There was a time when your little girl thought boys were icky and your son teased all the girls at the playground. Then puberty struck. Your daughter is now drawing hearts around a classmate’s name and your son has admitted that he doesn’t just like the girl on his soccer team, he like likes her. Yup — it’s time to deal with your kids & dating. “It is typical for early adolescents to express interest in and have crushes,” says Dr. Laura Kauffman, a child and adolescent psychologist in Menlo Park, California. “They will begin to have an interest in dating.”
But how do you know if your child is ready? “I think there are some prerequisites that are more important than a standard age,” says Dr. Kauffman. “Parents need to do a lot of work to educate their child about communicating with crushes, texting and sexting, valuing themselves, the importance of a good reputation and making good decisions when it comes to who to date before letting adolescents out into the wild, wild west of dating.”
Others, like the people below, tend to agree with Dr. Kauffman’s advice:
- From a Teacher
“I think kids need to be able to spend time with the opposite sex before they start dating,” says RuSean Bell of Nashville, Tennessee. “Parents can give young kids a safe place by offering supervised activities that involve boys and girls during elementary and middle school. But I don’t think kids should date until they’re in high school.”
- From a Missionary
“It really depends on the child,” says Marian Murphy Powell of Collegeville, Pennsylvania. “Under very careful eyes, ears and circumstances, my boys could casually ‘hang’ with a girl in group settings. By high school, they were connecting more with girls, but still very supervised by us. It’s all so different now than we imagined. They are spending most of their courtship online, which is both good and bad. Sometimes they can be more vulnerable with each other in writing.”
- From a Single, Childless Adult
“I liked boys early,” says Zoe Nguyen of St. Louis, Missouri. “But I would say high school, around 14. That’s when your hormones are raging and you really understand what liking someone is all about.”
- From a Brother
“I think kids should start dating at 15,” says Gaines Allen, a teenager from Waco, Texas. “I think that kids should be able to drive before they can really date. So 15 or 16 is right.”
- From a Mother
“Is 30 or 40 too old?” says Wendy Brotherlin, a writer and mother of two young children in Manchester, Maine. “I am surprised at how much that question frightens me. Seriously, I think that dating should be reserved for high school so I have a little time.”
- From a College Student and Sister
“It depends on your definition of dating,” says Elizabeth Buse of Bowling Green, Kentucky. “My parents think that dating means actually going out on dates, while my sisters and I think it’s a label and hanging out in school. Going on an actual one-on-one date should be reserved for 16 or older in my opinion. But even 16 seems really young now that I see my baby sisters at that age.”
- From a Grandfather
“I have to say that my opinion would never trump the dad’s,” says Chris Fenoglio, a grandfather from Nashville, Tennessee. “But I think 13 seems to be a landmark age for more involved social activity, especially if driven to and from dates by parents.”
- From an Equalist
“Don’t let your child be pushed into something he or she isn’t ready to do,” says Linda Echegaray, a self-proclaimed equalist from Pasadena, California. “To me, it is much more about enforcing self-worth independent of a partner. Confident kids make much better decisions.”
Before worrying about your kids and dating, teach your teens to have high self-esteem and give them opportunities to get to know other kids in socially safe environments (5 Tips for Choosing a Teen Camp is a good place to start!).
For more information about raising teenagers, see Taking the Angst out of Raising Teens. Tell us what age you think is appropriate for your kids to start dating in the comments below.
Shellie Braeuner, is an award-winning children’s author and earned an M.Ed from Vanderbilt in human developmental counseling and has worked as a nanny for more than 25 years. She is currently working on her MFA in writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
