I'm entering the next phase of parenting where all the hard work, love and lessons will be tested and refined as my children go from dependent littles to independent bigs.
My daughter(13.5) has her first boyfriend. He is a super awesome kid from an amazing family with similar values to our own. They've been dating for 4 months and just had their first kiss.
We've had lots of talks about respect, consent, boundaries and navigating different situations.
But I'm nervous.....
This is such an exciting time in her life. Some of my best memories are from this age, but so are some of my biggest heartaches. We've talked openly about some of them age appropriately along the way, but how do I give her the rest of the information she needs without breaking her innocence or making her fearful.
If I tell her to be careful as "bad things" can happen, her version of "bad" isn't the same as mine. She's also the kind of kid who learns from the feeling she gets from the experience or making the mistake rather than heeding a warning.
I thought I had them all prepared for this stage, but now I'm doubting myself....
1 Replies
I think you just deal with that when it happens. Make sure she knows about consent and safe sex, I know nobody wants to think their 14 year old has sex but they can. We had one girl in our family tell her Mum she hasn't had sex with her bf because its gross but she just didn't want to tell her she was having sex, then hid a pregnancy until 30 weeks when it couldn't be hidden anymore.