<p>My older daughter just started going out with someone as a sophomore in college. She went out on a few dates in high school, had a few crushes, but never anything serious. She didn’t have a HS boyfriend because the opportunity never presented itself. I used to wish she could of had one in HS before she went off to college. Hind sight, I think maybe it was a good thing because she was a lot more focused in HS and she is a lot more mature in handling her first relationship.</p>
<p>I would like to hear from other parents on what they think is a good age for their kids to start having a serious relationship, it could be based on your own experience or your kid’s experience. Do you think your kids’ high school relationships have helped or hindered them? Of course, we know we can’t control when our kids fall in love.</p>
<p>D did not date in high school – kept to a small group who were not on the fast track socially. (Many first-borns among her group; I noticed that many later-born kids seemed to date at younger ages.)
Then she went to Smith College, where dating opportunities for someone not socially proactive are more limited than at coed schools. So it was really only after she was out of college and in her (heavily male) career that she dated much at all!
She has dated about 4 or 5 guys in the two + years since college and now is seriously seeing a very nice young man with whom she seems very compatible. For her, I am glad that she took her time, as she developed herself first before getting involved with someone else.</p>
<p>My son, on the other hand, took up with his high school girlfriend just as junior year of high school was starting out. (They had known each other since ninth grade and the girl eventually got things going; who knows if he ever would have dated had he had to make the first move!) They have been intensely involved since then, and are now both freshmen in different colleges.<br>
While acknowledging that the persistence record of high school relationships is not good, they hope to remain committed to each other. No signs of any turkey drop. I am very glad, however, that they did not make their relationship a factor in choosing their colleges. They each went for the school that best met their individual needs. They have a very respectful relationship, are both devout Catholics and he is devoted to her. They talk every day. She once told me her friends envy the way my son treats her. If there were a yearbook award for “best boyfriend” he might have gotten it. She has been very good for him as well. (He is very easygoing and she is a very driven Type A. She has encouraged him to be more serious about his goals and he has helped her to de-stress.)</p>
<p>Anyhow, my kids are different and took different dating paths but so far they have worked for them. I am fine with each of their partners of the moment.
Who knows what will happen in the long run though?</p>
<p>S1 had a serious gf for the better part of h.s. They were extremely committed. They broke up Fall sem. of senior yr. S1 spent the remainder of senior yr. running with his guy friends and having a blast. I was glad that they broke off when they did so S1 could experience part of h.s life he had been missing. They were both planning to go to the same college (still did) and I was worried that it was just going to be h.s part 2 if they stayed together. </p>
<p>S1(now a college sr.) has dated off and on in college but never a serious gf. like the h.s. one. I think he learned a big lesson about committment in h.s. and what it takes to keep a serious relationship going. He has pretty much avoided super serious relationships in college because of his post college plans (military). </p>
<p>S2 never had a date that I know of in h.s. He always ran around with a big group of both boys and girls. Now that he’s a freshman at a big u. with over 60% females, I’m hoping he’ll find a gf there before he graduates!</p>
<p>I have never been on a date and am a freshman in college.</p>
<p>And that college has a 7:3 girl to boy ratio. Hooray.</p>
<p>Part of me is glad I never dated…I don’t want to get married until after I finish Grad school, and I feel like the point of dating is to find my potential husband. So dating before I’m ready to get married seems somewhat dishonest to me.</p>
<p>HGFM - you seem like such a nice girl, but I think you are missing out. Every relationship takes a lot of effort, but it also helps you grow as a person, sometimes it makes you a better long term partner someday.</p>
<p>oldfort-don’t get me wrong, sometimes I do wish I had a boyfriend. And I wouldn’t reject someone if they were to ask me out solely because I’m not ready to get married. It’s just not high on my list of priorities at the moment.</p>
<p>I don’t think this is the sort of thing that anyone can control.</p>
<p>Relationships happen when they happen. For some people it happens for the first time at 16, for others at 22 or even later.</p>
<p>Also, I think a substantial number of students today prefer to avoid forming serious relationships in college. They want to maintain their geographic freedom for at least the first few years after graduation because they want to be able to go where their career plans/grad school choices take them, without having to take a partner’s needs into account. I don’t remember young people thinking that way when I was in college, but times have changed.</p>
<p>Is it possible that the current generation is less interested in sex than we were? I’m mean this seriously.</p>
<p>What I am told is most people have hookups a few times, progress to having lunch or dinner, then become BF/GF. It is pretty rare to do traditional dating then move on to sex. That is also why I asked the question. I wonder young kids (14-18, maybe as young as 12-13) are capable of handling it emotionally, to have such intimate relationship with someone.</p>
<p>In my day (yes it was this century), it seemed like everyone in high school was dating…whereas in my kids’ school very few of the sophmore, juniors and seniors are dating…they tend to all go around in big mixed groups as friends. Wish it had been that way when I was in highschool…the pressure to have a boyfriend was intense.</p>
<p>D1 dated only a little (which agrees with the firstborn comment above) and D2 is now in a serious relationship. The guy is wonderful and she is a better person for it. They both have plans and dreams but (as a person who married her high school sweetheart) I could see them moving forward together.</p>
<p>My son had his first serious relationship at 17 (junior year of high school), with a girl a bit younger who was quite mature for her age. It lasted almost a year, and I think it was a good experience for both of them. Their lives progressed in different directions after their breakup, but they remained friends and even sought each other out occasionally on campus (both attended our flagship state university, although my son was a year ahead of the girl). In particular, she sought him out for emotional support after a death in her family, more than a year after they broke up.</p>
<p>So yes, sometimes it works out OK. </p>
<p>Oddly, though, it’s been five years, and he hasn’t been in another serious relationship since then. And it’s not because of lingering feelings for this girl; it just hasn’t happened.</p>
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<p>Some of them, yes, but I see other students who aren’t having any sex at all or who are celibate for years between relationships. So many that I sometimes think the people who run college dining halls must be putting some sort of anti-aphrodisiac in the soda machines.</p>
<p>This is a topic I’ve been wondering about a lot recently; any idea relatively how common committed relationships are in college versus hanging out in groups? I read somewhere that the prevalence of the first serious relationship not occurring until after undergrad days is increasing.</p>
<p>Neither S nor D had high school relationships to speak of (S only during his last 8 weeks of senior year, D not at all), and S has only had one relationship that began with a summer romance and died in October (but broke his heart) while he has been in college. D is only a freshman; she had dreamed about things being different BF-wise in college, but nothing but unrequited crushes so far. For the first several weeks, I was sad for her, but then I realized she is meeting many more people and doing more diverse things than she would be if she had tied herself to one person immediately.</p>
<p>For me thinking about them, it’s probably one of those grass is always greener on the other side things. I mourn and worry some for them because they haven’t gained any experience in how to be in healthy relationships yet, but if they had been seriously (or serially) involved since a young age, I would probably be worrying about that, too.</p>
<p>Well, they may not be learning that, but the “hanging out in groups” experience is also valuable, especially if the groups include students of both sexes, as often seems to be the case. Our kids are going to live and work in a world that isn’t sex-segregated. Living in a co-ed world at college is good preparation for that.</p>
<p>My daughter is a college sophomore. She and many of her friends expect to move off-campus next year. The little groups that are planning to rent apartments together do not necessarily consist of students of one gender. It is not at all unusual for three girls and one guy, say, to share a four-bedroom apartment, or for two guys and one girl to share a three-bedroom apartment. The composition of the groups seems to be determined more by friendships and compatible lifestyles (and the very practical issue of needing to have a specific number of people to fill a specific apartment) than by gender.</p>
<p>Admittedly, all of the above applies only to students outside of the Greek system, which is sex-segregated by its very nature.</p>
<p>Neither of my kids has had a serious boyfriend/girlfriend yet…in either hs or college. I’m hoping DS finds someone…he’s in grad school. DD is an undergrad and says she “doesn’t have time for a boyfriend”. We’ll see. I agree with others…happens when it happens.</p>
<p>i never dated in high school, but i went to a k-12 school with 50 students in my graduating class and a low male-to-female ratio, so the pool of available dudes was pretty small. i was part of a pretty cohesive group split about equally between male and female friends.</p>
<p>i met my boyfriend in april 2007, at the accepted students’ weekend at our college when we were seniors in high school, and we’ve been together since september 2007. we’re best friends and completely in love. i think we’re going to get married.</p>
<p>As a first born I can attest to earlier posts. I never had a serious relationship in high school and only a few shorter relationships in college. I began the relationship I’m in now in grad school and we’ve been together for 2 years now. I think this also relates to the groups of people I’ve been friends with. In college only a few of my friends were in relationships, whereas in my graduate program nearly all of my classmates are in long term relationships (married or not). </p>
<p>My younger brother, on the other hand, has been with his girlfriend (now fiancee) since middle school. He is now out of college (she has one more year) and they got engaged this summer. They both went to different colleges and made it work.</p>
<p>My youngest brother seems to have little interest in the whole dating thing, he’s a junior in high school. He once told me that he doesn’t have time for a girlfriend, as he is very involved in sports etc. We’ll see what happens!</p>
<p>You’ll laugh, but I have badgered my nephew to ask a girl out for a coke. He hasn’t dated, and is a jr. in college. Has done the group socialization thing. He’s busy, though, as an engineering student.</p>
<p>My niece, now 25 and expecting, had 3 serious boyfriends, 1 in HS, one in HS/college, and the last, current husband, in college. She seems to have been one of those people who enjoyed dating but kept girlfriends too.</p>
<p>DD is a senior, no dating, but I notice that her peers do date.</p>
<p>I think the co-ed group socializing thing is healthy. I do see a lot of it, even in middle school. I think IM and texting makes it easier for boys and girls to talk to each other, and that carries over into face-to-face friendships.</p>
<p>My S (firstborn) did not date in hs other than semi-formals, prom, etc. He is a soph in college and has his first girlfriend. He seems to be really level-headed about it.</p>
<p>D, on the other hand, has had boyfriends since middle school. She had 2 long-term (well over a year each) relationships back to back. The first ended amicably, but the second was very intense and ended with a lot of drama that just dragged on and on. After that she decided to stay single for a while, and dated/“hung out with” a few guys casually. It’s been 9 months since the dramatic breakup, and now she’s in a new relationship with a guy she really likes, who seems to sincerely care about her. I’m glad she had the time on her own first, to focus on her girlfriends and on herself. I was worried that she was depending too much on having a boy to make her happy, and I wanted her to learn to stand independently on her own two feet. I think she did that.</p>
<p>I’m not sure which route is better. On the one hand, S was more able to focus on school and what HE wanted to do, rather than worrying about making someone else happy. On the other, D has learned a lot about communication and relationships between genders, and she knows that although breakups are hard, life does go on. D has also gained some perspective on what she wants - and does NOT want - from a relationship. S has yet to experience the pain of a break-up, which is both a good and a bad thing.</p>