To make my son keep his bedroom door open if he has girls in

[Annaishere]

He’s 16. Im not sure if I should do this or randomly check on them. He’s in a new relationship and wants to have her round soon (would be first time he’s had a girlfriend home)

I just can't imagine this scenario. My friends and I were all too busy with extra curricular activities to be interested in boys until we went to university.

Surely you understand that not everybody is the same. Is it really that much of a reach for a 15 year old to be in a relationship?

The kids with the most permissive parents at my school were the ones that were having sex earliest

This is also my experience, I had very chill parents, DH had parents who put the expectation in place that marriage was the best place for a sex.

I had experiences I later regretted, I didn’t place enough value on sex. DH first had sex at around 19 with someone who’d he’d been with for 2 years. So he wasn’t married but he would have happily married her if their lives hadn’t taken them down differently paths. He didn’t do anything rash that he later regretted.

We haven’t quite worked out how exactly we’ll approach this with our kids (toddlers) but I think setting the bar high is a good thing.

So? You make it sound like my daughter is only interested with men 🤣 She has plenty of interests and hobbies which she still takes part in. She has friends she goes out with by herself, she spends time with us. She gets all her school work done and is achieving high grades. She also has a boyfriend who adores her and they enjoy being together. He also likes spending time at our house, they are currently sat in the garden playing a card game with her siblings.

I didn't have a boyfriend until I was 18 (perm and braces made sure of that) and there was a bit of me that was worried it was too much too soon, but this relationship has been positive for her. My other teen is completely different, no interest in romantic relationships, she's too occupied with college and getting into uni. Both are living their best lives.

@Isthisexpected Same, I can't relate to this desperation to have sex early, and all this "they'll find a way" I was too busy with my friends having a laugh. It came later.

If they're both 16 then I would just drill the concept of consent into him and remind him that walls/floors aren't soundproof. He wouldn't want to risk his mother hearing anything - how embarassing

You don't want them doing it in an alley.
Is she 16 too? I would want to be sure that her parents were ok with her visiting as she's still a child. Just because she's a confident snogger doenst mean she's going to rush your son into anything sexual before he wants to. You're also assuming he's an inexperienced virgin he might not be it's very very unlikely he'd tell you anything like that, especially as you don't sound easy going about sex

Your daughter is much less likely to become a teen mum than those whose parents stick their head in the sand

Speaking from experience as someone who grew up in a boundary less home - allowed boys in my room with the door closed etc etc and my parents being very open about sex with me, I feel like all this just led to me doing things a lot faster because:

a) I had the freedom to
b) my parents were almost too open and honest with me about sex and had too many discussions about sex with me where it was like all I could think about

but this also meant I put myself in lots of situations I wasn’t emotionally mature enough for.

I look back on one of my friends who had lots of boundary’s in place (who wasn’t allowed her boyfriend in her room at all so her and her bf didn’t even have sex until they’d been together for a year and were both 16) and I am actually very envious of her. I wish an adult had put the protection and boundary’s in place to stop me from making decisions I wasn’t fully old enough or mature enough to really comprehend.

If it was my son (who is currently 20 months old so I am way off this point) I would say that the door has to be open in my house. Yes if teenagers want to have sex they probably will find somewhere but I feel like giving them carts blanche to do it in your house might just speed things along unnecessarily. If this GF ends up being a long term fixture then the rules can obviously change but I think a good boundary like having the door open in the beginning will stop them from rushing into things without the full comprehension of consequences (like teenagers tend to do).

My 13 year old does have to have the door open, my 17 year old doesn’t, and didn’t at 16 either. I have two boys.

If they're both 16 and you've had the contraception talk, I'd leave them to it personally.

Thank you everyone for your comments. I’ve decided he will have the door open for the time being and can be reconsidered as time goes on. He’s okay with it.

You cannot blame your mother for you getting pregnant, having the door open will not prevent sex they will just be more creative where they do it

You do seem over invested in this though

@WandaWonder I don’t actually blame her but feel she was too relaxed about me staying over with him.

What do you mean with over invested ?

I would say no going into bedrooms with girlfriends/boyfriends at all - forget the closed door rule.

And just to be clear, this was a rule I made for my own DCs as teens. I have not regretted it.

I think it is a very bad idea too.

I agree with @Isthisexpected that young teens need to be focused on education and extracurricular activities where they can follow interests and develop talents.

When parents give the green light to sexual relationships for their teens who are still in secondary school, they're giving very mixed messages about their hopes for the children's future and what they want their children to focus on.

This is a terrible idea. Buy him contraception, you fool.

Nonsense. You just end up doing it later on and perhaps with the right person rather than some silly lad you met at school (I realise you can meet silly lads anywhere but they do tend to start growing up a bit in their late teens).

I rather doubt any of us who had sex at 18-20 rather than at 15-16 are in therapy.

The therapy comment is 👌👌👌

They’ve proven that teenagers cannot comprehend consequences in the same way that adults do and so that’s why they make a lot of rash spur of the moment decisions - which they can later come to regret.

Its our jobs as parents to try and at least protect our children from making decisions they are not emotionally ready for.

By putting boundaries in place you are giving them the space to explore the relationship further on an emotional level. Yes they might have sex somewhere else but making it harder for them will give them the time and space to figure out if it’s the right choice for them.

you never know, making it hard for them to have sex at home might just buy a months worth of time and in that month they could (or your son could) figure out that this girl isn’t the one for him and then thankfully they at least haven’t had sex.

As a 30 year old I am now having to unpack all the stuff to I did too quickly and too young (because I had no boundaries at home) in therapy. I wish my parents had made it harder for me to have sex when I was younger.

When you experience your teenage son becoming a dad - and the minefield that is it would be too late to say ‘should have made sure nothing was happening’
We all seem too quick to provide spaces for kids to have sex - which is nice and liberal but can go dreadfully pear shaped

Your house your rules