14 year old daughter having sex with boyfriend- eek!!

[lincolnshirelassy]

Over the weekend found condoms in my 14 year old daughter's bag, she has a boyfriend who she has been with a year, he's 16, there's 18 months between them. Asked daughter about it and she admitted she'd had sex with him, she had been afraid to approach me, I have talked to her all along about contraception, emotional side of sex etc but foolishly didn't think they were at that stage yet! Talking at length with her it seems they are sensible and had made a considered decision. She had been planning on going to the local clinic to see about the pill, I offered to go with her, she said her boyfriend had offered to go but she thinks she would like me to come.

I'm obviously not overjoyed about the whole situation, especially as I set boundaries in our house, they're not allowed upstairs with the door closed, I pop my head in every half an hour etc etc, and I'd spoken to her boyfriend's dad as he is a friend of the family and asked him to set similar rules but I just think he is pretty lax about it. I know I can't stop it but I don't want to be her enabler either! Should I get her on the pill? Should I ban visits to her boyfriend's house or would that just make them be more sneaky about it? He's a nice lad and seems to respect her, I don't think there was any pressure there but I hate them slavering all over them in my presence at have pulled them up on it a few times. I suppose what I'm saying is how do I set rules whilst still being approachable if she needs to talk to me? She's a good kid, we have no problems with school, doesn't drink or smoke like a lot of her friends do and overall is pretty mature and sensible, but still ,she's only 14....

Perhaps people who think you should somehow stop this from happening have not had or got teenagers near or at this age.

My DD is 13. I wouldn't be happy but I would be supportive like you are around contraception and keeping communication open.

Luckily Dd thinks none if the boys fancy here, although she is stunning. thank god

Excuse typos, am on phone!

My son is in year 7 and two children from his year had sex, both admitted it. They are 12.

Ds was so shocked at this (he is just 12 himself) but I waited a few weeks and then said to him so what would X & Y do now if X was pregnant?

We talked about the consequences of sex, on one hand it can be great fun but on the other it comes with a hell of a lot of responsibility.

If this was my child, I would be saying that exact same thing to them, what would you do now if you were pregnant? What do you think that would involve? How would you go about that?

The child isn't entitled to any child benefit as the parent would still be claiming child benefit for the pregnant child. How would you afford things? What about school? If you want to terminate the pregnancy what do you think that would involve?

You can't ban them from having sex but you can hope that talking to them can help them realise that they feel grown up but they are not.

maroon

I have grown up dc who no way were sexually active nor even thinking about it at this age.
When they started to show an interest I discouraged it and they stayed in or got lifts, no mixed sleep overs and no opportunity.
It isn't difficult.
I think the OP has convinced herself she is happy with this because she believes its the way forward to keeping a good relationship with her dd.
I found that insisting on boundaries, teaching them right from wrong, what's acceptable etc had no detriment to our relationship at all.
Many years later they thank me and dh for giving them boundaries.

I'm thankful my kids are too young to worry about this yet, but my thoughts are

1. I'd rather their first sexual experiences were part of a loving and committed relationship than at a 'sex party' (I've no idea if these exist outside newspaper reports, but they sound awful) or 1 night stand etc.

2. I'd rather - if they're going to have sex that they do it safely in their rooms then get into danger doing it outside somewhere - or somewhere gross like the 2 teenagers I caught having sex in the stinky disabled/baby changing toilet at starbucks today (classy!).

3. I'd be very glad if we can maintain an open and honest relationship so they are able to discuss this stuff with me, so I can help/support them and their decisions (as the OP is).

I had sex at 16 with my first boyfriend, I don't think I was markedly more mature then at 14. My dad found out and went absolutely crazy, turning what had been (to me) joyful, loving and special into something sordid, upsetting and downright awful. :(

OP my DS1 was 14 when he started sleeping with his 17 y/o girlfriend. I hated it but at least we talked about it and there was no running around behind my back. Unless you are prepared to install a chastity belt telling them no will shut down any chance of talking and they will go around doing things behind your back. I wanted to get the girl arrested but the police won't get involved unless there is a much larger gap in age. The BF dad what does he say about the chance of being a grandfather (scare tactics might work?). You are not going to be happy whatever happens here but shutting your DD off from you will cause issues.

I do set boundaries, but I am also a realist! I have never allowed mixed sleepovers or the like (and I actually took some flack on here for that), they are not allowed in my house alone and when she goes to his I ALWAYS check that his Dad (he is a widower so on his own with his boys) will be home, unforunately it seems despite me reading the riot act to the boyfriend's Dad and him agreeing they were sensible rules he has just not bothered to implement them. My rules on this WILL NOT change. But I am trying to accept that they may well still find a way of being alone together and I'd rather protect her from pregnancy etc than bury my head in the sand!

Okay, what I don't understand is why this thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2357490-should-I-believe-my-dd16-when-she-tells-me-she-is-not

With the same age gap, but swapped genders got many people saying the girl was an abuser and the boy a child who needed to be protected, but in this one most people are saying to let it be.

Yet surely 14 yr old girls are more vulnerable (pregnancy etc.) than 14 year old boys, and don't give me the earlier maturity red herring. Physical maturity does not equal emotional maturity (which despite girls believing they're more mature emotionally, is frankly not true, and the girls who are most sure they are so grown up are the ones who get into the worst situations, because they are not actually mature), not to mention in just plain life experience and autonomy terms, boys if anything can be ahead as parents, statistically speaking, give boys freedom earlier than girls and they tend to be more confident.

Anyway, she's a child. Please protect her from herself for now. The older she gets the less an 18 month gap will matter and the more she'll develop the maturity to use contraception correctly.

I'm not saying the boy is a predator. It's one school year, right? So he's not deliberately targeting younger girls; just for now, she's a bit young for the consequences, so maybe work with his parents to cool it off?

Lincolnshire

The boundaries I meant were not to sleep with people until legally old enough.
not to be allowed to a bf house in a bedroom, that's facilitating it.
Teaching them it isn't right and why.
Not allowing it to continue when you know your boundaries have been broken down.
I'm sorry if i sound harsh, but you can do something about it. Most teenagers are only a step away from this, give most of them the opportunity and they would do.
I was/ will be really strict with ours and there really aren't any opportunities for under age sex to occur. I just don't allow it.

My DD is not allowed on mixed sleepovers obviously.

However I don't believe you can stop teens having sex inless you have them followed or lock them in their room. You don't need a bed for sex.

Lincolnshire

The boundaries I meant were not to sleep with people until legally old enough.
not to be allowed to a bf house in a bedroom, that's facilitating it.
Teaching them it isn't right and why.
Not allowing it to continue when you know your boundaries have been broken down.
I'm sorry if i sound harsh, but you can do something about it. Most teenagers are only a step away from this, give most of them the opportunity and they would do.
I was/ will be really strict with ours and there really aren't any opportunities for under age sex to occur. I just don't allow it.

How naive.

Morethanpotatoprints, if your dc weren't even thinking of sex at this age then there you have the biggest reason they weren't doing it. Puberty affects teenagers differently and those like me that go through it earlier and are thinking about sex well before 16 are doing so because it's normal not because strict parents have redirected our minds.

I have known teens have sex in the toilet at McDonald's, in thickets on the way home from school, at the back of the bus, at best friend's houses where the boyfriend visits surreptitiously. My friend whose parents were even stricter than mine had sex but couldn't store contraception at hers as no where was safe from her mother and she was pregnant at 16... Openness has many advantages not least that parents can gauge the safety of those first relationships.

Sex is a minefield for life but especially for those between 14-20 and there is so much that can go wrong and so much that does that a consensual safe relationship has some safety and merit even if it's earlier than is absolutely sensible.

My dm preached no sex before marriage and to this day thinks I abided by it. I too think 14 is way too young and my reaction would cerainly be more than eek, but I think trying to stop it now would be useless and as the op feared, drive her dd underground.

Muddy

I believe all teenagers think about it, but not all think about doing it.
some have high morals others are scared of pregnancy, parents finding out etc.
i think given the opportunity most would.
I know that both me and dh would have done as we have discussed it. didn't know each other when we were 14 but both admit given the chance we would have done.
I'm just grateful my parents didn't give me the chance.
Lots of my friends were having sex and you were considered a stud if you were a boy and a slag if you were a girl. But those were the signs of the times.
There were 3 girls in my class who were pregnant before 15.

Sorry more are you really saying I have low morals because I lost my virginity at 14 in a loving and caring relationship?

at people thinking they can honestly stop their teenagers shagging.

I was 13, boyfriend was 16, and we ended up together for 6 years and living together from when I was 16. I was brought up in a very 'well to do' family. But no force under the sun would have stopped me shagging him.

Even if I'd have had to sneak out of school on a lunch break, or at the weekends, we'd have found a way.

I don't understand the problem. Some people aren't ready for sex until they are well into adulthood, some are ready much younger.

FWIW, I'm now 28 and even though I lost my virginity at 13, I've only slept with 5 people in total, and I lived with 3 of them!

OP you're doing fine. Get her on the pill, get her to keep using condoms, and let her be.

It certainly isn't easy. To be honest I would have been very unhappy at my DDS having sex at such an early age. To my knowledge they were both about 17/18 before they were exually active which was ok. By I was a late starter too so can't actually envisage anyone actually wanting to have sex at age 14!
Ds is 13 and showing zero interest in girls, or boys, sexually so that's fine by me.

Feeling sorry for the criticism OP has had here.
Surely it's impossible and undesirable to keep our teens under constant surveillance! Personally I think 14 is too young, but we are all different and what's done is done. OP you are doing fine. You cannot monitor your DD's every moment. You didn't 'let her ' as one poster says anymore than I 'let ' my DS smoke weed.
You sound like a lovely mum and the best you can do for your DD is be supportive. Which you are.

Whitershade

No, of course not but some people do see it like this.
my friends dc saw it as taking a moral stand, I think mine fell into the not given an opportunity camp.
I was listing from my experience what I had heard and seen from others.
No judgement, as I said I'm sure I would have done given the opportunity.
My apologies if I offended you.

maroon

It may be naive but it worked for my dc, so far anyway. Still have dd to go yet, but will be the same with her.
I think telling them it was illegal, they have all the time in the world, and telling them about sex was enough to put them off, along with seeing what the dc at their schools were like, talking about their latest shag like some sort of competition.

One fifth of girls have had intercourse by the age of 14 and a quarter by the age of 16.

This isn't 'other people's children' in some Daily Mail imagined hell hole of broken Britain, it is the children of Mn-ers, happy children, those doing the nest they can , experimenting, falling in love, etc etc.

Some of these will not be happy experiences and some will lead to unhappy or regrettable consequences.

But the OP is dealing with the moment that most of us dread, and dealing with it in an open manner, all the better to continue communication with her dd and give her dd the knowledge and confidence to ensure that she is not one to end up with regrets or unhappiness.

Let her be?? You must be joking she's 14!! OP if I was in your position the visits to his house would stop, no question, if they can't be trusted alone then they can't be alone. Protect her from herself she's still a child.

Potatoe my friend had parents like you. It ended badly. She was pregnant at a young age and couldn't wait to get away from them. You are very naive.
I slept with my boyfriend at 14 (he was 17). I was ready, don't regret it and we were together years. It didn't set me up for a life of promiscuity either. My sexual partners are in single figures and it also didn't affect my schooling, I was in the top 2% of the country academically and now have a highly paid professional job.

No problem more. Perhaps some people do think that way but thankfully not many I've encountered (or certainly none that would have details of my sex life).

Like others despite being 14 my figures are very low (less than 5). I don't think it's what's people would want for their daughters but I honestly think being emotionally ready is much more important than reaching a certain age. I have never regretted it but lots of my friends who lost it at 17 or 18 in desperation to 'get it over with' do. There's no right age in mind if the maturity level and right relationship is there.

not ideal at all but the horse has bolted. So before they get left alone again, go with her to the clinic and get the injection or implant. Tell her she must use condoms too, every time. Also tell her that adult games mean adult choices which means there IS a pregnancy risk.

and also that you don't want to see tonsil tennis in public, thank you!

A friend of my sons was having sex at 16 with a 15 year old, he is now on the sex offenders register. Do not think that someone will not report it to the police. It happens.