ds11 has a gf and i want to protect him...advice??

[knittedsoxer]

okay not crazy mother here but here goes.....

ds in yr 7 couple of weeks ago says, i have a gf..aww thats nice says i, they live miles from each other and dont talk at school apart from after school clubs. he has found the rough and tumble of a BIG secondary from a tiny rural primary a big leap so its nice to have another friend to chat to.

They chat on instagram which he knows i monitor, in agreement...his phone is linked to my ipad so i see all messages...yes maybe a bit ott but its the rules at 11.

so i have said perhaps unfairly (thinking of myself at 11) some girls can be quite flighty and do like a bit of drama, so dont fall too heavily....

anyway they have started saying i love you on instagram, which is a bit ....its going to end in f* tears and my lovely gorgeous sweet son is going to be crushed

do i rein in the instagram time?

any experience/thoughts??

help!

I'd let him get on with it to be honest yes the inevitable break up may sting a wee bit but that's life and part of being a teenager.

true...whats the point of neing a teenager if you dont get to mope and listen to sad music....i just dont want to have to deal with a miserable child (selfish) but going on big christmas holiday and its ot going to last until then surely and i cant deal with >sadness from inside/out

Sometimes it lasts, I met my gf when I started secondary and it lasted until the end of first year at university. Then she ripped out my heart and trampled on it

You told him girls can be flighty?!

You want to protect him?

He's growing up.

Um. He's not a teenager. I think 11 is too young for instagram and all that malarkey tbh.

I had exactly this.

Occasionally I asked him how it was going. (More frequently I checked his Instagram) but on the whole left it. It was definitely the right thing to do.

Both of them were so busy with activities that it fizzled out and he seems to have lost interest in girls for now.

I think he quite liked having a gf, he was very lovely to her and respectful. I was quite impressed with him. (Couldn't tell him though as I didn't want to make it that obvious I was checking up on him).

He told me quietly one night at bedtime that they weren't seeing each other anymore. I gave him a cuddle and left him to sleep. And did a little dance when I left the room. He's 11 FFS.

The girls are flighty thing based on myself at 11, I liked the attention, we have actually curtailed the Instagram thing in last few days as it was getting ott... And go and read a book

I know how you feel, DS is 15 and has a girlfriend. A very nice girl who comes over for dinner sometimes, goes to the same school as DD1 and is very active within the school community, but I worry that he is moving a bit too fast, especially at his age. I've left him to it and apart from the occasional teasing from DH, he seems happy at the moment. For your own DS, think at 11, it won't last very long anyway if I'm being honest and hopefully if they do break up he won't be too upset.

I'd have thought an 11 year old boy was just as likely to be 'flighty' and drama orientated as an 11 year old girl simply because they are both children. Seems an odd thing to say. Cautioning your child not to get too heavily involved, to make sure that they still have plenty of time for other friendship, school work, hobbies etc absolutely, but essentially the OP is saying 'watch out for girls, they are untrustworthy' which is in my view pretty sexist.

I didn't let either of my children go onto social media until they were the age that the media allowed. For Instagram (and most other services) that's 13. I think that relationships over social media can get a bit over intense because there's little possibility of away time as you are always available.

Anyway will it end in tears? Maybe, maybe not. More likely just to fizzle out in my experience. My dd had a relationship with ds's best friend (lovely lad) at about the same age, it lasted a few weeks before she decided it was all a bit too intense for her and said she wasn't really interested in a romantic relationship. He was pretty sad for a few months and then recovered just fine. Just part of life really.

Seriously? Playing girlfriends/boyfriends at 11 is just what it is -- playing. No point of getting too worked up about it for at least a couple of years.