Please help me deal with my son, 13, dating a girl at school

[User183737]

Hi
I need help as my experience if relationships is one violent marriage and a violent father. Thats it.
My son has a mobi phone and last night it flashed up a message from a girl saying she had won an award. To a club he has been begging to go to and he now starts next week.
There were also messages between them where they tell each other how wonderful they are, 'something' happened at school and he asked to kiss her but she said she wasnt ready, he said fine i will wait as i like you.
She has been asking to meet him before/after club as her dad lives near us-divorced parents.
Im happy he will go to club but pissed off he hasnt been honest about why. I also dont let my kids hang about the streets so wont be letting him see her after club. He also likes to go to school early so am stopping this.
Im concerned at his age about him having a relationship, i feel it is inappropriate and want to discourage it. I also feel discussing their kiss etc on whatsapp is trouble.i feel if they argue, he will be blamed. He hasnt done anything wrong and the messages are quite sweet but i feel a bit sickened that he hasnt been honest about it. Also that i cant trust him.
He is my eldest, i dont know what to do, he doesnt know ive seen the messages. I didnt want to invade his privacy by reading them but also dont want to let things go un noticed as he us so young. He gets time alone at home now but am going to stop this as she hangs around here apparently and has been asking to come round which will be an obvious no way.
Should i ban his phone? Stop him going to club? My mum shamed me into not being with boys, said it was disgusting, i also got bullied for being too ugly for relationships so if anyone were interested in me (they never have been or are), then i would know they were taking the piss. Im aware shaming him will make him hide his behaviour.
I honestly dont know what to do. To be honest im horrified and pissed off which is probably unreasonable which is why im asking for advice here.
Thanks in advance

Yes. My husband was a rapist, to me and other women. He was also highly secretive with his phone which contained disturbing stuff.
We are NC.

OP like it or not in the next few years your son is going to grow into a mature adult man. He will he still be your son. He can still be lovely and kind and funny and all the rest but you need to be ok with him growing up.

I second everyone else’s advice please get yourself some counselling to start seeing all this more clearly. You and your DC will be much happier long term if you can do this.

OP is there any advice or support you can reach out and get? Or any other parents with similar age children?
To be honest for a 13 yr old boy he seems sweet (happy to wait etc), the more you try and suppress him and control him the harder the backlash will be as soon as he’s able to escape (aged 16 or so).
I was advised with my son (14) to ask him more, ‘how you feeling? What’s it like dealing with this? What’s going on for you?’ Etc.
He now speaks to me about all his worries and dating highs and lows.
It’s great and helps to build our bond as he knows if he ever needs me later on I’ll be there and he can talk about it.
It’s not easy but good luck

Darling you have to have to seek help to process your history. You have been through the mill it seems but you have to find ways to cope with your son growing into a young man else straight up you will alienate him. I speak from experience.

For the sake of your family dynamic please seek help.

can i just add to my last post, that my daughter has just come out of a relationship she had for 4 years, since she was 14!! i know for a fact that they never got up to anything until the last year of their relationship. She wasnt ready until then!! despite what they put on social media, not all teens are chomping at the bit to get their leg over. Most of them are terrified and nervous about it. You will have to accept that your son isnt a little boy anymore, and will eventually turn into a man!! all the fears are your own, you MUST deal with them first before you ruin your sons confidence. Please please please seek professional help for youself!!

Please calm down before you speak to him. Why are you so upset? Because his growing up or because of your own bad experiences with relationships? He hasn't done anything wrong.

I actually think he sounds brilliant, it's lovely his putting no pressure on her for a kiss. You've obviously raised him well.

This is the time that you need to, rather than banning things, tell him how you expect him to behave and let him get on with it.

Hanging around with his friends/girlfriends after going to the cinema for an hour isn't an unreasonable thing to want to do, as long as they're grabbing a coffee, sitting chatting or looking round the shops and not mainlining or mugging old ladies.

If you don't give him the opportunity to socialise and make decisions about how he behaves then you are going to be depriving him of certain life skills which will hold him back over the years.

Your job as a parent is to guide him and hold his hand on the journey into independence and adulthood and by acting as you are you're not doing that.

Op this situation isn't good at all. From your last post it seems like you are trying to prevent your son from growing up because of your issues surrounding adult men and how your mother treated you.
One of two things will happen. Either your son will grow up but act like a child and be a completely useless adult or he will grow up and have nothing to do with his stifling mother.
Consider this, your son has already had the opportunity to force this girl into kissing him but he didn't, instead he chose to respect her and wait. Your son is a good person and clearly is a testament to you but please get some help as you will drive he lovely boy away.

You are very wisely thinking about how your past is influencing your parenting. You are being open and honest. Some pp need to give you a break. Your son's growth to manhood is triggering you. This is totally understandable given your trauma history. You know this is not his fault and you are not sure what to do. You've taken first steps to figuring it out. Talk this through with your GP, explain what your ex did and how this is influencing your fears about a mature, sexually active young man in the house, admit you find it hard to figure out how to keep it in proportion and see if they can access counselling for you. You are not at fault. You have significant trauma that is like a lens that can skew things a bit. You know it's there but it can still get in the way. 💐

OP, I say this gently - you need counselling.

I am so sorry to hear about your Ex, which must have had a profound effect on you. In addition to your Mum's views on relationships it must be very difficult to know what to do.

But your son is 13 and what he is doing is a perfectly normal and natural thing. The fact that he's being respectful of the girl and not trying to pressure her into anything is a very good sign.

Find a counsellor to talk to. You need to work through the issues in your past and stop them from spilling over into how you parent your son as he goes through puberty and his teens.

I think im scared of him hurting her, and the repercussions of that for both of them. She seems nice. Im gutted ive broken his trust. I didnt even realise i did it until after. I dont want to shame him. Do inapologise, explain, what? What do i say?

Your son sounds lovely OP. It's perfectly normal for teens to start having a life away from you as the grow and become more independent. My DS is 13 so I know it's hard .

Roaming the streets? Surely it's normal for 13 year olds to go into town with their mates and wander about aimlessly?

That was my mothers phrase. God.

Does your son never go out with his friends at the weekend or anything? He's of the age now where they start going into town for the day together, or the park. He does need a tiny bit of freedom now and will need more as he gets older.

Can you think of your goal as bringing up a lovely, independent and happy man?

Do you trust him not to hurt her? Do you think you've brought him up not to treat others (not just females) in a disrespectful way or be mean to others?

You just have to give him the tools and trust him to go out and use them.

It's all you can do I'm afraid.

Op... don’t pass on to your son the damage that has been done to you.

You know how traumatic it was for you how your parents behaved, don’t become the same.

What your son is doing is very, very normal and it will harm him if you do all you say you will do to terminate this relationship. It will also affect your relationship with your son.

You know your feelings on this are skewed because you have come and asked here and you have told us your background. In order to allow your DS to grow up developing normal relationships then i think you need to go and seek counselling to understand how your own relationships are affecting your judgement on this.

Meanwhile let your son be.

Does he know you've seen the messages? If not then I wouldn't say anything to him.

Tell him the truth, that you're just worried about him and overreacted a little bit. Teenagers react well when their parents realise they were wrong and apologise, they see that apologising is normal and healthy.

You need to speak to someone about your past, in the kindest possible way you must.

Your son is not his father. He’s not. And he doesn’t deserve to be punished or held back simply because of someone else’s crimes.

He needs to be allowed to live his life otherwise he’s another victim of his fathers crimes.

Don’t say anything. Heed the advice on this thread. Engage and be interested in his life. He’s a teenage boy, he’ll likely be insular and monosyllabic (terrible sweeping generalisation) but stay chatty and interested. Don’t dictate. Don’t restrict.

Trust him. Your son is a different man to those who you’ve trusted and have been hurt by before.

Op your son sounds lovely and a perfectly normal 13 year old child. I understand your fears. My child is 16 just starting to go to parties with alcohol and friends driving. I just want to wrap them up and take them back to being 5 when life was so much easier. However our role as parents is to help our children grow into good adults. Which sounds like you are already doing that. Just keep talking to him about sex, being respectful to people and that your role is not to stop him having fun but to be safe. Good luck - until your child is a teenager you really don’t know how hard it is and it is easy to give advice when your child is 6 and you know exactly where they are. It isn’t the case with teens. I had to attend a police talk on knife and gun crime last night....just another item to add to my list of worries with a teenager along with safe sex, alcohol, driving, drugs etc etc.

In the nicest possible way, you need to get some help. You have had some truly awful experiences, but you can’t let that affect the way you parent your children.

i dont want a mature sexually active man in my house

This is really alarming. Unless you plan to throw him out at 16, this is exactly that’s going to happen isn’t it? You need to deal with these things before he becomes a mature, sexually active man.
He has done nothing wrong. He is going what the vast majority of 13 year olds do... starting to explore romantic relationships.

And you know what? One day he probably will ‘disappear with some girl’. But that’s what we’re raising our children to do, isn’t it? To develop their own relationships and to move on, away from their parents? It’s normal.