To set some house rules about girls. What should they be?

[churchmouse84]

DS1 is 12. He is a sweet boy on the whole.

Today he invited his sort of girlfriend round after school. She is also 12.

When I got home they were upstairs in our TV/XBox room. Ds had pulled the sofa bed out and they were lying on the bed with a duvet watching a film.

It was all very sweet. However, am I supposed to lay down some ground rules now?

One foot always on the floor, that sort of thing.

I have no idea what the done thing is here.

I said to him I thought it would be more appropriate if he kept the sofa a sofa.

Door must always be left wide open?

Good point. He had pretty much closed the door.

I insist upon "legal and consensual"

As they are 12 though, they are neither!

Door open, sofa not bed. Duvet ok if they want to snuggle up, but presumably they would not object to you asking your DS to get up & pop the kettle on / answer the phone etc - so both need to be in a suitable state of dress.

mydog I don't quite understand.

Before the are allowed in the house? Upstairs?

What are you comfortable with?

Door open at all times, and personally I’d not allow them under a duvet. Not that I’m insinuating anything about your son, it’s just not something I’d be comfortable with one of mine doing, in our house or someone else’s. On top of a duvet, fine, but not underneath one.

Also, it might be an idea to check what her parents would do and are comfortable with. You need to know that at her house you’re ok with what’s happening too, as they do at yours.

I have no idea.

On the one hand I'm perfectly comfortable as he's my tiny baby and there would be no chance of any inappropriate behaviour.

He has another friend who he has shared a bed with on occasion on holiday until about last year.

It's more about setting the tone for the future I suppose.

I don't know. Door open definitely.

The duvet is a difficult one because, as a family, we always watch Tv under blankets/duvets.

Maybe they need a blanket each!

The duvet isn't a difficult one - she isn't family.

I would be furious if my 12 yo DD was under covers in someone else’s house, especially if they were a couple.

I wouldn’t allow it in my own house either.

Erm upstairs, on a sofa bed with it out, under a duvet. If my 12 year old dd came back and told me that I'd go batshit. May have been all innocent but think about what she may say to her parents and how they could interpret that.

They weren't exactly 'under covers'. The duvet was on the bed and they may have had their legs under it. There was definitely a lot of scrunched up duvet between them.

I feel they are still very young so it's still all quite innocent but feel I need to set the rules out now

They certainly haven't done anything that would make me furious.

Sorry I wasn’t clear, I didn’t at all mean to insinuate they’d been up to anything or that you or they had done anything inappropriate.

Just in general, lying under a duvet as a couple is far more grown up than I’d be comfortable with for my own daughter (or sons!) at that age, especially in someone else’s house that I didn’t know.

Sorry to burst your bubble but I was a nice, quiet kid and I lost my virginity at 13! If you had asked my parents, they would have had no idea about what I was up to. I'd definitely suggest no duvet and door open!

Ha! I'm also very aware I lost my Virginity in the 'after school before anyone gets home' timeslot. Although I was 16.

So. Door open. No duvets. Sofa only.

We're clear.

4 hands rule. You need to see 4 hands at all times.

I would say no going upstairs at all.

I would have the same concerns as YeTalkShiteHen and Bluewidow.

Watch TV downstairs, chat, whatever. Interact with family. Going upstairs is asking for trouble.

I obviously didn't think this through.

We converted the room upstairs to a TV room so they would have somewhere to go with their friends. I didn't factor in the whole girl thing.

Total throwback to my ex’s very religious RC Mum who used to screech when we were all upstairs “no bloody doors closed! No bellies full of arms and legs in this house!” should have seen her face when her DD came out! Also, we found ways round it (I was 17 not 12)

I don’t think being upstairs with open doors is a bad thing tbh.

I went to a girls school. I didn't have a boy in the house until I was 16!

If nobody can see into the room from downstairs and hear everything that is going on, they might as well have the door closed.

In most homes, upstairs is bedroom/private territory and downstairs is family/communal/public land. There is too much of an association with bedrooms/beds/privacy when kids go upstairs.

In my experience, the boys with the parents who were either cool or clueless soon found themselves left dealing only with the girls whose parents were equally cool or clueless, and the consequences were not always ok.