Do you allow your teenagers to “date” or have a “boyfriend” or “girlfriend”? What are the consequences and repercussions if you do or don’t?

This is a touchy subject, especially among my church friends.  We have parents in our church that allow their kids to date and parents that do not. My husband and I are in the first group. We are a blended family; I am divorced with 4 kids and remarried to a man who had never been married, nor had any children of his own. My 18 year old son lives with his dad (his choice-not mine) mostly because of the “freedom” he has over there. (Just giving a little background so you understand our situation.) My 16 year old daughter, lives with us, goes to church, is a singer in our youth worship band, has taken a stand for purity, etc. We allow her to “date”; i.e. she spends time over at her boyfriend’s house, with his parents present and vice-versa.  Although my daughter and her boyfriend can drive, they don’t go out to the movies, dinner or anything like that. They just spend time together with other family members around. This is probably better defined as courting. My daughter has had other “boyfriends”, most of which lived in other cities, a couple or three hours away. Those “relationships” were short lived, probably due to the distance factor.

Another family in our church has 3 children (not a blended family) and they are not allowing their kids to have boyfriends or girlfriends.  Much to their surprise their oldest son, who is 15, confessed to his mom that he’s already had 10 girlfriends! All behind his parents back. The poor mom was appalled. So now she’s at a place she didn’t want to be; facing the fact that her son has gone behind her back, has done the very thing she and her husband were trying to prevent, and what to do about it.

I believe all children should respect their parent’s decisions, but can our decisions for our children be stifling them, resulting in our children doing things behind our back? Obviously the answer is yes.

I believe we as parents should set guidelines for our kids, teaching them right from wrong, and allowing them to make some choices on their own. I think that if we are involved in our kids lives enough we will be able to help them make the right choices, but also we will be there to help them when they’ve made a wrong choice.

So, how about this issue of dating? How do we set the boundaries for our kids, so they don’t go behind our back, or end up having sex during their teen years? Isn’t it our goal as parents to help our teens to be prepared for marriage? Then how do we teach them proper skills, boundaries and guidelines that will do just that?  Do we set unreasonable rules that will force our teens to do things behind our back? I think that we as parents should sit and talk with our teens, ask them what they expect from us, as their parents, as far as guidelines and boundaries, and then together come up with some reasonable rules that your teen can follow, and will help them make right choices. Your teens are at an age where they want to stretch out and discover who they are. They want to gain some independence and responsibility. Let’s help them do just that with proper guidelines and instruction; not with unreasonable rules and regulations that will stifle their personality and cause them to do things behind our backs.