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AIBU?

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Original poster

Is coupling up in year 7 now normal?

247 replies

notevenat20 · 10/12/2020 07:00

I expected to be too old to understand teenage relationships when my DC got there. But DS is in year 7 and has told me that lots of boys and girls in his year are coupling up as boyfriend and girlfriend. Then my friend with a DD in a girls school told me the same thing is happening there. As far as I know they are not actually doing anything physical but it seems so young! AIBU?

OP posts:
Bacter · 10/12/2020 08:51

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

sparepantsandtoothbrush · 10/12/2020 08:53

My DS is y9 and some of the "couples" in his year group are already having sex

Original poster
notevenat20 · 10/12/2020 08:54

although teenage pregnancies aren’t seen as a probable outcome any more

Why is that? Surely basic biology hasn’t changed.

OP posts:
Notdeliasmith · 10/12/2020 08:55

kids often dont tell parents these things or tell others the truth either!

My school was full of rumours about so and so doing x with y. Some of it was likely to not be true!

However if you'd of asked my parents what they thought my relationships looked like at 14 they would of send it was all holding hands and cutesy. It was not. I would also not have been telling my parents about my friends sexual exploits.

Also I went to a single sex school, boys were a rare commodity so we would all date the same few boys after each other because of not knowing any others.

HelplessProcrastinator · 10/12/2020 08:57

It’s been normal at least since the 80s when I started secondary. No one wanted to be my boyfriend though 😢. Totally normal in the single sec grammars and Catholic schools so not just a class thing.

Original poster
notevenat20 · 10/12/2020 08:58

kids often dont tell parents these things or tell others the truth either!

I don’t think I have ever told anyone about the blowjobs I gave at school but I was definitely not in year 7!

OP posts:
TeenyTinyDustinHoffman · 10/12/2020 09:06

From what I remember, there was loads of this in primary school but it dropped off a bit in the first couple of years of secondary. I think in about Year 9, possibly end of year 8, quite a few people started having "proper relationships" but my friends and I were too tragically uncool for that.

Notdeliasmith · 10/12/2020 09:08

@notevenat20

I'm not suggesting anything particularly untoward is happening in year 7

Threads about teens are always full of "other kids in the class" "my daughter knows of people who" or "my child doesnt" People seem to always assume it will just be other peoples kids getting up to mischief and that their children definitely dont have the chance/inclination

I just think it's always worth keeping in mind that it's a potential and not to assume everything is totally innocent just because they were under 15/16.

waterlego · 10/12/2020 09:12

In the 80s it was a subset of kids that did this and we (peers/teachers) didn’t expect any outcome other than teenage pregnancies and poor qualifications.

Really? I’m in my 40s and Y6/Y7 ‘relationships’ were extremely common when I was at school. As other posters have said, these relationships mainly consisted of holding hands in the playground, maybe writing notes to each other in class etc. They usually didn’t involve kissing or seeing each other outside of school; it was all very innocent. Very few of us ended up pregnant as teenagers (I recall one girl from got pregnant just after we left school) and the vast majority of us got decent GCSE grades!

AlwaysBehindTheCurve · 10/12/2020 09:12

I’m 36 and had my first ‘boyfriend’ in year 6. We didn’t do anything except talk shyly on the basketball court about once a week Grin.
Don’t worry, it didn’t lead to teenage pregnancy or anything. I got married at a respectable 29 and had children at 30, 32 and 35.
I didn’t start my period until I was 14, not sure why that has anything to do with having a boyfriend?

Celandines · 10/12/2020 09:18

I went to a girls' grammar in the 80s and I remember a friend "snogging" a boy at the bus stop when we were 12 years old!

DataColour · 10/12/2020 09:25

My Dsis went to the Grammar school which had a more middle-class demographic and it didn't happen there, maybe down to parental attitudes and expectations. Norm at my Secondary was to finish school at 16 and to get a job, partner, home and baby within the next 5 years, so maybe our environment let to us being conditioned to couple up early?

Interestingly my DS is at grammar in Y7 and there as been no mention of girls at all. Infact, the boys seems to hang out together and the girls have their own cliques. There doesn't seem to be much mixing of sexes or talking about the opposite sex at all.
None of it at their primary school either. My DD in Y6 sometimes mentions that a boy has written a "love letter" to some girl, but it is said with derision. No body seems to have coupled up. My DD and DS would hate it somebody suggested that they have a girlfriend of boyfriend.
We don't walk about girlfriends or boyfriends at home, it's just not a topic of conversation that's ever brought up, but not because we are against it, but the kids aren't interested at all. They watch TV with couples kissing etc sometimes, but it just seems to spark no interest in them. hmmm wonder if my kids are unusual!

wendz86 · 10/12/2020 09:26

I had 'boyfriends' from primary school. I don't think it's a new thing.

WhatWouldYouDoWhatWouldJesusDo · 10/12/2020 09:32

I met my dp when I was in year 8 and we're still together 25 years on 😂😂😂

There's another couple I know of who are the same age as.me and started ' going out ' when they were 11. They're getting married next year.......I'm aware that's quite unusual though and not the norm for school relationships.

Ohalrightthen · 10/12/2020 09:35

@notevenat20

although teenage pregnancies aren’t seen as a probable outcome any more

Why is that? Surely basic biology hasn’t changed.

Because sex education is much better than it was, contraception is much more easily available and attitudes are much more open, sex isn't something to be ashamed of and never spoken about.

As with everything, shame and silence harms women. Discussion and openness empowers and protects them.

Celandines · 10/12/2020 09:36

Eldest is in sixth form at comp and younger dd is 13. Both have always had friends who are boys (a good thing) but haven't coupled up. It does happen but there are plenty who don't.
I went to a girls' grammar and only had a sister and didn't have any male friends at that age. Some girls at my school had boyfriends outside school but we only seemed to see boys as potential boyfriends rather than friends.

movingonup20 · 10/12/2020 09:37

@notevenat20

Kids are coming out much younger now for sure. My DD's had multiple friends who were out by 13/14 and several declared they were trans by 15 (not all proceeded, some reverted to birth sex)

Scarby9 · 10/12/2020 09:40

Y6 often.

DataColour · 10/12/2020 09:42

I went to a girls' grammar and only had a sister and didn't have any male friends at that age. Some girls at my school had boyfriends outside school but we only seemed to see boys as potential boyfriends rather than friends.

Same here. This is why I've shunned single sex education for my DCs. I want them to be able to have friends of the opposite sex without seeing them as potential boyfriends. My DCs, one DS and one DD have at least some experience of the other sex as they are close in age and are close, but I don't understand parents who have all same sex DCs and then also chose to send them to single sex schools. When are they ever going to learn about the opposite sex?!

Original poster
notevenat20 · 10/12/2020 09:42

Kids are coming out much younger now for sure. My DD's had multiple friends who were out by 13/14 and several declared they were trans by 15 (not all proceeded, some reverted to birth sex)

Yes I do hear this a lot. My personal view is that you shouldn't decide forever what your sexuality is until you are in your early 20s (if you are going to fix it at all). I would regard everything before then as experimenting.

OP posts:
FPS123 · 10/12/2020 09:42

This was a thing in the 80s when I was at school. If you were ‘going out’ with someone, you say next to them on the swimming bus. They may put their arm round you if you were really serious.
Snogging came later - it’s the precursor to that really.

yelyah22 · 10/12/2020 09:44

I had a year 6 'boyfriend'! He came round for tea occasionally and we helf hands once haha.

But year 7 couplings were pretty normal at my school, they were mostly holding hands ostentatiously at breaktime and then some of the braver ones did a bit of self-conscious snogging in front of everyone and then broke up 4 weeks later.

Same sex couples weren't a thing but I think it's a good sign that they are now - kids at my school were scared to come out.

Original poster
notevenat20 · 10/12/2020 09:45

I don't understand parents who have all same sex DCs and then also chose to send them to single sex schools. When are they ever going to learn about the opposite sex?

That's a little unfair. Choosing a school is a fraught business and the single sex school might just be a lot better. Also, learning about the opposite sex is not always a good thing. I good friends DD was assaulted by boys the first day she sent to her comp and is damaged for life.

OP posts:
Ohalrightthen · 10/12/2020 09:46

@notevenat20

Kids are coming out much younger now for sure. My DD's had multiple friends who were out by 13/14 and several declared they were trans by 15 (not all proceeded, some reverted to birth sex)

Yes I do hear this a lot. My personal view is that you shouldn't decide forever what your sexuality is until you are in your early 20s (if you are going to fix it at all). I would regard everything before then as experimenting.

I'm going to struggle to be civil in response to that, but I'll try.

This is an incredibly damaging, old fashioned and frankly bigoted stance. You don't "decide" your sexuality, it is inherent. Using language like "experimenting" or "phase" completely invalidates the feelings and experiences of young people and you run the risk of alienating your daughter and damaging your relationship.

You really need to fix your thinking here.

CharitySchmarity · 10/12/2020 09:48

I don't know about Y7, but when I was working in schools I knew of a few couples in Y6. The pair I remember most held hands occasionally and just spent a lot of time talking and walking around together, and everybody referred to them as going out. She dumped him in the end because she got into the grammar school and he didn't, and she thought they "didn't have enough in common." He was very upset. I wonder if her parents had anything to do with that decision (they were a nationality that is often said to be very ambitious and pushy for their children, his weren't). I know of another pair where the girl more or less ordered the boy to go out with her. Both had SEN. They were inseparable for about 3 days and then he finished with her because she "didn't talk much" (he was an insatiable chatterbox). But later in the year he still thought she was the nicest girl in the class because she was "kind."