to think that putting your 14yo on the pill and letting her sleep with her boyfriend at home is just bloody WRONG?

[macmonkey]

An (I thought) otherwise reasonable Mum has not only encouraged her 14yo to have sex with her boyfriend of several months but has the boy staying practically every weekend and lets them sleep together. I honestly believe she thinks it's the way to 'keep' a boyfriend. The first time she sent the girl to sleep with bf was when all the girls were over for a sleepover. What kind of message does that send to them? Not to mention the younger siblings, also in the house. So when her DS gets to 14 and brings a girl home, will she let them start shagging under her roof too? Or will she discuss it first with girl's parents, maybe? FFS. I'm practically speechless.

I had long distance relationship that started when I was 14. We had to stay over at each other's houses, for week at a time in holidays. We had sex at 15. My parents weren't keen but what else to do. We didn't share a bed at parents houses overnight until older. And tried to be subtle about it all, probably to limited success.

WellTidy - probably yes... and probably because it is being "normalised"

in my world it is not normal for 14 year old children to have sex, some seem to think otherwise - just because I disagree with it does not in any way mean I have not had the contraception talk with my DD14, nor does it mean she would not be supported should she make that choice.

but I will not be telling my child she can sleep with a boyfriend/girlfriend in my house for a couple of years yet.

I haven't rtft but at what point do we say no? It was all well and good to say "puberty" when that meant 16. But kids start puberty at nine sometimes these days! If your nine year old said they were having sex, would you say "oh well, better in the house" and give them condoms?

If not, when? 10, 11? 13?

Not true Grays - plenty of research to show that there is plenty that parents, schools and teens themselves can do to reduce the chances of young teens having sex.

I think lots of people need to drop the "when I was a child" ideas as things are very very different for today's teens.
It amazes me how many 13 and 14 year olds have read 50 shades - replacing the must reads of twilight and Harry Potter. Boys talk about porn clips on Facebook as openly as if they are describing funny cat videos. Everywhere they turn is sex / adverts? Soaps, films, music. There is a pressure on young girls that has not been there before - snapchat/FaceTime/Skype/jnstagram to band a few.

I am a teacher and deal with this daily - I, like many others, would not want my DS having sex at 14 but I hope I have the sort of relationship where he feels he can talk to me if he is thinking about it.

We've tried, on a large scale, telling teenagers not to have sex. They call it abstinence-only sex education. All the data seems to show it is a failure. It's not effective at preventing HIV infection, preventing teen pregnancy, or keeping kids from having sex. What is effective at preventing teen pregnancy is making effective birth control easily available to teens, especially long-acting reversible contraception like the IUD or implant.

Chlamydia, gonorrhoea, aids and herpes are not prevented by long acting reversible contraception.

Of course parents can influence how their children perceive sex, and at what age they start having it. I'm not saying it always works out the way the parents hope, but if often does have a strong sway on their behaviour.

We had to stay over at each others houses for week at time in the holiday. we had sex at 15. My parents weren't keen but what else to do

Eh, not agree to their 14 year old going to stay with her long distance boyfriend? Or to have the boyfriend staying with them?

GraysAnalogy I agree with your last point.
However you can prevent a lot of crap some parents put down to "kids just being kids no matter what you say or do they have there own choices to make blah"

I do believe that sexual activity can be prevented. People need to make more effort to get to know their individual children's needs. For example my mum knew my second youngest sister was extremely frigid and although they had talks we all knew she just wasn't interested in boys. Found them revolting and still doesn't like men or relationships and she's not gay. So my mum tailored her parenting around my sisters needs.

My youngest sister to be quite frank could easily have become a right tart/bad egg had my parents not reeled her in. She was taken to school, picked up, taken to friends homes and a dialogue was mantained throughout the night with the parents of the family she was staying with. No parents? No staying over. No other mum i can speak to about this "party"? You're not going. No parents who i can call who will be supervising this party? Forget it. Myself and my other sister were not subjected to this because my parents made the effort to parent us according to our needs. And yes the way my other sister was treated may sound a bit much but she never complained or rebelled once.

She enjoyed going to school with my mum (who worked down the street from her school) and because my mum smartly created a base camp with all the other parents her friends heard "no" as much as she did so she didnt feel left out. Plus my mum hosted loads of outings / sleepovers for her and her friends so she didn't feel like a caged animal.

"Strict" is very subjective.....Some of the posters her say they had "strict" upbringings but when they describe what they got up too its very contradictory to what my idea of a strict upbringing would entail. As if i could frollock around on a Saturday trying to get into a bar.......while my parents sat at home like donuts thinking i was where? One parent let us go to the cinema without calling my mum and telling her....my mum went ballistic. She wasn't even a maniac just a huge believer in knowing where your kids are at all times and i'm better for it. I found myself calling her to check in and not out of fear but respect and maturity. The other kids would to.

Tricky one

Yes, they are very different piece because too many parents are just going with the flow. Maybe we should start to look at what did and of course didn't work in the past, instead of just shrugging our shoulders and accepting that young children are reading porn, sleeping around and being bombarded with inappropriate images and messages on tv, social media etc.

Well, I was allowed to meet ups with a big group of us (back in 90s, Internet chatroom), so we both would be staying weekends at people's houses anyway. Or they could have not let me go at all, chained me to my room until I was 18 and not let me meet people at all. I'm sure that would have worked fine.

We had to stay over at each others houses for week at time in the holiday. we had sex at 15. My parents weren't keen but what else to do

As a PP said - how about not letting him stay? Not funding the trips? Saying "no"?

Smoosh there's a big difference between not allowing a 14 year old to travel long distances to stay with her boyfriend and hang out with internet friends; and 'chaining them to their room'.

Maybe we were just brought up to have more self respect and more respect for the act of sex

Hopefully I've brought my children up to have both respect for themselves and sex when they choose.

So many people saying it didn't happen in my day, we wouldn't have done it, etc. statistics say otherwise. As I said, an adult discussion, which doesn't appear to be happening in some parts, here and contraception freely available in schools.

I didnt say it was mutually exclusive Dawn. But saying it's 'just a shag' and accepting that 14 year old kids are sleeping with their boyfriends doesn't signify 'respect' in either way.

Think my parents preferred that the local 'just go up the park and hookup with local yobs.'

They helped us to meet up first time, parents met before we did in fact! We had been chatting online for many months before, and the sleepovers started happening after we had been together 3 months and known each other a year.

Think they were reassured by chatting to the family, and I was not rebellious by nature, very reasonable and level headed for teenager I think!

I would feel weird if daughter was using hookup apps, this wasn't like that though. Surprised by people just vetoing entirely though, by 15 do you not think they are old enough to start trying at relationships? I was with this person for 4 years and we got engaged

Chlamydia, gonorrhoea, aids and herpes are not prevented by long acting reversible contraception.

Nor is HIV prevented by telling teenagers not to have sex. I don't know if there's data on the other diseases, but I would imagine they'd be similar to HIV. Condoms are, of course, important as well if you're not in a long-term monogamous relationship, even if you are using another effective form of birth control.

To be fair, I was probably have a lot less sex than some of my peers as I would only be doing it on school holidays ;)

Exactly Sir.

A lot of the other side of the argument is hinged on, I believe, a fear of saying "no' to their children.

So many people saying it didn't happen in my day, we wouldn't have done it, etc. statistics say otherwise.

Not really - the statistics (which as we all know overestimate the numbers actually DTD) consistently show that the vast majority of young teens aren't having sex.

Why do some people think that teens only have sex at night? It's just as much fun in the day time.

Think my parents preferred that the local 'just go up the park and hookup with local yobs.

What was it that made your parents think that the opposite of hooking up with the local yobs was providing the bed for your young teen to have sex in, I wonder?

Again, at what point do we say no?

If your ten year old has started puberty and wants condoms, do you provide them?

Obviously there is an enormous difference between a 10 and 14 year old but that's my point...when do we say no? When does "well they'll do it anyway" start?