Am I unreasonable to limit my 16-year-old son's girlfriend staying over?

[BySillyHiker]

My 16 year old son has been dating a girl for the last 3 months, since he has finished school and now doing exams he had her staying over most nights we are now on the 6th night in a row. Ive said to him nicely you can't have her over every night. Plus he is doing exams and staying up late till 1am. I feel like I have no space in the house. feeding an extra person feels like I have an extra person living in the house, im doing all the pick ups and drop offs. already trying to manage the house with 3 younger children. My partner is at work all day till 7pm and says im being miserable about it.
I think my son is planning on having her over every night as they cant seem to be apart from each other. Im starting to feel stressed buy it all as have no privacy.

Well incredibly you can have an open dialogue and discussions about contraception and still not have sleepovers. It doesn’t mean you dont leave them alone in the house at any point. I also don’t think 3 months is a serious relationship at 16 - they could have split up in 2 weeks.

Even if I did allow a sleepover it certainly wouldn’t be on a school night and certainly not the night before an exam. I probably wouldn’t expect too much or her parents because if they’ve allowed her to stay at yours for six nights I’m guessing they’re not going to be winning parent of the year awards.

No. I don’t think it’s my job as a parent (or anyone’s, but just my opinion) to provide somewhere for their kids to have sex.
It also allows for relationships to become way too intense too soon because teenagers are immature and full of hormones.
I say this as someone who was allowed to do pretty much whatever I liked in this regard as a teenager.
I ended up living with my first proper boyfriend after about a year and a half of regular “sleep overs”. When I look back my parents really dropped the ball.
They let my older sisters boyfriend do the same. We could all hear what they were doing and it was horrible for me as a child. Their relationship became very intense very quickly and then we could hear them arguing. My parents only banned him from the house after he clattered my sister in the face during an argument after they came back from a party.
So, no to playing house. And by and large they can work out the logistics of their sex lives themselves.
All this “at least I know they’re safe” stuff is just parents giving themselves a false sense of security imo.

Yes as I said @Divebar2021 I wasn’t talking about the Ops post.

@TheLoneliestSnail - yes your situation when you were younger does not sound good for anyone and that’s certainly not what ls going on in my house. You are of course entitled to your opinion re the ‘at least I know they’re safe stuff’ giving parents a false sense of security is something I disagree with you on.

It’s not about providing them somewhere to have sex. It’s looking ahead, being realistic and being aware of what could be happening in less savoury places without any contraception if it’s not thought through. There are rules and boundaries in my house and my DSs GF’s house and plenty of comms between the parents about what and when is ok for sleepovers etc.

I am aghast that you are not putting the importance of exams first. And WTAF are her parents thinking? No way would my Dc have been carrying on like this during their important exams.

This ! Absolutely no way would I have let my dd at 16 have a new boyfriend (or any boyfriend actually) stay the night. No boys would have been allowed to stay over while they were still at school, thankfully neither dd had a boyfriend.
When they were younger I worried about what would happen if they got a boyfriend at 16 whose parents let them stay over, as that would have been difficult. Girls have so much more at stake than boys in this situation.
Op you need to be much more firm about this, they are really young, they have exams, they should mostly be with friends at this stage, not so many nights with a girlfriend or boyfriend.

Yeah there’s no way on earth I’d be tolerating this. My 16 year old step daughter has a boyfriend and is just finishing her exams, they see each other Saturday afternoon and sometimes on a Sunday but not always as she has a weekend job. No sleepovers at all. I have a son in his early twenties, the first of his girlfriends to stay happened when he was 20. My rule was once you’re 18 and if it’s lasted longer than 6 months. I’ve lost count of how many girlfriends have come and gone now so anything casual (most weekends) he’ll stay at there’s or book a hotel.

You don’t have to go to her house. Just tell your son NO!!! Be a parent!!

I don’t think she should be staying over, is she in a spare room and what about your younger children

It sounds like she’s basically moved in!!

how did he get the impression that it was appropriate to bring his girlfriend of 3 months to stay over at all?

what does this girls parents think? i’d be concerned that they weren’t giving her good boundaries either.

he hasn’t finished school. he hasn’t even finished his GCSEs, the most important exams he’ll sit so far.
and you are letting him go to bed at 1am.

what goals do you have for him? how have you communicated those?

What do her parents think…?

When I was 16 there is no way in hell my parents would be letting me staying over at a boyfriend’s house! Or even when I was 18

You need to stay over the night to have safe warm sex,

When I was 16 & just post GCSEs I was going out with my friends, playing sport etc

I had an older boyfriend but there was no sex involved although he wanted to, I was in over my head

Looking back I’m so glad I had that time being free after exams and enjoying myself

Could not have imagined myself staying over with a boyfriend every single night!! Well there would’ve been NO way my parents would have let me!

Absolutely not. They can have sex in the closet or the backseat of the car; they wouldn’t get to play adults in my house until they were actually adults.

Your son is learning about what a healthy relationship looks like and you are failing to teach him. Being together all the time 3 months in is not remotely healthy.

You need rules in place. We also have the 6 months of being in a relationship and we have met the GF several times and are happy with the level of respect they show us rule. Kids need to learn that relationships develop slowly and are not to the exclusion of family and other commitments and interests. You need to put a stop to this

I stayed over at my boyfriend's house at 16 as we lived quite a distance apart but we were not allowed to share a bed. All the sex we had all took place before bedtime. You don't need to sleep over to have sex, no one is saying don't have safe sex in a safe environment. The OP's child and they are a child, is having their girlfriend practically live at their house. This is unacceptable. There should be a limit and pre-agreed nights.

What conversation should be taking place with the son as you can only really talk to the son is to ask have they talked about what would happen if the girlfriend was to get pregnant? Does she track her cycle? Would she buy and take a pregnancy test? Would she want to keep the baby? These are conversations I have had because I have 2 sons. Women control their bodies, the men/boys have no say. Condoms until you plan to be a Father.

As I have said before on here when my eldest son was in year 10 a girl got pregnant, the Father of this baby was year 9. Their birthdays were close together but spanned the two year groups. She kept the baby, declared it the best thing to ever happen to her. The Father spiralled mentally and had to have a lot of support in school.

This is also part of the repeated enthusiastic consent conversation.

OP this is mad, why have you allowed this?

Age 16
together only 3 months
sleeping over 6 nights a week and during GCSE exams! (faints)
My DS is the same age - didn’t they have a Maths exam today? And your DS was up until all hours with his sleepover buddy.
sorry but this is really irresponsible parenting, everyone needs a decent GCSE Maths grade.

My DS has a long term GF and I like many others on this thread have said absolutely no sleepovers, it’s just not necessary at this age.

Sorry that was a typo and am in total agreement with you. You dont need to spend the night to have safe sex. No 16 year olds should be spending overnights together

@childoftkty phew, yes, I agree. I was in sixth form and we had been dating for 6 months but my Mum didn't want to drive to collect me once every 2 weeks and it was unfair to expect my boyfriend's parent to drive me home every time.

He lived in a rural area so no buses. It was decided I should stay over. Although this was a lovely relationship I can understand how it is making it feel far more grown up than it was and there could be pressure to do things you don't want. We broke up at 18 but he is still a lovely friend to this day.

You’re the adult
it’s your home and you have other kids to consider too

just say no this isn’t happening and speak to the girls parents and tell them this isn’t happening! Concerning tho they haven’t knocked in your door yet as I’d worry they just didn’t care.
if that was my 16 yo son/daughter I’d be going wild!

Why are you letting this happen ?

It’s not a choice between sleepovers or sex on a park bench though. When I was a teenager if my parents were going out for the evening (or were just out during the day even) I would invite my bf over and we would have sex while we had the house to ourselves. Seemed to work perfectly well and it’s how all my peers managed it too. Obviously a bit of an issue if both sets of parents are recluses who never leave the house but otherwise fine.

I think allowing sleepovers for 16yos in new relationships actually presents far more issues in terms of boundaries. For one thing, if something was to ‘go wrong’ during sex or otherwise it’s a lot harder for either party to say no / leave / get some distance in the middle of the night than it would during the day or evening. Plus I think it encourages the relationship to become more serious / intense than is healthy at that age.

Contentious opinion....
I'm trying to imagine a world where my parents, or me as a parent, would/could even imagine allowing this was OK.
16 year olds are not emotionally capable of dealing with such a situation - & we shouldn't be rolling over & pretending it's OK.
Sits back & waits to be flamed ..

@Cleo65 there is no need for flaming just for having an opinion. We can all think and do what we feel is right for our own DC and situations. I have got plenty of people disagreeing with me on here but I don’t mind.