In our previous letters, “Preparing for the Teen Years” and “The Talk”, we discussed the importance of knowing your children, setting parameters and being proactive in how you want to handle the pre teen and teen years. You want to have family trust be the foundation and create a culture where your children feel safe in coming to you to ask the hard questions that teens and preteens face. Dating in this crazy social media environment is tricky to navigate at best. Big question: How do you navigate your own desire for your child’s moral innocence while making sure you stay relevant and able to come alongside your child as they start looking at the opposite sex with more interest? Regarding dating, when it came to figuring out when to let our kids “date”, that’s an area where we would like a do-over. The whole thing came at us so fast and we were unprepared and made a few regrettable mistakes.
Back in the day when our kiddos were still in elementary school, we were completely head in the sand about the idea that some day another child might take a fancy to one of our kids. It wasn’t until our youngest, Kevin strangely enough, was pursued daily by girls in kindergarten, held down by a tribe of them and kissed, that we even thought about it. Kevin was cute (and still is) and was constantly being chased by girls. Whereas our oldest, Dano, was playing Power Rangers and completely oblivious to girls. We left it alone for a few years, but the kissing of Kevin became an issue.
At this time in our lives, we were heavily into church, we led many parenting classes over the years, and we were greatly influenced by the idea of “moral innocence”. Our preference was that the kids would just go out and play and leave the girl/boy thing alone. Yeah, well, sometimes not possible in reality. “Dating” or “Going Out” occurs regardless of what parents want. The notion that your child focuses their attention on one other person is “Going Out”. To like someone can still be morally innocent. As the kids moved into middle school and “liking” became a social phenomenon, it gave us an opportunity to sit down with our kids to talk about the idea of dating and what our family identity looked like in that arena.
Social development can get confused if mom and dad are too strict or too lenient. Some examples: Shelli got a small gift from a boy and we made her return it. A group of kids wanted to go to the movies and not only did we want to know who was in the group, which was proper, we also wanted to ensure that there was an odd number of boys and girls so they wouldn’t break into pairs once there. When a beautiful little girl liked Kevin in the 4th grade and he wanted to like her back, we discouraged it. Not our best moments. Please remember to keep things in perspective and within context so as to not confuse or send mixed messages to your children. Having open and honest discussions is key regarding dating, sexuality etc., where you have family agreements that give them limited freedom appropriate to their maturity.
Beware of legalism. Maintaining moral innocence is desirable and the Ezzos have done a great job in articulating its importance(*). Biology and sociology are factors that can’t be wished away. However, we were too strict. Now, upon reflection, letting them have middle school crushes and high school dates without making a federal case out of it might have been a better path. Our fear of cracking open Pandora’s Box and the uncertainty of their behavior if passions ran wild stopped us from dealing with the issue in a more forthright fashion. Certainly, our church culture encouraged us along the more strict path, but in hindsight there was room to be less legalistic.
But given that, it’s important to understand that all this was prior to the smartphone era. There is no reason for kids to have phones prior to driving other than to call mom and dad. In fact, there are phones that limit the phone numbers and texts to just mom and dad’s phone for when picking up from sports is needed, etc. The point here is that there is plenty of evidence that sexuality is developing earlier and expressing itself vigorously in today’s smartphone culture. It is understandable that parents may fear the very thing that we feared as young parents – our kids growing up sexually too early.
What to do? The number 1 answer to a child’s growing sexuality is the relationship of mom and dad to one another. The child will see a relationship modeled that is satisfying and whole. The number 2 answer to a child’s behavior with the opposite sex is communication, a fully open discussion with both mom and dad about hopes, dreams, taboo topics, fears. These discussions gives a child a peek into the thrilling aspect of relationships while mom and dad are still the ones providing context.
As for dating, we do think that taking some of the mystery out of the opposite sex while innocence still reigns is a better idea than forbidding it without explanation. While we leaned too heavily on the conservative thinking, please don’t go the opposite way and lean too heavily on this notion of liberality. Keep your Family Identity at the forefront and know your child. What works for one child’s temperament may require you to adjust to a completely different approach for another child’s temperament. It depends on each family’s specific situation and parents should discuss what is right for your family. As always, taking an intentional path is always better than drifting into that era and being surprised by it.
Our kids survived and so will yours.
To your family’s development,
Lis and Dave
* The Ezzos discuss Dating, Courtship and Marriage in their Reaching the Heart of Your Teen book and there are other excellent materials available on the GFI website as well. For a more extensive list of material please visit the Parenting Made Practical Bookstore here. Of course there are numerous other Christian-based books about purity, dating and courting available to you by people who have done extensive research on this subject. Be proactive, do some research of your own to find what works in alignment with your Family Identity and decide on a plan of action now, long before you may need it.