Advice For Parents Anticipating The Problem Of Teen Children Dating

Preparing both yourself and your children is the key to dealing with the problems of teenage dating.

Most parents have some worries about the day when their teenage children will begin dating and for a significant number of parents it marks the point at which a son or daughter is making the break from childhood to adulthood. It is also often seen as the point at which children take their first steps to strike out on their own and this is usually seen as a sign that they do not need you any longer. This is clearly not the case. Dating is merely a phase on the long path of normal teen development and they certainly do still need you - and will need you for many years to come. Nevertheless, this can be a difficult point in a teenager's life and there is a great deal that you can do to smooth the way for both of you.

As is the case with most other things, success in dating starts with education and it is critical to get together with your teenagers before they begin dating and discuss what goes into making good relationships. It is all too easy to presume that your children already understand the ins and outs of dating but they almost certainly won't. After all, much of their knowledge on dating will probably have been collected from television where most of the relationships depicted are not designed to reflect the real world but merely to entertain the audience. Your children need to be taught just what it means to be in a loving and supportive relationship and the best way for them to understand just what that means is to talk with you about your own views based upon personal knowledge and experience. This said, it is also the case that your children will learn not only from what they hear from you, but from what they see with their own two eyes and so setting a good example in the manner in which you conduct your own relationship is extremely important.

When your children begin dating you will need to enter into what is going to become an ongoing discussion about relationships. Your children's dates will not always go as you or they expect and your children are going to need somebody to come to when they have a problem. Therefore, it is very important that you maintain a line of communication and also that you continue the discussion about how they should be treating others in a relationship as well as just how they themselves should expect to be treated.

Meeting your teenager's date for the first time can often be an anxious time, but it is important to try and make this initial meeting as comfortable as you can and to be both respectful towards and kind to your child's date. And don't make the classic mistake of giving the pair a lecture laying down the rules for seeing each other. Should you decide to lay down any rules then these are for your child and not for his or her date and so ought to be discussed in private and with your child alone. In addition, while it is possible that you will not be impressed with your child's choice of date, you must not let your teenager or his date pick up on this and should make a conscious effort to be supportive. Once you have taught your children how to behave in a relationship you need to trust them to make their own decisions and should not get involved unless you believe that the relationship is putting your teenager in danger.

It is not always easy to see your children growing up and meeting and getting close to new people. However, provided you do your part and ensure that they know what to expect from and how to conduct themselves in a relationship, then there is an excellent chance that things will work out and that difficulties will be few and far between for both of you.

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