You’re going to have a big surprise soon then. 2, maybe 3 years, tops.
I forget where the quote originates, but my friend who has a daughter says it all the time:
I highly doubt it.
You do not know me, nor do you know our daughters.
shrug My sister and I didn’t have boyfriends until we were 16. We didn’t have sex then, either.
Of course, being geeks and somewhat socially awkward may have had more to do with that than with any parental controls.
The most important thing you can ever do right now is to establish, whatever she does, no matter WHAT it is, she can always come to you.
You have got to get that into her head and make sure she understands, even if she gets pregnant, if she gets and STD, if she even THINKS she is pregnant or with an STD or no matter what question she has she can come TALK TO YOU.
You have to make sure nothing you say to her about sex at this time is going to be so adversarial that it rules out the possiblity of her coming to you when she has questions about sex, needs advice about sex, OR screws up and gets pregnant or an STD
This isn’t about sex, it’s about responsibility. You need to explain that sex has consequences and a baby is just one of them.
I used to work in a big brother program and the biggest divide is that all the kids felt they couldn’t talk to their parents, yet ALL the parents felt there was no reason why their kids would view them like this.
Something was getting lost. And you have got to make her understand you will be in, whatever happens to her, in it together. And she can come to you.
Also is a good time to talk about friends. To often people will judge you by the company you keep and it can harm you. A friend who smokes pot can get arrested and get you in trouble, even though you were just with him/her and weren’t doing anything.
So as long as your kid understand and BELIEVES she can come to you with any problem she has and you will work it through together, NO MATTER WHAT, you’ll be just fine
A boyfriend, I wouldn’t give a damn but tell her not to skip school and to practice chastity.
I never ‘dated’ until college. I was raised by a fundamentalist Christian mother, very strictly. If you look at the “Did you have The Talk” thread, you’ll probably recognise the type. (Not saying you’re that type, btw, just that I bet you know of people who follow the “pretend it doesn’t exist” strategy.)
I DID however have a man I met online who I engaged in chat-sex essentially thoughout High School, almost every night. When I was 16, I arranged to meet while I was doing a summer term in another city for a Governor’s School Honors Study Program. He rode a bus up to the city, and we stayed together for a week or so.
No sex, but that’s about all we didn’t do. It was my first sexual experience with a man. It was FANTASTIC. HE was fantastic. He was everything my family and church HATED. He played D&D, was a HS dropout, he was a pagan, he wore goth clothes, and smoked cloves like a chimney. He worked in a machine shop (I’d never known a man who didn’t have a “real job” like a lawyer or a doctor.) - he had a CHILD (a daughter, who was adorable). He *tasted *amazing, like drugs and adulthood, and he talked to me (and listened to me) about stuff that I enjoyed, unlike every other male I knew who talked about sports or cars and expected me to nod and smile and look decorative.
I wasn’t stupid. I didn’t love him then, I didn’t *think *I loved him, and I knew I was playing with fire. But I liked him, and I liked all the things I learned from him that I couldn’t find anywhere else I knew. I knew if I got caught that everyone I knew would shun me. Regardless, it was an amazing experience, and I pulled it off without a hitch.
My mother to this day doesn’t know I did that.
It didn’t mean that I hated my church, or hated my life, or my mother. I felt it was sort of my own personal Rumspringa. If I had not had that experience, I think I would have been a lot less prepared for college and adult life with regular men, who mostly don’t “court” women as I had been raised to expect.
ETA - People, even relatives, have many facets to their personalities. They can surprise you. It doesn’t have to always be a bad thing.
Do you know anything about the set up with the boy?
Is he a friend’s older brother?
Her brother’s friend?
Someone she sees on the bus everyday?
A neighbour?
Does she think she loves him?
Does she think he loves her?
Does she think of him as a boyfriend, a friend or just some guy?
Was skipping school the culmination of weeks of texting, flirting, love notes and furtive glances?
Or did she decide to skip school, meet some guy on the street and get to it against a wall because she was bored and feeling rebellious?
Grounding a 13 year old girl for skipping school might be ok, if she knew that that was on the cards if she got caught.
Grounding a 13 year old girl for a PDA with some random dude because nice girls don’t do that- not going to fly, especially if big brothers got away with the same thing or worse (whether you know it or not).
Grounding a 13 year old girl for running away for some stolen kisses with the love of her life as she sees it- well, you’re familiar with Romeo and Juliet.
If she thinks she’s serious about him, give her the courtesy and respect of treating the relationship as real and meaningful. Meet the boy, get to know him and explain that they can “date” under certain conditions- in your house, or chaperoned in public, or whatever you’re comfortable with.
If she’s not, you might want to have a chat about how PDAs should be kept for people you have feelings for and who you know have feelings for you. Yes, I know it’s a bit more complicated than that, but at 13 the message that you can’t keep physical intimacy and emotional intimacy separate is IMHO a healthy one.
God. I’m sitting here reading this thread with my 3 month old daughter sleeping on my chest.
Getting serious heebie-jeebies…
My wife wanted to make our daughter wait until age 18 but I believe in this day & age that is too much to ask. It could result in destructive revolt. Ours is 15 and we recently began to allow modified limited dating at my behest. It’s one more privilege we can revoke in case of bad grades or behavior.
Has no one yet mentioned the vaccine to prevent genital warts? That is nearly as important as birth control.