What age are your kids allowed a boyfriend? (or girllfriend)

[bellabreeze]

My eldest girl is 12 and not allowed a boyfriend yet. My younger girls won't be allowed one at 12 either but I don't have rules for when the boys will be allowed girlfriends. I want to know if you set an age or just waited to see if they got 1?

Slags? How nasty and double standards too to top it off.

How do you enforce that rule? I've never heard of such a thing.

Bella whatever your rules, please make the the same for sons and daughters.

Given your main concern seems to be reputation, presumably what you actually want to ban is a sexual relationship not a going to the pictures and having a snog relationship. Have you talked to your DCs about this?

By not allowing boyfriends/girlfriends, your basically ensuring your kids will lie to you.

Officially I say "No girlfriends/boyfriends" until 13, but it's not strictly interpreted. I think better to try to control the types of opportunities they have together. They also massively appreciate parents setting limits so they don't have to figure out for themselves what is appropriate. DD had "boyfriends" in yr1, but they were limited to odd kiss & a bit of handholding (only snatched chances at school). Now she's 11 & boys are objects of curiosity at best.

DS1 is 12 & has a text flirtation going with a 14yo girl (met at Scout camp, age difference sure sign of her immaturity). They have almost zero chance to cross paths in real life & he just enjoys the flattery. I think he'd be terrified if he had to deal with her in person.

Ime the children most likely to engage in early sexual activity are the children who come from families who assume that any boyfriend/girlfriend situation has to be sexual, who speak of girls as slags and who have double standards regarding girls and boys. The children least likely to do so are children from families who speak respectfully of other people and don't see sex everywhere.

I was allowed to have boyfriends, however i was not allowed to have boys upstairs in my mums house.

IMO, if you want to have sex/have a boyfriend, you will do it regardless of what your parents say. However if you know your parents are ok with you having a boyfriend, you are much more likely to tell them about your relationship. This would mean you were able to gauge how the relationship is progressing and whether you had reason to be concerned or not. Does that make sense?

I was 'not allowed' to have a boyfriend when I was a teenager - well, not strictly forbidden but it was 'disapproved of' and strongly discouraged by my parents.

This meant that all of my sexual experimentation took place with a series of random boys around the back of the youth club disco, and age 19 I ended up in a relationship that got way more serious than I was equipped to cope with and ended up being horribly abusive.

My DCs will not be banned or discouraged from having relationships and I hope to establish a good dialog with them so that we can talk through any issues they have. I would rather have a conversation with my 12 year old DC about how it might be time to kick the boy/girlfriend to the kerb if he/she is feeling pressured to kiss in the corner of the playground, than for my child to have to learn how to negotiate those sorts of scenarios for the first time when they are older, more independent and finding it awkward to talk to me about sex for the first time.

It starts early with over controlling parents-either you openly rebel or you develop a secret life and your parents end up not knowing the 'real' you.

I think the worst thing you can do for your children is to have negative expectations of them before they have even started to think about the behaviour in question. The mum who, in a casual school gate conversation informed me (whom she had never set eyes on before) that her dd was a nymphomaniac was doing her dd no favours. According to my own dd, the girl was nothing of the kind- but her mum was doing her best to get her labelled and let her know what the expectations were.

Interesting topic. It had not occurred to me to think I would have a say in this.

I don't think you can stop it.

Love can strike unexpectedly. I remember my geeky 12 year old brother falling in love with a 12 year old girl. it was proper Romeo and Juliet stuff, and he was proper heartbroken for a year when she broke up.

My mum had to accept she was completely powerless here.

I think you cannot forbid boyfriends, tbh

You are issuing double standards and encouraging your daughters to lie to you.

There are other healthier ways of managing this situation.

Explain to them how you trust them, and know they will be sensible.
Talk to them about boundaries, sex and respect.

Just 'banning' them doesn't provide them with any information and just makes it taboo.

Yeah right, "not allowed", "it's a rule", 12year olds are "sexually active" if they have a boyfriend.

You are kidding yourself if you think that you giving your daughters a "rule" is going to make the difference in their lives between being a "good girl" and being a "slag".

When your 13/14/15yo goes out, and happens to meet a boy, she will have no incentive to be honest with you about it, no incentive to stop at a quick snog, no-one she can talk to about peer pressure, no-one she can talk to if he starts to pressure her to go further than she wants. Probably no-one she can even tell if he does go further than she wants, no matter how bad she feels about it.

Why not treat your teens as if they are actual people with a right to have feelings and develop relationships? That way, you retain some possibility of having a meaningful conversation with them about their lives, rather than making the only choices "mummy's good little girl" and "slag the boys all disrespect".

Arf @ "not allowed a boyfriend/girlfriend" sorry but what a ridiculous rule. No opposite sex in your bedroom or mixed sleepovers etc fine but not allowed a bf/gf??

Surely you cant actually stop someone developing a close friendship with someone else of any gender?

I'd be worried about any premature sexualisation of any pre-pubescent children.

"allowed" isn't a good word to use as DCs could just rebel and lie

But I don't think parents should be encouraging 'romantic' relationships at a very young age either. DCs are under enough pressure from peers, partners, media to have sex young- they don't need pressure from their parents too, which is the implied message some parents are giving out.

I don't know about premature sexualisation.

I remember being a teen, and being able to get all woozy form hours of snogging. it was quite normal not to have sex until 18.

Is it not like that anymore? for anyone? I know some kids have sex very young, but is it the norm now? shame if it is.

Also, are we not, in a way promoting premature sexual activity by expecting it? and "banning it" before they even had their first kiss? does that make sense?

"being allowed to have a boyfriend" and "having a boyfriend" are two entirely different things. There is no correlation between them.

dd has just turned 12 and I don't envisage a romantic/sexual involvement with a boy for quite some time. I certainly won't be encouraging it . She is welcome to have boys as friends but if there is something like a crush developing, I think my approach will be that they can go out in a group and he is welcome at our house anytime, beyond that I am not keen. When she is older and the question of sex comes in to it, I am not sure what my take will be tbh. THe plan is to keep her fairly busy which she is anyway atm , so I plan to just continue with that

I think it's strange to think that a 12yo having a "boyfriend" is going to be about "premature sexualisation", unless the boyfriend is significantly older. Unless children are getting a lot of odd peer pressure (and I think you'd know that from their other behaviour) the kinds of things they will do with their boyfriend/girlfriend at 12 are not that different from what they do with a friend - they hang out together, it's more about a label than any sexual activity.

As they go through puberty, yes there will be an increasing sexual element, with snogging and a bit of groping gradually creeping in. But they don't all start having full sex at 13 just because they have been "allowed" to have a relationship. A few will, but that's more about low self-esteem and worrying exposure to porn rather than it being considered "normal". And that hasn't changed since we were teenagers, there were always a few people in any school who had chaotic home lives and had sex for bad reasons.

I think teenagers have far more chance of gradually learning about themselves and about relationships by being "allowed" to try them out little by little, with reasonable boundaries about being home by a certain time, not having the door closed when they are together (certainly at 13 or 14), not having boyfriend/girlfriend stay over in the same room, etc, etc. That way they can explore their feelings, and the physical effects of them, in a safe environment, and not behind the bike sheds, or while drunk at a party you didn't even know about, or in any of the other places they will find, with people you have no chance to meet or hear about.

And when they do have issues, or want to tell you about "something that happened to a friend of a friend" you will be able to gently steer them away from dangerous behaviour and get them to think about why people let themselves be pushed into something they were uncomfortable about, or how they might protect themself from awkward situations.

"Ime the children most likely to engage in early sexual activity are the children who come from families who assume that any boyfriend/girlfriend situation has to be sexual, who speak of girls as slags and who have double standards regarding girls and boys. The children least likely to do so are children from families who speak respectfully of other people and don't see sex everywhere."
Cory said it all really.

tbh I find it hard to imagine this situation atm but I expect my reaction will depend quite a bit on what I think of the particular boy when the time comes, whether or not I like him and how he acts around my dd

muminscotland, that is how I'd like it to be too.

Cory put it well too.

Dd has a boyfriend and she's 18 months, he's 19 months and yesterday they shared her cot. I dont trust them completely so made them keep the door open

But seriously
Why on EARTH why would you 'not allow' your dc to 'have a bf/gf' I think that's awful and controlling and impossible to police. Education and trust is the answer, not banning something