How Young Is Too Young?

Do you find yourself at a loss when it’s time to talk to your teenagers about dating? It’s been a long time since you’ve been dating so how do you know what’s changed and what is the same about dating these days?

One thing that has changed about teens and dating since you were a teen is that they are dating younger and younger. Why? Why do parents think it is okay to allow a 13 year old to date? 16 was the standard back in the day, and that might have been too young. 13 is way too young to let children date. They are still children at 13, not young adults. Stop treating them as if they are and perhaps they won’t act like the adults that they want to be when they are on their dates at 13. You know what that means.

Here’s a fun fact. Teenage pregnancy accounts for 22 of every 1,000 births in the United States, according to 2006 statistics, the last ones to be released, and those numbers are steadily growing. Who is to blame for these statistics? The teens? Are they really old enough to make be held responsible for these things? Can we blame the daytime trash talk show hosts who glorify teens wanting to be mothers?

We really have to blame ourselves, the parents, for teenage pregnancies, don’t we? We don’t turn off the television when the trash talk shows are on. We allow dating when our teens are still children. We encourage them at a very young age to grow up. Parents have not lost control of their children, they have given up control of them.

So when you talk about dating with your children, you do the talking. You tell them what you expect of them and what the proper behavior is for teens when they are dating. Base that behavior on what you were taught, or if you think your parents were too lenient on you, then stiffen up your expectations some.

And for the sake of all things holy, don’t let your children date before they have even gone through puberty! 13 year old children are at that horrible, confusing in between age. In between curious childhood and daring adulthood. They don’t want to be children anymore, so they will try to be adults in ways that we don’t want them to grow up! Maybe it is we parents who need to grow up and take responsibility when it comes to dating.