It depends on the kids. If it’s just for the prom or homecoming dance and as friends, I don’t see too big of a deal if parents know the kids and know it will go okay. We have a handful of freshmen that go to prom here each year. The far ends of the age spectrum given, 13 and 19 seems a bit much though. At our proms my girls haven’t ever been alone with their date except in the car to go from pictures to Grand March. Not that I was worried about them as I knew their dates well and no one was looking to rape anyone just because they went to a dance together.
Our experience hasn’t been that big of an age gap but still a gap. My youngest was a 15 year old sophomore when she went to prom with a senior almost 19. We knew him and it was not a problem. They did “date” but that consisted of being at the same friend gatherings or school events and not actual dates alone together. This year as a 16 year old junior she took a 19 year old church camp friend. Again, not a problem, we’ve known him since he was 10 and they had a fabulous time.
I don’t think Seniors should be dating freshman. Too much of a gap at that age.
I don’t get why the Senior guys who ask a freshman girl as”friends “ don’t know any senior or junior girls to ask as friends.
Younger sisters of friends or family friends in the situations I was aware of when my kids were doing the group prom pictures and such. But in general I don’t think freshmen need to go to junior or senior prom. There is just a big maturity difference between freshman and seniors and never saw much freshman/senior “romantic.” I did used to chuckle when college males would come home and take their senior girlfriends to prom or the homecoming dance. I’m sure that was a blast from the past for those college kids. By guys all had a couple friends who got reluctantly rope into that.
We had this issue last year with S17. He was a techie in the drama club and a freshman girl entered into school and wanted to learn from him to replace when he graduated. He wanted to invite her to prom. He’s a winter birthday so he was 18 by prom and she was a young in the grade fall birthday so would have still been 14. H and I talked about it a lot. We know and trust our son and we had met the girl, but we ultimately decided that it was not a good idea. S17 didn’t take her.