be more physically affectionate with DS than usual.

Bump for the evening crowd as attempts to search online for advice for this age group hasn’t yielded much!

That would be no from me. Your son has told you because he's confused. I mean a crush is quite a normal thing, but he's not wanting to. So keep it sweet. By 13 it will be totally different!

My DS had a slightly similar situation but I think he was even a bit younger than that. I think it was Y5. A girl that he was happy to be friends with but who wanted to stroke his hair, sit on his knee and kiss him all of which he did not want. She would do this in public and he found it embarrassing and didn't know how to handle it.
It didn't seem romantic/ sexual more like she treated him like a pet or a cuddly toy. There was a cultural/ language difference too and I did wonder if it was just us being too repressed and English about it but the bottom line was DS was uncomfortable. Other kids were starting to tease him about it too.

I did not know her parents so I spoke to the teacher and she had a talk to the class and I think to the girl and her parents specifically. I also told DS he should politely tell her no and get up and walk away. She moved away from the area in the end which I was quite glad of because I just did not know how to handle it at all. He's in Y8 now and still nowhere near ready for a girlfriend.

But what does”that would be a no” mean in practice? What is the boundary? How do I enforce it?

i don’t think DS is uncomfortable at all really, certainly I don’t think that’s why he told me, he just tells me things. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I have a 10 year old and can’t even imagine her getting excited about cuddling boys on a bed etc, it’s so far off her radar! There are some in her class who are apparently ‘boyfriend and girlfriend’ but from what I can tell it involves giggling at each other at school, not cuddling in bedrooms.

"It didn't seem romantic/ sexual more like she treated him like a pet or a cuddly toy."

Funny you should say this, there's another girl at the school who treats him like a pet and always wants to hug him. DS is partcularly non-threatening so probably attracts this sort of attention.

I don't know if we're just imposing adult thinking on this - cuddling on a bed probably doesn't mean anything significant to them.

FWIW DS is probably neurodiverse and has never been very physically boundaried - no sense of personal space and he dishes out hugs liberally to anyone.

I still don't really know what to make of it all. If they were 6-7 it'd be a clear case of the kind of relationship role-play thats typical of that age. If they were 14 you'd be making sure they'd had "The Talk". 10 feels like neither quite one thing nor the other.

I have done lots of pastoral work with KS3 children. Unfortunately had to deal with lots of sexting and the fall out (bullying, anxiety) of sexual relationships with Year 7s. Not an epidemic, but certainly a handful. Boundaries need to be set now.

No playing in bedrooms. You don’t create an obvious boundary, you just don’t facilitate the situation. He can meet his friend on outdoor play dates at the park or cinema or whatever. It’s a shame because they were clearly friends, but you just need to be busy and encourage other friendships. I know it’s harder for you to facilitate this, but this all is inappropriate for this age, doesn’t really bode well for their boundaries in the future and needs to be nipped in the bud.

You have said that your son is vulnerable. You should not be put in a situation where a girl is getting excited about snuggling on the bed and taking advantage of situations where adults are not around. It’s likely she has picked up on things from fairly innocent 12A romantic comedies and is enjoying playing it out. It could escalate over time. That’s not applying ‘adult thinking’, this is just common sense.

i hope you and the mum can sort it out and find something that works. But if it was my child he would not be put in a situation where he was alone with another who was constantly trying to ‘smooch’ him.

Wtf. This is not normal....at all. Never leave them alone together please. And report to the school.

I think in that case there is all the more reason to set those boundaries for him, in order to protect him. Not necessarily against this girl, but future girls/relationships. So no more playing in bedrooms.