Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:...and she likes someone else.

What was the correct response to this? I listened, empathized, and stated that kids are pretty young (11) to know if they like boys or girls or both yet,[b] but that we can respect her choice. My son was pretty upset.

I am genuinely interested in this line of reasoning. It makes sense, but is that something anyone would ever say regarding a hetero crush? This logic only seems to apply when a young person is expressing attraction to the same gender...

OP here. I disagree with this. I’d say this regardless. It’s important to respect anyone’s choice in who they like. I would have had the same response regardless of if this girl liked a girl or boy.

NP. If I said the same to my parents at 11 years of age, they would have said, “You don’t go to school to like, you go to school to learn. You can worry about liking people after you graduate and go to college and get a job.”

And that would have been the end of that. I also had parents that got on the phone at 7 and said time to go to bed. And waited for me to say goodbye.

My parents would have said that, too. And they were good parents, mostly. But you know what? I never told them about much of anything that was going on in school. In high school I had a boyfriend for 2 years before they caught wind of it. So there can be consequences to telling your kid that whatever they are experiencing is not important.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:...and she likes someone else.

What was the correct response to this? I listened, empathized, and stated that kids are pretty young (11) to know if they like boys or girls or both yet,[b] but that we can respect her choice. My son was pretty upset.

I am genuinely interested in this line of reasoning. It makes sense, but is that something anyone would ever say regarding a hetero crush? This logic only seems to apply when a young person is expressing attraction to the same gender...

OP here. I disagree with this. I’d say this regardless. It’s important to respect anyone’s choice in who they like. I would have had the same response regardless of if this girl liked a girl or boy.

Hey OP, I actually read your post as I think you intended it, and was wondering why people were being so harsh. After awhile, I understood that they were criticizing the idea that you would tell your son to “respect” someone’s choice to be bisexual — which can be well meaning but has some underlying assumptions that can be problematic. Instead, you were saying, respect their choice to like someone else. That sounds fine to me. As to telling him that 11 year olds don’t know who they like, your response didn’t sound bad to me, but I appreciate posters pointing out that your son apparently knows he likes girls, so why can’t someone else also know she likes both. That’s a great point, so I think that’s the kind of thing you could incorporate into future talks, instead of implying that no 11- year old knows her preferences.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:...and she likes someone else.

What was the correct response to this? I listened, empathized, and stated that kids are pretty young (11) to know if they like boys or girls or both yet, but that we can respect her choice. My son was pretty upset.

I am genuinely interested in this line of reasoning. It makes sense, but is that something anyone would ever say regarding a hetero crush? This logic only seems to apply when a young person is expressing attraction to the same gender...

OP here. I disagree with this. I’d say this regardless. It’s important to [b]respect anyone’s choice in who they like. I would have had the same response regardless of if this girl liked a girl or boy.

Trying to understand you here, but you seem to be saying two different things:

"respect anyone's choice of who they like" would mean not questioning them or suggesting they are too young to know, right? Are you saying that if he DS's crush liked another boy, you would also suggest that she is too young to know whether she liked boys or not?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:...and she likes someone else.

What was the correct response to this? I listened, empathized, and stated that kids are pretty young (11) to know if they like boys or girls or both yet,[b] but that we can respect her choice. My son was pretty upset.

I am genuinely interested in this line of reasoning. It makes sense, but is that something anyone would ever say regarding a hetero crush? This logic only seems to apply when a young person is expressing attraction to the same gender...

OP here. I disagree with this. I’d say this regardless. It’s important to respect anyone’s choice in who they like. I would have had the same response regardless of if this girl liked a girl or boy.

NP. If I said the same to my parents at 11 years of age, they would have said, “You don’t go to school to like, you go to school to learn. You can worry about liking people after you graduate and go to college and get a job.”

And that would have been the end of that. I also had parents that got on the phone at 7 and said time to go to bed. And waited for me to say goodbye.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:...and she likes someone else.

What was the correct response to this? I listened, empathized, and stated that kids are pretty young (11) to know if they like boys or girls or both yet, but that we can respect her choice. My son was pretty upset.

Oh brother. Elementary school kids and middle schools are being fed garbage at school about “exploring their gender” and “exploring their sexual orientation.” They view it as homework from 2nd grade on as part of their DEI-Gone-Wild curriculum.

This stuff wouldn’t even be in their minds except the schools are telling them all to act confused and select it. Which one is it? You were born that way or so confused by school talks you tried everything out.

Er what does it matter if someone feels like trying something vs someone wanting something very innately? Its another human being, you respect them and move on. Do you seriously not have anyone in your life that you care about that is gay?

What does it matter that CHILDREN are being told and encouraged to try different genders and orientations from their school and teachers?!?! It means indoctrination. Confusion where there was none. Trouble the untroubled.
What a racket.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:...and she likes someone else.

What was the correct response to this? I listened, empathized, and stated that kids are pretty young (11) to know if they like boys or girls or both yet, but that we can respect her choice. My son was pretty upset.

Oh brother. Elementary school kids and middle schools are being fed garbage at school about “exploring their gender” and “exploring their sexual orientation.” They view it as homework from 2nd grade on as part of their DEI-Gone-Wild curriculum.

This stuff wouldn’t even be in their minds except the schools are telling them all to act confused and select it. Which one is it? You were born that way or so confused by school talks you tried everything out.

Er what does it matter if someone feels like trying something vs someone wanting something very innately? Its another human being, you respect them and move on. Do you seriously not have anyone in your life that you care about that is gay?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:...and she likes someone else.

What was the correct response to this? I listened, empathized, and stated that kids are pretty young (11) to know if they like boys or girls or both yet, but that we can respect her choice. My son was pretty upset.

Oh brother. Elementary school kids and middle schools are being fed garbage at school about “exploring their gender” and “exploring their sexual orientation.” They view it as homework from 2nd grade on as part of their DEI-Gone-Wild curriculum.

This stuff wouldn’t even be in their minds except the schools are telling them all to act confused and select it. Which one is it? You were born that way or so confused by school talks you tried everything out.

+1. Really sad, actually. OP, I would just tell my son I'm sorry, I know this hurts. Hopefully he will move on, and quickly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:...and she likes someone else.

What was the correct response to this? I listened, empathized, and stated that kids are pretty young (11) to know if they like boys or girls or both yet,[b] but that we can respect her choice. My son was pretty upset.

I am genuinely interested in this line of reasoning. It makes sense, but is that something anyone would ever say regarding a hetero crush? This logic only seems to apply when a young person is expressing attraction to the same gender...

OP here. I disagree with this. I’d say this regardless. It’s important to respect anyone’s choice in who they like. I would have had the same response regardless of if this girl liked a girl or boy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When DS was around that age he told me he was upset because he found out the girl he liked and thought he was dating (which probably meant he said hi to her a couple of times) liked a girl instead of him.

We told him this will be the first of many heartbreaks in his life and it sucks and we are sorry. We also said when he is going through a breakup (yes, we know this wasn’t a breakup but he was so emotional) to never badmouth someone to friends or be mean to them. Ignore and don’t say anything if he can’t talk without being nice.

We didn’t address the bisexual or lesbian part at all because no one is actually dating in elementary school but we wanted to at least acknowledge his feelings.

Thank you for this. Mentally bookmarking. This is such a beautiful approach to parenting.

All this. Because the real issue was she doesnt have a crush on HIM. Isnt it?

You are way overreacting to this. DS was sad. Not entitled. There was no anger/frustration/expectation that this girl
owed him anything. He was just sad. Get over your own baggage.

OP, its ok that he was confused about the bisexuality. Maybe he could have used some indication that just because its confusing to him doesnt make the basic issue any different. She doesnt have a crush on him. You could tell him just like he doesnt like any and all girls the same way, she too doesnt just like any and all boys OR girls the same way.

Perhaps he is daunted at the amount of competition he has (!)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When DS was around that age he told me he was upset because he found out the girl he liked and thought he was dating (which probably meant he said hi to her a couple of times) liked a girl instead of him.

We told him this will be the first of many heartbreaks in his life and it sucks and we are sorry. We also said when he is going through a breakup (yes, we know this wasn’t a breakup but he was so emotional) to never badmouth someone to friends or be mean to them. Ignore and don’t say anything if he can’t talk without being nice.

We didn’t address the bisexual or lesbian part at all because no one is actually dating in elementary school but we wanted to at least acknowledge his feelings.

Thank you for this. Mentally bookmarking. This is such a beautiful approach to parenting.

All this. Because the real issue was she doesnt have a crush on HIM. Isnt it?

Anonymous wrote:When DS was around that age he told me he was upset because he found out the girl he liked and thought he was dating (which probably meant he said hi to her a couple of times) liked a girl instead of him.

We told him this will be the first of many heartbreaks in his life and it sucks and we are sorry. We also said when he is going through a breakup (yes, we know this wasn’t a breakup but he was so emotional) to never badmouth someone to friends or be mean to them. Ignore and don’t say anything if he can’t talk without being nice.

We didn’t address the bisexual or lesbian part at all because no one is actually dating in elementary school but we wanted to at least acknowledge his feelings.

Thank you for this. Mentally bookmarking. This is such a beautiful approach to parenting.