Anonymous wrote:The real question is why would a parent ponder whether it is ok for her 14 year old daughter to date an 18 year old.

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Anonymous wrote:We did and TRUELY wish we did not. They dated 1.5 years. He just broke up with her 2 days before Valentines Day. He is leaving to go to college in California and she is beyond devastated. She is screaming and crying. She starts therapy next week. They still remain "Best Friends" which does NO GOOD! Yes they slept together. We like the boy a lot. However, the age difference is huge and he is moving on. He explained it and she is in denial. Yes they will go to Prom and such.....but her heart is broken.

Wow, he's being pretty cruel to drag this out. Death by a thousand paper cuts. Please encourage her to make a clean break.

I’m sorry for your child but it reminds me of some advice a parent of male adults told me as we were sitting next to each other getting pedicures. She told me not to bother getting to know any girls my son dated or slept with as a teenager because none of the relationships last. After that, I never asked about any girl he was seeing or when they broke up. His father and I talked to him about being respectful,having safe sex and knowing when a girl says no it means no and not maybe. He’s in 11th grade now and I think I met one “girl friend” of many in the three years of high school. I told my daughter, his twin, boys don’t care about her or any other girl in high school. It’s mostly about the friends with benefits. Thankfully she’s a student athlete and is focused more on sports than boys. She has male friends but there isn’t a lot of time in her schedule to date. At their age, relationships don’t mean the same as what they did when I was in high school 25 years ago. If your child needs therapy, there are likely other issues going on beyond a terminated relationship. Hope she gets the help she needs to cope with life.

That’s truly terrible advice you got, and I can’t believe you’ve perpetuated it. Glad I don’t live in a world that resembles this in any way.

You truly live in a naive world.

I really don't. I've raised two teen boys who see girls as people, and not sex objects. They have close male and female friends. They each had at least one serious relationship in HS with smart, funny girls that they thought were awesome. They were not very sexually active until senior year/summer before college despite having a lot of dating options. Most of their friends are the same way. I do know and know of some user type HS boys who are focused on sexual conquests. Most of them had sub-optimal family situations.

While almost all teens spend a ton of time thinking about sex, that doesn't mean that they are all imbeciles who conform to outdated stereotypes. It really depends how they were raised. I really wish the PP's message to her daughter was "Don't date a HS boy who doesn't respect you as a person" instead of "All HS boys are horndog idiots who will use you and toss you away."

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Anonymous wrote:Op, 14 is way too young. I do want to give this advice though ~ When we had a 10th grader (old for her grade) who wanted to date a senior (young for his grade), I'll tell you what we did: They had to date AS IF they were both 10th graders - our rules - our rules for 10th grade dating. This is what it meant: he wasn't allowed to pick her up in his car. No dating that involved a car. We drove her and picked her up. We made sure a parent was going to be present. She had an early curfew. She couldn't go to the parties of seniors. (they had to hang out with 10th graders) Of course, this was a real drag for him, obviously - he didn't date her for long.

I would do this and be very strict about it.

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Anonymous wrote:Just to be clear, I was trying to have sex with my freshman girlfriend when I was a sophomore (did everything else but), and my sophomore girlfriend when I was a junior (finally succeeded). Every single guy I knew since freshman year was trying to have sex with their girlfriend. There's no such thing as, "Juniors will try to have sex with your daughter." EVERY boy/man will try to have sex with your daughter, at any age. lol

This!!! I dated an 18-yo senior when I was a 14-yo freshman. We dated for a few months, but he never pushed me to do anything sexual. We just made out A LOT. I broke up with him when I developed a crush on someone else, a freshman boy. That 14-yo had my bra off on our first date, hahaha. Always makes me think back to the adults who said (these were their actual warnings): “You know, an 18 year old wants something more than boys your own age.” What utter BS.

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Anonymous wrote:We did and TRUELY wish we did not. They dated 1.5 years. He just broke up with her 2 days before Valentines Day. He is leaving to go to college in California and she is beyond devastated. She is screaming and crying. She starts therapy next week. They still remain "Best Friends" which does NO GOOD! Yes they slept together. We like the boy a lot. However, the age difference is huge and he is moving on. He explained it and she is in denial. Yes they will go to Prom and such.....but her heart is broken.

Wow, he's being pretty cruel to drag this out. Death by a thousand paper cuts. Please encourage her to make a clean break.

I’m sorry for your child but it reminds me of some advice a parent of male adults told me as we were sitting next to each other getting pedicures. She told me not to bother getting to know any girls my son dated or slept with as a teenager because none of the relationships last. After that, I never asked about any girl he was seeing or when they broke up. His father and I talked to him about being respectful,having safe sex and knowing when a girl says no it means no and not maybe. He’s in 11th grade now and I think I met one “girl friend” of many in the three years of high school. I told my daughter, his twin, boys don’t care about her or any other girl in high school. It’s mostly about the friends with benefits. Thankfully she’s a student athlete and is focused more on sports than boys. She has male friends but there isn’t a lot of time in her schedule to date. At their age, relationships don’t mean the same as what they did when I was in high school 25 years ago. If your child needs therapy, there are likely other issues going on beyond a terminated relationship. Hope she gets the help she needs to cope with life.

That’s truly terrible advice you got, and I can’t believe you’ve perpetuated it. Glad I don’t live in a world that resembles this in any way.

You truly live in a naive world.

Anonymous wrote:Just to be clear, I was trying to have sex with my freshman girlfriend when I was a sophomore (did everything else but), and my sophomore girlfriend when I was a junior (finally succeeded). Every single guy I knew since freshman year was trying to have sex with their girlfriend. There's no such thing as, "Juniors will try to have sex with your daughter." EVERY boy/man will try to have sex with your daughter, at any age. lol

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Anonymous wrote:My kids are in school to study. Not a chance that they will be allowed to date anyone in school. They need to study hard, get the grades and remain focussed.

This is a great approach if you never want to know about the people your kids are dating in school.

Anonymous wrote:My kids are in school to study. Not a chance that they will be allowed to date anyone in school. They need to study hard, get the grades and remain focussed.

Anonymous wrote:We did and TRUELY wish we did not. They dated 1.5 years. He just broke up with her 2 days before Valentines Day. He is leaving to go to college in California and she is beyond devastated. She is screaming and crying. She starts therapy next week. They still remain "Best Friends" which does NO GOOD! Yes they slept together. We like the boy a lot. However, the age difference is huge and he is moving on. He explained it and she is in denial. Yes they will go to Prom and such.....but her heart is broken.

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Anonymous wrote:My 15 year old freshman dates a junior. He's 17. He doesn't drive, they see each other at sports practices and at school. I've never thought twice about it, and I'm a strict type parent I think it depends on the kids involved. I met the boy early on and I am a big fan. He's a sweet guy and kind to my daughter. Not sleeping together or spending much time alone together, so perhaps my feelings would change if that changed. It's not a factor right now.

This doesn't sound like dating

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Anonymous wrote:By 15/16 most of my son’s crowd (social, athletic) was having sex.

I don't think your experience is universal. This certainly was not the case junior year for my very popular, athlete son and he actually had a semi-serious (also junior) girlfriend. It was much more common to start senior year or college for his crowd.

I don’t know what to tell you. That may have been your experience but I have a lot of friends with kids around this age and that’s when it seems to start for a lot of them. These are kids from Bethesda, McClean, Great Falls, NW DC, and Potomac. I al do have two teens one very social one not so much but even the less social one says that’s when her friends started she was a bit older (17). And the oral sex is just so incredibly casual that’s not even remotely a dating thing, and starts very young for a lot of kids. These are high achieving kids btw, with good heads on their shoulders. Not messed up ones.

Anonymous wrote:Most junior boys are having sex....