Teenage boy and request to have 'not girlfriend' in room -

[Whippetwalker]

15 yo Ds seems to have started first relationship although says 'she's not my girlfriend'. Invited her round twice (she is also 15) but she would barely look at any of the family, despite effort to make her feel welcome(l appreciate this can be daunting). Dd of 11 said 'she won't even acknowledge my existence'. He only seems to have known her for a couple of weeks and has now asked why we have said she isn't allowed in his room with the door shut. Together they seem awkward and communication is stilted. Two mutual friends seem to have paired them up. He suggested that rather than going to the cinema with her and other family that the family go and leave them at home! I am concerned that (reading between the lines) there isn't enough there to support this relationship 'going upstairs'! Ds is resentful and has just said 'l can go in her bedroom' !. I want to support emotionally healthy relationships for both of them but all they seem to want to do is sit in a dark room 'watching tv'. Feels awkward. Advice please, first teenager! Thanks.

Please don't judge her for not talking. I know it can seem breathtakingly rude but I was her once and painfully shy. I really really struggled to make conversation with adults and all my boyfriends parents disliked me. I honestly couldn't help it.
I'll talk to anyone now though, and talk and talk and talk.....

Dad of DS here. Appreciate your comments. The whole thread is really helpful it give us a frame of reference within which to understand how to most effectively care for our son and his" girlfrien/not girlfriend." The whole thing seems back to front - you don't jump into deep water without playing in the shallows first.

The snog down the precinct, hang out with mates and do the "I like you do you like me thing" in that normal 'awkward' way we all do, especially when we really like someone, is what we fully expect. I agree to meet parents have to talk to their family, have a meal and meet a little sister! Full on. My brain would have popped at that age I'd have burbled stumbled over every word and wanted to get the hell out of there for feeling so overwhelmed.

Gut instincts kicking in. It just does not sit right - safe sex/sti/self respect/part of a caring relationship talk we have had. To provide the unsupervised space they are apparently asking for , actually feels unkind and exposes both to a situation and decisions we know in our hearts they are simply not equipped to deal with.

We have decided to say no to room thing and at this stage no to be at home with her alone - actually in the writing of this it seems odd we even considered it. We all Need to give ourselves permission to trust our instincts, who is to say where this is going and it may be that at a later date it will feel ok and we will say yes but we will go with our guts and commonsense - a NO it is. Plenty of time. Dog walk and dad/son this is how it is chat this morning. Thanks again to all for heartfelt and thoughtful comments.

My 14yo is allowed to take his wasn’t-his-girlfriend-but-now-is to his room, but door is left ajar by them. She’s lovely, sat and watched strictly with me recently. They are allowed in her room at her house too. Her older brothers have embraced my lad like he’s part of the family which is lovely. None of this protective patriarchal/matriarchal crap going on.

I think respect is a two way street. Surely teenagers deserve to have a space of their own and privacy?
It’s very disrespectful to have blanket rules of “no shut doors” as you’re immediately saying you don’t trust them to make good choices.
What is better is communication so you know they are well equipped to make good choices, asking them what they would prefer (e.g. my eldest actually asked could I say he wasn’t allowed age 18 games so he didn’t lose face with his friends and I could be the uncool Mum spoiling the fun when he realised he didn’t much care for the ethos behind grand theft auto etc) and being open and honest.
If they want to have sex they will. Being open about this will help them come to you if there are any problems. My dd wasn’t wanting to tell me her first experience of sex was a drunken ONS for which she required the MAP... but she did and I’m glad she felt she could.
And 11 year olds don’t exist for their teenage siblings/ sibling friends. Sorry. And are all the more reason you should allow your older son privacy.

Fwiw op, I think you have made the right decision.

Charolais. It's a fact that teenage pregnancies rates ha e lowered. In birth rates for the 40 plus group have overtaken it. And I am from South London.

I think you need to have the chat with him. Remind him of consent, responsiblity, and the fact they are still under age. If the couple are that socially awkward chances are they just want to talk without sniggering younger sisters etc.

I think the door open policy is a good idea, so is phoning her parents to check if it's OK for her to go to his room. The kids will cringe buy you'll feel better if you are on the same page.

There is no such contraception called
"Open bedroom door"

If they are intent on doing it they will, nothing you can say or do will stop them but you can prepare them with access to proper contraception.

Come on Charolais, tell us where you live. I'm American too.

My grandpa was a Methodist minister born in 1897. His wife & both daughters were all pregnant at age 17-18. You must know what a PK is, right?

Charolais’ comment :=0

Imagine if this girl was your child and some boy's parents were telling their son, behind your back, how to have safe sex with her

(my daughters aren’t even in kindergarten yet... so no, I won’t imagine.)

But when they’re that age? His parents telling ‘some boy’ how to have save sex would be rather reasonable imo

This is probably an unpopular view but I think a parent would be unwise to totally rely on trust over this issue, (hell, even that "Get out of my life but first drive me and Alex in to town" author says this). It's great to try and build trust and have open communication but 14 yr olds are still children, teenage brains are going through huge changes, they can't predict consequences very well and sometimes peer pressure can overule restraint and common sense. Sometimes early teens need protecting from themselves.

As the op says, I wouldn't go putting early teens in a situation they can't handle, sometimes teens actually appreciate boundaries being put in place, even though they would rather die than admit that.

I don't think anyone on this thread is saying that, Annabelle. I think we're saying talk to them openly about contraception, and all the other issues that go with sex - consent, enjoyment, respect, emotional involvement - and, if they're under age, keep the door ajar, if nothing else, because teens actually secretly want boundaries from their parents. That door slightly ajar gives them time and space to take things a bit more slowly. Yes, if they are intent on doing it, nothing will stop them, but again (referring back to the WHO statistics) talking openly does make it less likely, because teen sex is a combination of hormonal-driven lust and curiosity, and dealing with the curiosity side of things at least removes one of the drivers.

Do find a way to make them feel welcome though, or if this gets serious you might hardly see him 😞

Imagine if this girl was your child and some boy's parents were telling their son, behind your back, how to have safe sex with her.

It’s attitudes like this that left me with a massively screwed-up attitude to sex for years. It’s only in my 30s that I’ve begun to really understand what a healthy relationship and sex life look like.

I went to a very good private school which prides itself on producing nice young ladies. Sex education was framed in exactly the same way as the comment above: that boys would want to have sex with us and that this was A Very Bad Thing. Not a word about how girls might also have a sex drive or feel any kind of confusing urges themselves.

I grew up feeling like a dirty slut for actually wanting to do some of those things that were supposedly so shameful. And I ended up in an awful relationship where my partner abused me sexually for years and years, because I had no understanding of consent and healthy boundaries. I’d grown up being told that sex was something boys liked and something they wanted to do to you, so my own sexuality was something I really had no idea about.

Freida it's horrible that you ended up in an abusive relationship

I think many of us are taking a purely pragmatic and common sense approach here ie 14 yr olds are too young to deal with pregnancy. I think it's totally possible to put safeguards in place whilst having open and healthy discussions about sex. The two are not incompatible.

I have a 16yo DD recently started an (almost first, most serious yet) rel. with a 15yo boy. I had 3 seconds of panic reading OP wandering if my DD was the girl in question.

As soon as they got together I had a contraception convo with DD. I sure hope her fellow has had a similar chat with his folks. I was so out of touch, DD was gooey b/c they held hands for 4 hrs, & here I am talking SEX. But she didn't mind the chat. I told her where the fam-plan clinics are and suggested which of her friends should go with her. I got the advice in while she was willing to listen.

It's said, to protect them from bad decisions, work on self-esteem angle. Kids who have aspirations & plans make many fewer bad decisions that could screw up their dreams. Otherwise, give them info & tools to reduce the risks. If you give them good quality info, they will come back and tell you more later, be more honest about what's happened(ing), & listen to your advice.

Letting them shut the door is showing them you condone it

Condoning door shutting?

Bless you OP, do you not remember being a teenager, or was every one you knew wildly confident at talking to strange adults at 15?

She doesn't even need to be shy generally to be shy of you, and why she should have any interest in an 11 year old girl is beyond my imagination. She's come to see her boyfriend - that's it! She's probably a bit shy to be friendly, but she's only 15. She might come to be more relaxed in your presence in time, but not if you're hanging around like some anxious eagle.

Some people thrive on encouragement, others come out of their shell in their own time, and any pushing will just push them away.

Oh I completely agree, Sludgecolours. I was responding to the specific comment I quoted, where the poster was inviting us to be horrified at the thought of a boy’s parents talking to him about having safe sex with someone’s precious daughter. That suggests that sex is something only boys want and something which our daughters must be protected from.

I agree with all the comments about putting boundaries firmly in place while also taking steps to ensure children understand how to stay healthy and safe.

No underage pregnancies in rural American state? Ha ha ha ha ha and fake news.

This times a million.

It really does sound like this is genuinely not his girlfriend. When I was that age (not that long ago), if a girl was your girlfriend you would spend the first two months taking her out to all kinds of places, introduce her to your parents formally and barely touch her. If on the other hand she was your 'not girlfriend' you would take her home, introduce her to your parents briefly as your 'friend' and promptly take her to your room to 'watch tv'.

Frieda I think we totally agree about young people receiving sex education in a healthy positive manner and there being absolutely no shame involved! (I say this as someone who attended an RC convent school!)

But speaking as a parent who is in exactly the situation you quote ie a 14 yr old dd who had her 15 yr old boyfriend over for lunch and the rest of the afternoon this week; I would certainly hope that his parents weren't sitting him down and describing how to have safe sex with her - I would hope that they would be telling him he was too young for a sexual relationship and urging caution and restraint.

That is not the same as making him feel ashamed about his sexual feelings surely?

When my now adult twins were teens I pretty much had open house for their friends.
The downside: no packet of biscuits, cake or bottle of pop was safe and the house and my sofa was always full of teens.
The upside? The house was always full of teens. And I knew exactly where they were. Yes they went in their rooms, but I was a friendly mum and would pop in with offers of food DD hated this! so any mischief was well "managed".
If they weren't with me they were with another teen whose mum operated the same policy.

I am quite sure they got up to exactly the same things I did at their age, but I made sure they knew enough to stay safe and not pregnant.

You do have to trust them, while also watching like a hawk.

Btw I totally hear what you are saying Frieda about sex being taught in a way that it is something only boys want and girls must be protected from. That is totally and utterly wrong of course.

The ages old biological reality though is that the consequences of unprotected teenage sex are more profound, physically anyway, for a girl.

And I wish it weren't the case but it is also true that many boys are now unduly influenced by what they see on the Internet when it comes to their views about sex and their relationships with women.

I hope we can agree that that makes good, honest, open, shame-free sex education even more important for both genders.

Imho there is time for them to explore their sexuality fully when they are older... .

Another ex convent school girl here (sigh).

My DS is 9 and says he will never get married. He thinks kissing girls is ick.

He is very interested in finding out about things, and in abstract discussions. I think providing good books to read would be possibly less embarrassing than The Conversation.

But were we to discuss girlfriends/ boyfriends and sleepovers (several years) in the future I would hope we would be talking about

• being mature enough not to hurt each other's feelings
• being kind to the other person and to yourself

-being kind is better than trying to be cool -thinking of the consequences of your actions -taking things at a pace you feel comfortable with -what an unwanted pregnancy would mean for both of you -the risks of STDs -looking after each other with respect to this

all a bit hypothetical as of yet thank good ness

I imagine I would be having similar conversations with my daughter in due course

When I was 15, I was traveling 4 hours away by train on my own to visit my boyfriend (we met through school, but didn't go to the same school so he lived far away with his family) and staying with him for a weekend or even a week at a time (over holidays/summer). We were obviously sleeping in the same bed when I was there and also when he sometimes came to visit me and there was definitely some making out going on, but there was no sex. We were together for 3 years and didn't have sex until I was 18. So I wouldn't assume anything much is going on in there. But regardless, you have to know and trust your kid. I wouldn't have a problem with 15 year olds having some privacy and getting to spend time alone (I can assure, based on my own experiences later on, you don't need to be alone in someone's bedroom to have sex!). I don't know how I'd feel about 15 year olds sleeping over in each other's beds, to be fair, but I know I did it without having loads of irresponsible sex or an unplanned pregnancy, so I suspect there's no reason another responsible, mature teen couldn't do it. But you know your kid better than anyone on here.