Would you let...

[blimppy]

DD1 (14) has been seeing first boyfriend for a few months. He lives a little way away so they don't meet often, but they appear to be besotted with each other! We have met him and he seems like a nice lad, and his parents seem great. He's coming round during half term. DD1 wants to hang out in her bedroom with him, watching DVDs, playing computer games. I've said maybe, with door wide open, light on or curtains drawn. We have talked about sex and she knows I expect her to refrain until she is older and she tells me she and bf have discussed and agreed they both want to wait till they are older. Would you let them hang out in her bedroom, or insist they stay downstairs? If we do the latter, then pesky little sister will probably get in their way!

They might be savaged by coyotes in my neck of the woods . The coyotes lope into town from points west along the Burlington Northern railway. They can jump high fences after squirrels and cats, and they rummage in bins. They love chickens.

A friend of DS's got pregnant at 16.5 and is now a tattoo artist. She should be in art school and might yet go but for the time being she is busy with her job and her 3.5 yo DS. Not sure exactly where her baby was conceived, but she had really cool parents. A little bit of that wore off when they were faced with hours and hours of babysitting so that she could get a fast food job while simultaneously getting the tattoo business off the ground. Tattooing pays well and she is very good at it, but she does not have the carefree days and nights she could be having at 20.

The one thing a 14 year old has is time. There is so much time for dry humping and all the rest of it later.

Am I very old-fashioned or does 14 not seem a bit young to be having boyfriends?

That aside, if he's only there when you're at home, surely they wouldn't have sex with you in the house? Again, maybe I'm naive...

I can't imagine them tolerating the idea of the door staying open at all. They will (quite rightly) think that you want it open so you can see what they are doing and hear what they are saying. Which will make them both feel very uncomfortable. What if they want to kiss and cuddle and they have you wandering back and forth across the landing, doing some very unsubtle rubbernecking? If they crave privacy they'll just go elsewhere for it.

If they want to have sex they will find a way, and a place, whether you provide them with it or not. I think it's better to keep talking to her about why she should wait a while - I think that will be a more useful, more powerful tool than insisting on an open door.

I notice the DD has been in the BF's bedroom, and to me that says his parents are sending him a message about acceptability of sex at this point, so no matter what he may have said to her about waiting, I do not think he would wait if your DD wanted to go ahead in a spontaneous moment. Parents of boys sometimes subtly encourage their sons to be forward, sexually speaking.

I don't think romantic relationships should be treated as anything different from other friendships when the teens are this young. So for me there would be no bedroom sessions or offering of drinks or snacks. He would be downstairs, being shown by me or one of the DDs where the drinks and snacks and plates and glasses are, and especially where the bin cupboard is, as well as how we fill the dishwasher and how we rinse things before loading it, with the underlying hint that he can clear up after himself. I feel if a boy is so unknown to you that you have met him only a few times he should be getting to know you and your family and not spending time under your roof alone exclusively with your DD. Allowing that makes them both focus too much on the swoony romantic thing they have going on, which is a mistake at any age. I think you should be giving your DD the message that a boyfriend is a friend first and a boy second.

Why does allowing him/her into the bedroom send a message of acceptability about sex? My children take their friends of both sexes into their rooms all the time, and always have. I didn't insist that that should suddenly stop just because they'd hit puberty, or to have to check their gender at the door, like some sort of Sex Bouncer.

What if your DD was taking in female friend into her room and closing the door, giggling away, having sleepovers every weekend, as teenaged girls like to do, and you find out a few years down the line that she is gay and they were shagging away like the clappers all along? Ok, so she won't have got PG, but that aside, from a psychological perspective is it really any less potentially damaging than if it were a boy?

Giving your kids some privacy is not the same as forgiving them a green light to sleep around before they are ready at all. Talk to them about what you do and don't expect/wish for them below a certain age or level of maturity, and the reasons why.

sorry I suppose I should have said check their sex the door - their gender is a red herring, as I've just illustrated!

No matter who comes over to my home, they stay downstairs, they pitch in if they are staying for lunch or dinner, and we all get to know them or enjoy their company for a bit. They can hang out in the sitting room or on the porch. This is partly because all bedrooms are shared, so nobody can use theirs for exclusive socialising without excluding a sibling from their room. Sleepovers have always happened in the sitting room with the couch pulled out and the air mattresses blown up. We came to the 'bedrooms are for sleeping and homework' solution when the DCs were small and they used to fight about who got to play in a bedroom when a friend was over, what happened when siblings who shared a room both had friends over, why annoying little sister had to stay out of her own room until 5 pm, why older sister couldn't do her homework in her room, etc. They will all make good lawyers some day, sadly.

But it is also because they really have plenty of time together in school, walking home from school, at weekends, and on phones and online. Whether gay or straight, they know that prioritising schoolwork is expected, and if too much socialising cuts into study time or forces someone to burn the way-past-midnight oil I would have a chat, partly since that keeps siblings awake when they finally crash into bed at 2 am or whenever. Plus I myself like the place to be completely dark and quiet when falling asleep.

If a relationship is known to be romantic, and the couple is allowed to spend time alone together in a bedroom then I think the message is clear that sexual activity is ok, whatever form that may take, just because it is a bedroom. With young teens, I really think the emphasis should be on friendship, and with friends in general, if they're good enough for a DC they're good enough for the family too.

For me, once they're off to university at 18 they can do whatever they want in their dorm room, but once home I would expect them to abide by house custom unless they have moved in with someone. This hasn't happened yet but since I advise them all to live with their partners before thinking about marriage (if they think about it at all) I anticipate it will.

However, for the DCs, 'coming home' after leaving for university at 18 means visiting for summer, Easter or Christmas. After graduation they need to get a job and a place of their own. DD1 came home for her first summer after leaving for university. Her summer job that year was easy to get to. That was her last summer at home -- the following year she got a year-round job near her university and sublet a room for summers and over Christmases too because otherwise she would have had to take two trains and walk through a notorious red light district to get there and back. And so she learned to cook without burning the kitchen.

If you're a DC of mine and able to support yourself then you can arrange your life whatever way you want to, but in my book 'supporting yourself' means being able to rent or buy your own accommodation on the open market and feed yourself. The three who have turned 18 so far are all self-supporting.

I think if you want the priviliges of adulthood then you also have to accept the responsibilities.