If your children aren’t of dating age yet, they will be
soon. Do you have a plan? I guess that’s
the main takeaway here. When it’s time
for your children to start the process of dating, whatever that looks like in
your home, do you have a plan?
Brad and I discussed our dating game plan early on. 16. At
the age of 16, our girls would be allowed to “car date.” Until then, they could do the “group dating”
thing, go to dances, hangout. But never
alone. Always supervised. When they turned 16, one was ready, and one
was not.
Our children need to NOT feel pressure from us to have a
boyfriend or girlfriend. I’ve noticed
through the years that moms, in particular, REALLY want their daughters to be
loved by boys. Moms, please don’t put
this pressure on your girls. Some girls
are ready (in their mind) to date a boy in middle school. That’s a problem. A middle school child isn’t capable of these
types of relationships for many reasons.
Mostly because it ostracizes him/her from the other kids. 16 isn’t a magic number. It was the number we chose in our
family. You might decide a number isn’t
good for you and you want to make a decision according to the situation,
person, your child, etc. That’s fine,
too! The point is…Have a plan.
We decided we wanted our girls to experience dating
situations while they were still under our roof. This allowed Brad to meet the boy, visit with
him, get to know him, and make sure he understood the expectations. Curfews were VERY important to Brad. It wasn’t so much the time on the clock, but
the matter of respect. If you were smart
and respected him, you came home 10 minutes prior to your curfew. Curfew was hard on one of our girls. She shall remain nameless.
Takeaways from The Dating Game:
1)
Have a plan.
2)
Don’t pressure your son or daughter into
dating. They will know when they are
ready!
3)
Communicate before, during and after the
date.
4)
Do what is right for your family. All families do this differently. That’s okay!
Dying at the curfew thing!! It was like that in our house too... 10:30 really meant 10:20. Always. And we were NEVER late. And that was before cell phones... so you had to account for a car accident or speeding ticket. Dying. Love all of this.
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