12 year olds in a relationship

[Afrokimmy]

I check my 12-year-old's phone every so often, and I just found out they are in a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship with a classmate. They're both 12 & in Y7. The messages include lots of "I love you", "baby", "forever", etc.

Needless to say, we're having a long conversation tonight, and there will be consequences around phone use and social media.

I'm genuinely interested in how other parents have handled this. Is this something I should discuss with school as well?

OP, please don't talk to school
about this. Once you do that, you can't take it back and, from a 12 year old perspective, I can't see what would be worse.

I think plenty of 12 year olds have boyfriends/girlfriends who they have agreed to go out with but barely speak and don't see out of school. I fail to see the harm here.

You confronting your daughter with 'consequences' might be the last you hear of her being in any kind of relationship. You can certainly forbid it but I doubt it will end the very normal romantic feelings she is experiencing.

This has obviously worried you. May I ask what you are worried about specifically?

I think when preteens/teens say boyfriend/girlfriend adults jump to a different conclusion about what this actually means. Your consequences conversation might put ideas in her head that weren't there or make her ashamed of feeling attraction, which would be a massive shame and is hard to undo.

Plus you want her to be able to talk to you if she's got a problem in future, don't you? I'm not sure the consequences for having a boyfriend conversation will foster that sort of relationship between the two of you. Open communication and a lack of judgement would seem to be your best friends in terms of keeping her happy and safe in future relationships. Forbidding things seems counterproductive.

Consequences for what? They've not done anything wrong have they? It's perfectly normal innocent behaviour, taking little baby steps to growing up. You should be happy for her.

You need to chill, you're massively overreacting. Get a grip of yourself or you'll just drive her to secrecy.

Consequences for what?? A friendly conversation, sure. But what have they done wrong??
My daughter had a boyfriend in year 5 and a different boyfriend in year 6. They didn't kiss or touch each other or see each other outside of school. It was just words! I had a boyfriend from age 7 to age 10 - we didn't kiss or touch.
Your daughter may not have even kissed this boy but even if she has, a conversation is all that's needed - not punishment. You don't want to make her feel like she can't talk to you about things like boyfriends for fear of being punished.

Oh my god, bring it up with the school?? How embarassing!

How old are you?

I had a boyfriend at that age, we talked on MSN 😅 Most we did was maybe hold hands. At that age it's like role playing almost, like when my 3yo pretends to have a baby in her tummy like me! Be open with her, don't be weird about it

Lol consequences for what? Talk to your child in a way that shows them they can trust you with this information without you imploding, so that further down the line then don’t hide what they’re doing.

Remove social media… it’s gone in less than a year anyway!

nothing to do with the school! Why would you need to involve them?
You are the one that has allowed your daughter to have and chat to her friends on a mobile phone .

I was in a ‘relationship’ like this at 12, once we were at school we weren’t brave enough to actually talk to each other 😂 so I’m another one who doesn’t see what they’ve done wrong from the information you’ve given

Relationships are not so much the issue as phone use.

What's the issue? I had a few friends who had boyfriends / girlfriends when they were in yr 8, so 12/13. This was about 30 years ago. They weren't doing much more than holding hands, kissing behind the demountables. It's a fairly normal thing for that age. (Although I didn't manage so much as a snog until 17, so thought they were lucky bastards)

Is there any evidence of anything inapropriate going on? My 4 yo has a boyfriend and she says she shares him with her friend when she feels like and she has someone elses boyfriend whilst she’s sharing hers out 🥴😂

When my daughter was 12, a lot of her friends had boyfriends/girlfriends. As far as I could tell it involved sitting together at lunch, maybe a bit of hand holding, the odd hug and saying they loved each other but not much else. Most of them still thought kissing was gross.

Dont go in all guns blazing. Just see what having a boyfriend means to her and remind her about consent, that she doesn't have to do anything she doesn't want to etc. Ultimately to want her to be able to talk to you about her relationships so don't scare her off.

I can't work out whether I like that business model or not. 🤣

Agree you should be checking their phone daily.

I don’t see what they’ve done wrong.. I would have a chat with them about it and discuss boundaries and consent; and also explain they are young and can be good friends; I would keep it quite light and as open as you can.

I would also get in touch with the other kids parents and have a chat with them; I’d probably invite them for a coffee etc if you felt it would be a good idea. I would basically try and keep it as transparent as possible and not force the kids underground or you’ll be left in the dark. I think if your child is the girl in this situation, you need to be very cautious; and if it’s the boy you need to make sure he is well informed and understands they are young and where the boundaries are (the ones that you set!!) . Any disrespect of your boundaries and trust and I’d come down hard. But not quite yet. X

I don't think you can lay down the law about the fact that they have a presumably pretty innocent 'g/bf' at that age.

Obviously speak about consent and the fact that young relationships often don't last, and just to have fun. If anything isn't fun then stop.

If you seem very judgemental or angry they will just do things more secretive.

Kids of around that age have been having crushes and 'relationships' with just kissing etc since the year dot. There's nothing inherently wrong about it.

I don't think people should dismiss this as being harmless etc. It is this naive attitude that can result in unwanted sexual advances or experimenting which at 12 is far too young . But you have no idea what they have been exposed to especially the boy . A serious conversation about consent, boundaries and safety needs to be had . It is a shame that it is necessary so young . 😕

The only relationship I had at 12 was with Barbies , jump rope and sweets . So very innocent.

And if you haven’t already, talk to them about safe sex.

• at 12?? They surely shouldn't be having any sex at that age?

My 13 year old had a girlfriend last year for all of 2-3 months, she was polite, came over for tea a few times and then it fizzled out.
I had a chat with him just about boundaries, consent and making sensible choices (which he cringed about throughout).
Most of his year had relationships of some sort when they first went to high school, I think only one still sees his girlfriend outside of school 1:1, the rest realised that tween/teenage girls were a little tricky and reverted back to hanging out together 😂
If you go in heavy handed now, she will never tell you anything.

I know loads of 12 year olds with "boyfriends" lasts a month and then they move on.

I currently have a DD in y7, she says some if the girls have boyfriends (and one girl with a girlfriend) at this age it seems like just at school and texting, my DD is autistic so I don’t see her having a relationship anytime soon or ever (I wouldn’t mind if she was able to have a school boyfriend as it would mean she may be able to form a proper relationship when older) but social skills are not great 🙁…and I know different circumstances to you 👍

I think you’re overreacting, I can’t see that she’s done something wrong.

My 12 yr old had a boyfriend recently, it was very sweet. They went to the cinema, held hands, wrote each other nice messages. It fizzled out (of course as she’s only 12) and they’re still friends now.

By making this more than it is you’ll encourage her to hide things from you when they’re more serious. There’s nothing wrong with an age appropriate relationship, they’re important as they start to learn about respect and how they should be treated, and how to treat others.

Why do they need consequences? As long as they are both being respectful of each other and not doing anything illegal then what is the problem?

And telling teenagers not to do something has a great track record of success 🙈

Sure they did

I fell in love at 12 and the relationship went on for 10 years - painful breakup at 22 though- my Dad said sure I will support a wedding if you go to Uni first and the boyfriend couldnt handle my newfound indepependent thinking - close call