I’ve been thinking about love a lot the last few days as we meandered through Valentine’s day, about the heartbreak of my teen years and wondering how I could protect my kids from some of that. I wouldn’t insulate them from all of life’s heartbreaks. That would be robbing them of crucial character development. I would, however, like to protect them from the pain and aftermath of giving their heart to the wrong person. That’s not something that is easily recovered from and can mess with them far into their adult years.
It’s a tricky thing, love. A wonderful, essential, potentially heart wrenching thing. When a teen boy asks a girl to be his Valentine. I think crazy thoughts like, “For how long?” If he doesn’t mean forever. Then he’s asking, “Will you give me your heart so I can break it one day?”
It’s another thing altogether to be in a position to say, “I love you. I know you and want the same things you want. I have a good job, a home, a plan for life and I want you to be part of that, forever.”
I want to hold your hair when you vomit.
I want to work to exhaustion for a paycheck and sign it over to you.
I want to stay up all night comforting our screaming newborn.
I want to love you when you’re fat.
I want to love you when you’re old and wrinkled.
I want to spend important holidays with your crazy family.
I want to wash the dishes so you can rest after a hard day, even if my day was harder.
I want to eat all your cooking, especially the burned or weird stuff.
I want to take care of your elderly parents.
I want to let you drive the good car.
That would be interesting if they put those things on a Valentine Card :).
I’m not a fan of the courtship movement that sprang up during my teen years. There are so many brands of it that it’s hard to define. In my life it became emotional abstinence until after engagement, and no kissing until after the wedding ceremony. Spending time together only in the family environment and asking Dad’s permission before every new step in the relationship. In their defense, this was not my parent’s idea. It was mine. I read the books. I made the commitment and set the restrictive standards. I made developing a normal relationship difficult. After 17 years of marriage, I’ve almost worked through the psychological damage.
I want my kids to be able to hang out comfortably in co-ed situations where they can observe the character of potential companions without paring off too soon. To let love grow without guilt that they are violating some mandate of “emotional abstinence” and to experience an appropriate progression of physical contact so they don’t have their first kiss and consummate their marriage the same day. At the same time I want to help them so they don’t face temptation + opportunity for sex too soon. Somehow I’d like to accomplish that and allow them to have plenty of private conversations before they make the decision to marry.
I want my kids to understand that love is selfless, giving, and serving without thought to what will be given in return. It’s not demanding, possessive, jealous, or controlling. Love is loyal and constant. It’s not a feeling; it’s a decision. I want them to know what healthy love is so they stop a red flags riddled relationship before it starts.
I don’t have all the answers, so while I’m parenting my teens I’m doing a lot of praying and keeping communication lines open. And trying not to freak out.
What do you think?
Your best writing comes when you put yourself out there.
Nice job, Sista!! 👊🏻
“I want to spend my holidays with your crazy family” made me laugh out loud.
Thank you, Nicole. I’ll have to admit this post scared me a bit.
So good and true.
I like the card saying he’ll let me drive the good car! That is totally real life! 😂
I know, right?! I have yet to find the exception to this. It’s a rule. The wife gets the good car ;).
Sorry to hear you were damaged by the “courting” culture. I have not ever been comfortable with it, but also not comfortable with the dating culture. We are trying to strike a balance by encouraging our teens to stick together (brother/sister), hang out with groups of friends, let them know they can talk to us about strong feelings that will come (its okay to have a crush on someone). We also talk a lot about the purpose of those feelings – that it is a good and natural thing – the crux is what you do with them. Until you are old enough to get married, you are not really old enough to enter into an exclusive relationship that could lead to marriage. So enjoy time with friends of the opposite sex in groups, in public places, and be aware of situations that will lead to temptation. That is our approach so far . . . . not saying we have all the answers! I think open communication is one of the best ways to protect and help our kids.
I am getting ready to go on a small, local, weekend getaway with my teen daughter to do Passport2Purity. I’ve reviewed all of the materials in it and it is all wonderful! I’m so excited to get to do this. It talks about everything you just mentioned and has some visual ‘projects’ that seem like they will really drive it home. We want the exact same things for our children. This can be done with boys or girls. Everyone I know that has already done this worh their daughters sing its praises and the daughters tell me it was a real eye opener for them as well. It can be purchased online or through Mardel’s with a coupon. There are CD’s you listen to together and a small itenerary for your weekend. You also do a fun activity together. I is like a weekend curriculum and since you used to homeschool, it would be a very easy thing for you to follow. She is 14 and she and a (wonderful!) young man have caught each other’s eye. She knows we will not allow her to date or have a boyfriend at this age, but we are allowing her to text and talk to him, in our presence (we also have a program that allows us to see all of our kids phone activities,maven deleted ones, and she knows that so it keeps her accountable to not break the rules) and get to know him. We’ve decided that we could even invite him to an activity with us to spend some time getting to know each other as a family unit, not having any alone time. She blushes and giggles each time he texts so we feel it is the right time to do our passport 2 purity weekend. It is in 2 weeks and I am so super excited about it! We are staying at a local hotel that offers both free breakfast and dinner, on my husbands corporate discount for his job, and we are going to spend a day at a day spa getting all pampered together as our fun bonding activity. That was held out of our tax return. Look into it! And keep doing what you are doing. Praying 🙂
Wow! I am right there with you. My girl is almost 12. I want to save her from the trail of broken hearts that I left behind but not hinder growth. I don’t like the restrictive feel of some things, nor the permissive dating culture. I think only God can work this one out, but I am eager to see how others approach it. Praying for wisdom, right alongside you 🙂
I loved this post!
Thanks, Deedee!
Excellent post!!
I am very close to this stage with my daughter, and I too, am constantly praying for wisdom regarding my approach.
Thank you for putting yourself out there, and for this excellent post.
I’ve been on quite the blog-reading break, and I’m excited to come back and read your writing.
Great post!
With my eldest child 25 years old, and my youngest 15, we’ve lived a lot of this. Like you, we want them to navigate the world they find themselves in, not hide from it! Probably the best advice I can offer to other parents is along the lines of what you and others have said: Keep the lines of communication open. Make your home a place your children’s friends–and your children!–feel welcome in. Encourage group activities–which may mean coming up with creative ideas for outings or parties and then facilitating or hosting them; getting involved in school, church, or other activities as a chaperone or volunteer, and be the mom or dad all the kids know.
Inviting that special friend along on family activities, or sending along a sibling with a couple can help get them out of that “date” mentality that is usually limited to movie theaters, eating out, maybe skating or dancing and necking in a car! Real life is not endlessly gazing at each other one-on-one, too often leading to physical intimacy, but experiencing a relationship in the context of your families and communities. And it’s prob ably more fun and takes a lot of pressure off!
Finally, if your children are younger, do a gut check on teen pregnancy now. With our eldest children being daughters,I was in for a shock when my oldest son started showing interest in girls. I had always thought that should one of our daughters unexpectedly become a mom, we would somehow do the best for her and the baby in whatever the situation. We had actually seen more than one homeschool family in our community gracefully and lovingly help their daughters through an unwed pregancy. What I had taken for granted was that as parents of the young mom, you have some measure of control in protecting her child and your grandchild. If your son is the dad, that’s almost all wiped away. The mother of his child and your grandchild can harm the baby by what she smokes or drinks or neglects to do during pregnancy; she can abort the child, make an adoption decision, choose who else will live with or have access to the child– and this may all happen with your son paying court ordered child support, whether or not he is permitted to have any sort of relationship with your child. I was reeling when I first fully realized that!! And then I had a heart to heart talk with my son. 🙂
Really think through the “worst” scenarios for your children as they become teens, and how you would face those situations–and then share your feelings and insights in a frank, one-on-one discussion with that young person you love and want the best for–better yet, an ongoing series of discussions… a dialogue!
Angela, wonderful post. I have the exact same opinion. Prayer will also be my go to because I have no idea how to walk the fine line!
Great post Angela! I am glad that you recognize the damage behind the courtship/purity movement. You and are close in age and I remember it being all the rage too never bought into it entirely for various reasons. Many of my friends did it and are slowly realizing the damage it did and want different things for their kids. With my own children when they get into their dating years I will encourage going on dates in groups and with different people not being too serious to early. I might include your list its pretty awesome! I loved that it hit the heart of selfless love.
love your list! it is hard. i have a 13 year old daughter. open dialogue has been my method thus far. Also being the mom that will drive her where she and her friends are going. Interesting so far. she still talks to me. I hope that continues!
Wendy, I’ve found they keep talking as long as we keep listening without condemnation. You’re doing a great job.
Well, my oldest is 19 (she goes to college not too far from you, actually! you’ve said you are in KC area, yes?). I will share what we have done and know that this has worked well for exactly 1 child, so I’m no expert. We have four more so far coming up the pipe, so if it proves foolproof maybe I’ll write a book, ha! 🙂
1. Homeschool so you can keep all that crap out of their lives. ha! Just kidding! We do homeschool. It doesn’t keep all that out of their lives. It helps in that it gives us a group of people with similar values and rules for these things, so she isn’t “the only one”. But my kids have a circle of friends from all sorts of rules and backgrounds, especially when they become teenagers. That’s fine. I don’t want them to be “the only one”. But I also want them to learn that not everyone does the same thing or has the same rules, and that’s ok.
2. We don’t allow one on one dating in the teen years. Group activites with friends are fine upon approval of whom/where/when, and with an older teen that has proven trustworthy we are more lenient on the whom/where/when than we would be with a younger teen. But we do not do the one on one boy/girl dates in high school. I know some will think that is crazy, but it is how we role and we are not the only ones with it. 🙂 Dating is for those mature enough and life-ready enough to discern marriage. A 15 year old is neither.
3. Talk. talktalktalktalktalk. Driving talks are the best, they open up more when they don’t have to look at you. Keep the doors open. Don’t shut down what they are saying. My daughter, in spite of the no solo dating rule, still managed to have two “boyfriends”,,,one when she was a preteen and one when she was a junior in high school. I’m not sure what that even meant. Mostly I think they hung out at church stuff together and in the case of the older relationship would talk on facebook. I didnt’ make a “no boyfriend” rule because I felt like that was pointless. We could control where she went and with whom, but we couldn’t control how she felt or what she called people, kwim? To try to do that would have just pushed that all underground. Both “relationships” were short-lived, and in the case of the older one, she found him to be unacceptably pushy about physical matters, even in their very limited “dating”. I was super impressed with how she handled it all, and super impressed that I stayed out of it and didn’t run him over with my van. bwahaha!
4. Then…let go. I don’t even pretend to have any control anymore. She is an adult. She has had a boyfriend come and go since starting college last fall, has had real and actual dating experiences, and seems to be handling it all very well, but my input is from a distance and of course I only know what she chooses to share. I feel like, at this point, I have done my part. She knows our values, she has internalized them and is a strong Christian young woman. It is up to her what happens from here.
5. The young teen years are harder. The 12-15 age range is really the most difficult, IMO. It gets easier, at least it did for us. Courting…I have no experience with that. We are Catholic, and that seems to be an Evangelical thing…I had never even heard of it until the Duggars, lol. It was very attractive in some ways when I heard of it, but frankly, unhealthy in some ways I could never quite pin down. I would love to hear more about your experience with it if you ever want to share. What you said in the article, having your first kiss and consummating your marriage in the same day, that pretty much nails the coffin for me right there. I never really thought about it before, but yeah…that seems like it would be pretty, ah, overwhelming….
Ok, I’ve typed too much, lol. I have been meaning to come back to this post when I was on a real computer and not my phone. Anyway, I hope nothing here offends anyone, it is not at all a judgement on what anyone else has done or will do, just what has worked for us so far. Definitely a gray area of parenting!
Melanie, thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts! I live for comments, so you can’t type too much, lol! I especially love the bit about driving talks. I didn’t think about it before but you are absolutely right. It takes the pressure off of eye contact and makes it easier to express yourself.