to think this a bit inappropriate, bearing in mind DS is 10

[stoppinattwo]

he has an email address which he has obviously given out in school to his mates.

One of the girls has emailed him with rather a forward email, which he was a bit embarrassed about, I have told him to be polite about it and just pay no attantion to it but I think if I was this girls mother I would want to know she was sending such emails.

I have checked with DS and she doesnt have any older brothers or sisters who could have sent it as a joke. I would be shocked if DD is sending stuff like this out at 9/10

maybe Im just a bit stuffy, but I dont think so.

Perhaps it is not real love. I spoke of it in a previous post as an early rehearsal. But it can be very like love. When I first fell in love with dh, I wasn't sure if this was yet another crush or the Real Thing. It felt very similar- it was just that this time I was old enough to take it on to something more serious, something that has lasted all my adult life. But that was the main difference- that it moved on.

Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher?

For goodness sake, this is just modern day "mummies and daddies". they are aping their elders as children (especially little girls) always have.

I wasn't interested in mimicking adult relationhips at 9/10, nor were my school friends. Perhaps it is possible to infer children's attitudes to adult relationships from stories written by adults about children. Perhaps not.

Even if it is normal for girls to be sucked into this so early even if it was normal in the past, which I don't think it really was it is still sad, isn't it? Boys have more time to pursue a whiole range of interests oblivious of 'relationships' and that reflects the fact that in adult life they are not defined so rigidly in terms of their relationships with opposite sex.

And, isn't it sad that what these girls are mimicking is not always going to be genuine adult or adolsescent sentiment, learnt from observing adults? It is ofen what they learn from their bombardment by celebrity culture, soap opera, commercials etc. They weren't pressured by that so much in the past.

sorry but I would be HORRIFIED if my daughter was writing like that at 10

I understood basic spelling and grammar long before then

I was 10 in 1990. I never ever watched the television, never ever listened to chart music, lived in jogging bottoms and polo shirts and clarks buckle shoes.

I STILL developed such a massive crush on a boy called JAmes that I cried myself to sleep three nights running when he said he didn't want to be my boyfriend. I rebounded onto another boy, who was taller and cleverer and asked me 'out' and who used to bring me chocolate and said I was 'fit' (I really wasn't).

My childhood didn't end there. At 12 I still went cycling to the local canal to look at the tadpoles. At 15 I was in a brass band, and also heading their junior section (I saw more garden parties than most pensioners). I'd lost my virginity a year earlier, to a long term boyfriend who I loved and who loved me. At 16, my friends and I still played frizbee in the park.

The journey from childhood to adulthood is a stroll, not a rocket ride. You don't go to bed a child and wake up as a 35 year old management consultant with a mortgage, 3 kids and a husband with erectile dysfunction. There are many fun, childish things to do on the way.

I was 10 in 1973. No television at home, no video, only films I ever got to see were the educational ones provided by the school. Parents decidely oldfashioned even for those days. And I too managed a long stroll through gradual adolescent awakening similar to that described by Coldtits. I didn't need to be sucked into adolescence: it happened naturally when my body got to that stage. I have to say I have never thought of this stage of my life as something so negative as most posters on here seem to think. To me, the time spent reading Japanese haikus and day-dreaming about whatever-his-name (or whatever-their-names) was not a tragic breakup of childhood. It was a part of childhood which coexisted quite naturally with looking for wood anemones and playing hopscotch.

Dd reached puberty aged 10, completely without the aid of soap operas. What should I have done about that? Wrung my hands and whittered about how tragic it was? But I don't think it is. And I wouldn't be helping her much even if I did think so.

I can see that she has times for many happy childish things at the same time as making room for more grownup thoughts. And I trust in her as a sensible person who is unlikely to go ruining her life by taking on adult responsibilities before she is ready. But she does read Romeo and Juliet, and Jane Austen, and no doubt any romantic poetry she may find lying around. This isn't about my hothousing her; it's what she is ready for. Should I force her to stick to Horrid Henry and Barbie magazines?

Perhaps I don't know enough about girls. I do know, though, that my 10 to DS would be extremely uncomfortable with receiving an email like that -- and also that if he sent an email like that (no chance!) he might find himself accused by other parents of hassling girls inappropriately.

10 yo DS

My nearly 12 yr old dd would be mortified to receive an email like that, let alone send one! But some of the girls in her year possibly would have done at age 10 and certainly now are definitely interested in boys - or at least in theory.

'The journey from childhood to adulthood is a stroll, not a rocket ride. You don't go to bed a child and wake up as a 35 year old management consultant with a mortgage, 3 kids and a husband with erectile dysfunction. There are many fun, childish things to do on the way.'

Coldtits that has to be quote of the month - brilliant