My twelve year old daughter wants to invite a boy from school she likes and that likes her to the movies with us on Friday. Her dad said no! maybe next year. My daughter says it's not a date and why don't we trust her. I need advice please.
By Yolanda H
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This is the perfect way to begin the dating experience. With your family, under their subdivision and watchful eyes. I am 57 years old and this sort of thing was the beginning of my "dating" experiences. There are different ways to look at it, but I think it is good practice, with no peer pressure and considerably more safety. I suspect your husband is going to be a pill about any dating for her, you better work on him now :). He should be grateful she isn't promiscuous already, there are plenty of twelve year old girls that are!
I am 71 and I would say no, too. My thought is that 16 is plenty young to start dating and then only an occasional date, like for prom and homecoming with strict curfew of home by midnight. Also no going steady.
Sounds as though Dad is having a very normal dad reaction to his little girl growing up.
Like ThrifyViki, though, I think he needs to start dealing with this now, before she's old enough to want to go on real dates, or else he's going to have a daughter who hates him even more than most teens hate their parents, lol. But it's really not funny. From my recollections of my teen years and from raising two of my own, it seemed the girls who 'snuck-out' were the girls with parents who didn't think things like having a crush spend time with the family was a good thing.
And lol, Dad is going to regret saying no when the inevitable time in her life arrives that she would rather anything but spending time with the family! She'll be working overtime to cut the family right out of her social life soon enough (usually hits about 14 if I recall accurately).
The fact that she feels comfortable enough at this age being with the family to want to have any friend, male OR female, spend time with them says she is a well adjusted young lady who respects and loves her family, and wants to share that with her crush. Wow, that says every good thing about the job you and Dad are doing, bravo to you, Mom!
I'm 55, so maybe it's a generational thing. But I'm considered old-fashioned for my age, too, so maybe not:)
We struggled with this too with my daughter is 12. We ended up taking her to the movie and staying there a few rows back and the boy and his older sister came so it was more a friend thing! It's so hard these days she will not be allowed to date for a while of course I wanna say "never" as her mom but that's not realistic!
You probably won't like my answer, but I am speaking as not only the mom of 5 daughters, but also as a director for years and years of a crisis and preg center. I am in my 50's - probably considered old fashioned by many.
12 is way way too young for dating.
I would say no to the movie thing as well or make it a group thing with several other kids and parents.
Media and movies have our kids growing up too fast. I have seen 10-12 year old girls in push up bras, and very skimpy clothing trying to catch boys.
We always surveyed the girls/women who came into our center. One question we always asked (on a form they didn't have to put their name on, along with other questions) was at what age did you start dating. We noticed right off the bat, that the women who were in an abusive relationship, or those who were single and pregnant or thought they might be, very often started dating at an early age - some as early as 10-12.
I would say 16 is more in line, although the rule in our house is 18, Several younger families in our church argued in a friendly manner with me on this topic several years ago. All 3 of them are now grandparents with daughters below the age of 16.
I am not saying this is what would happen, as not all girls end up in this situation. But at age 12, kids just don't have the ability to judge situations like an adult would, and a 12 year old really hasn't even had the life experiences to know what she is looking for in a date or a mate.
Ok, I'm 15 years old. My dad said that I couldn't date until my older sister had a real date where the guy comes to the front door and drives to a nice dinner and all the works. I am now dating and I didn't start dating until I was 14.
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