Boyfriends. - Chandler,AZ

Do not make it about the boy. She's going to see him in school no matter what.

Make her punishment about her dishonesty and her disobedience. Example: you took her phone away not because she was texting the boy, but because she was being sneaky.

I agree with inviting this boy over. Take away the "forbidden mystery".

A 12 year old should be pretty easy to manage. You take them to school then you bring her home and she is in the main part of the house for the rest of the evening. Not in her room or outside where she can do what ever she wants.

This way she is in sight the full evening. I would also tell the school that if I found out there were letting them get out of sight of a teacher I would personally be sitting in her classroom and at lunch with her and then out on the playground forever more if they didn't watch her more carefully.

You need to make sure your communication is open with your child.

If you start forbidding now, you'll just push her toward the bf more.

LISTEN and not talk to communicate with her. Make sure she knows risks of STD and pregnancy. It's your job as a parent to make these things known and don't go about it in a confrontational manner or you risk losing her trust.

In our area, it's not uncommon for groups of pre-teens to be escorted to movies, etc

Be open minded , communicate and be reasonable. You have to let go.... Start with baby steps.
Good luck

Well if her 8 year old brother says so, then it must be true!
A mom should always believe a little brother with no questions asked!
(yes I am being sarcastic)
And you can "check" her phone anytime you want, just look at the statement or pull up the activity online.
Why not actually talk to your daughter?
Middle school kids "date" all the time but unless she's going out unsupervised after school or at night those are just words, it doesn't actually mean anything.
I'm having a hard time believing this is really a post from a "mom to 5."

I am having a hard time wrapping my brain around this because I have a twelve year old girl. She doesn't date, none of her friends date, none of them plan on dating till much later.

How do you not know she is seeing a boy? I just can't even imagine a child being able to hide such things. The phone, you check her phone? Did you already know something was wrong and you just buried your head in the sand?

What do you do? I don't know at this point. I raise my girls to have real, not fake Barney self esteem, real self esteem. My oldest didn't date by choice until she was in college and no, it wasn't that guys didn't ask, a lot of guys asked but she though it was stupid to date as a child because she wasn't planning on getting married as a child.

What did I do, I don't know, I am nothing special, I am not particularly strict, I guess I listen. So talk to her and listen

So what do you expect her to do? Go to school and tell him I can no longer see you. Right. That's not going to happen.

Talk to her and explain yourself and your expectations. If you choose, invite him over and tell him what your rules are.

If he likes her, he will understand. If he doesn't understand and goes away, oh well.

Invite him to the bookstore or movie. This [likely] won't last forever.

My daughter is 7 and she had a crush on one of her teammates. A couple of moms have called them on it and they no longer like each other. It's over [for now].

I'm confused. Check her phone daily, every 1 or 2 months? What does that mean? Do you check it daily? Or every other month? Bottom line is you cannot control her, so instead you should be communicating with her. The more you forbid this, the more likely she will be secretive. I had my first "boyfriend" at 12. And I married the only man I ever have slept with, after completing my PhD, and have been with him for almost 25 years. Limiting her by an arbitrary age makes little sense.

What do you mean "dating?" They are only dating if you allow it. Hanging out at school isn't dating. Anything beyond that is pretty much in your control. Back in the day, we called it "going out." Didn't mean formally going on dates by any means.

And I'm confused by you saying she allows you to check her phone daily every one or two months. Which is it? Daily? Or every couple of months? Because you have every right to check that phone whenever you please. And if she's not ok with that, then the phone goes bye bye.

A 12 yr old with the combo of a phone and a boyfriend can be a scarry thing. You better have some serious talks and consequences for disobedience.
Like, don't sext.
You need passwords for any Facebook acct.
Don't stay up past bedtime texting. ...might want to keep phone in your room.
If grades go down, she will be sitting home.
Talk about boundaries.
Talk about peer pressure, for him and her.
Meet him. Meet his parents.
Talk about your expectations.
Talk about heartbreak. Tell her very few people ended up for life with someone from their childhood.
Talk about PDA and your expectations.
Talk about sex.

Seeing each other at school is about all they can do as long as you keep her busy the rest of the time.
Now is the time to load her up on after school and weekend activities and run her till she's exhausted.
You can limit her cell phone use so she can only call or text you (parents).
No, not everyone is dating at 12 - that's pure nonsense.
We do not live in a society/culture where we marry our 12 yr olds off (and believe me - girls who HAVE to grow up that soon would really like a bit more childhood than they get).
My son is not dating till he's 16 - he's not interested in it (and the drama he sees from some of his friends who are into it cause him to say "You do this for FUN?" because the break ups are frequent and ridiculous).
When he gets there, if he still doesn't want to he doesn't have to.
There are plenty of teens who don't start dating till college.

Boy that is scary! I only have a 2.5 year old so I am no expert on teen dating. However, I do know about phones. That phone is not "hers" it is yours. I assume you paid for it and are paying the monthly service. The only time she should have that phone is when you hand it to her and she expresses an appropriate amount of gratitude. You should get it back each day and check everything. No passwords or no phone. Good luck!

My girls are still little so I have not had to cross that bridge yet. However, I fully intend to raise them as I was raised. My parents had set guidelines for dating. No dating at all until you were at least 15.

The boy had to attend several Sunday dinners at our home so my parents could get to know him. Believe me when I tell you that in and of itself was no easy task...lol. My father turned away several boys at the door because he didn't like them. He didn't always recognize their names when we'd ask to invite the boy over. But he knew most of the faces in our town and if he new the boy's face from around town and it was not in a good way then he just flat out said NO you will not be dating my daughter. Leave and do not ever contact her again.

If our parents approved of the boy then we could "date" him. Those dates consisted of the boyfriends joining our family on outings or hanging out at our house. Perhaps even a school dance but my parents did the driving. Absolutely no car dating until we were old enough to drive AND we had to be the one to drive. My father insisted on that because he never wanted us to be in a "put out or get out" situation as he called it. My oldest sister actually had to throw a boy out of her car for this very reason. I remember thinking to myself, this guy is a real dolt, hello dumbass...it's her car! Of course after we had been dating a boy for several months and my father really got to know him then he would allow the boy to drive us.

I know all of this sounds really old fashioned but my sisters and I are truly grateful to our parents for raising us the way they did. Some would say we were a bit sheltered but we were taught right from wrong. We were taught to respect ourselves and to not allow others to disrespect us. We were taught early on how a man should treat you and not to settle for anything less than that.

I would not recommend "forbidding" your daughter to have a boyfriend because odds are at this point she will not abide by that and will be forced to hide it from you and lie to you. This is such a tender age, you really need to tread carefully because she needs her Mom now more than ever even if she doesn't realize it yet.

Perhaps you can say yes you could have a boyfriend BUT for the time being, your dates will be held in our home. "John is welcome to join us for dinner" or "Do you think John would like to join us for a movie?" Keep it casual. Let her know you are aware she is growing up but with that comes an awful lot of responsibilities on her part.

If you have not already had discussions about relationships, std's, sex in general than now would be an excellent time to start having that dialogue. She needs to know that she can ask you anything and more importantly she can tell you anything.

Peace and Blessings,
T. B

To me a 12 year old is old enough to date but not old enough for a phone.

A 12 year old is old enough to date, but now own a cell phone? Really she's mature enough to know how to handle the emotional and possibly physical aspect of a relationship, but not the responsibility of a phone?

Most middle school kids have boyfriends/girlfriends? Not where I live, and just because most do doesn't mean yours/mine should. That's like saying "Most middle schoolers are smoking pot, get over it".

You won't be able to stop this, so why bother. When in Rome, join them! That's kinda ludicrous, who's the parent?

If you don't want her dating, then make that very clear to her. Explain your expectations, and explain the consequences should she break those expectations. She should have known where you stood from early on, but it's not to late.

You also, can't stop her from seeing this boy in school, but it's not like they have hours of free time together. What a break and lunch? Fine, but anytime outside of school is a complete no-no.

Mine didn't date till 16, only one tried anything and she didn't like having to be chaperoned everywhere, so she learned her lesson and waited. Oddly, she has thanked me for that. She could see, later down the road, that she wasn't ready.

Figure out what you can and can not live with. Then stick with that.

You won't be able to stop this, and the more you push the more she will rebel. You need to have an open talk with her, not just about boyfriends and kissing, but about sex, including the fact that oral sex can give you an STD (a scary amount of teens do not know this fact). Let her know your hopes for her, but in the end you have to accept that she will make her own choices, you can not be with her every moment. Arm her with facts and information.

Here's what I learned with my 15 yo daughter. She only as a freshman had HER first interest in a boy. She told me that he asked her out (he was 17). We talked a lot. She wasn't allowed to go on one-on-one dates until she's 16. If I had forbidden it, she just would've seen him behind my back (and admitted she would have). Her dad wanted me to forbid her, but eventhough she's a really good kid I knew her limits. You can still restrict her activities. I allowed her to go out with him, which meant seeing him at school and hanging out after a few times and then she lost interest. I told her that I'll trust her only as long as she keeps talking to me and being honest. Break that trust, and you lose all privileges. So far, she's done pretty well with it. It's actually opened up a lot of great conversations about peer pressure, sexual peer pressure, sexting and all of that in non-abstract terms. It's easy to be strong in convictions when you're never tested.

Take this as an opportunity to open the communication with her. Our best conversations are sitting in her room or in the car. And they can be more willing to open up with another friend there also.

YOU need to open that door of communication with your daughter point blank, Id be more concerned about that.

Yea I agree 15 or 16 would be a good age to start dating. I started dating my husband at 15. But from personal experience, when I was 12 I had "boyfriends" but we never saw each other out of school && my parents knew about it. But when my mom started to forcefully check my phone it would make me hide more && more from her. Then she told me I could not "go out" with my current "boyfriend" && I just did it behind their backs. It lasted for months && now that I am older I can admit that I didn't even like the guy very much, I just did it because my parents were acting the way they were. Its best just to be aware of the fact that she is starting to have crushes. I would definitely not let her go on "dates" until she's older but I would back off from checking the phone a little. That definitely put a big wall between me && my parents.