need advice with 16 yr old daughter

Parent Cafe
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<p>You might not want to hear this, but at 16 and dating for several months, you actually should be proud. As every generational parent has learned sex changes with the times. 3 or 4 months at this age is a lifetime. If she has taken this long to allow him to go this far, than she is thinking about it in a rational level for her age. I would think at this age, for them they believe they are truly in love, and that would be more of my worry, because we all know the likelihood of making it to sr prom is about the same as winning money from a lottery scratch card. </p>

<p>However, to them they think this is the one! They will now spend more time with each other and actually lose friends, becoming isolated and dependent on the relationship. They will start discussing a more important issue IMHO…college. They will make lifelong decisions and select colleges to be near each other. That dream college she always wanted is no longer in play because she won’t be near him.</p>

<p>At 16 she is a soph or jr. If she is a jr., than you are approaching sr yr, I would spend less time worrying about her sexual activity and more time worrying that the relationship is not a player in her collegiate determination. </p>

<p>As you stated she is on the pill for medical reasons, and with that knowledge even after months she has not jumped in bed with him. You are now looking at an emotional situation where she is involved and it is hard to explain to a jr, rising sr not to limit their college choices when you don’t understand how much THEY LOVE HIM!</p>

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<p>I agree with bulletandpima. Be glad she isn’t 13! This sounds like very normal behavior to me. Goal is no STD/pregnancy/bad college choice due to BF.</p>

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<p>do all the above, and then hold on and hope for the best. your concerns and the realities of her behavior are as old as time. NO ONE has figured out how to truly keep teenage girls physically and emotionally safe.</p>

<p>And once boys are interested she’ll experience a power. That power is dangerous but the behavior is what keeps the human race going. Sex and aggression in teenagers is biologically imprinted, it’s also why the caution part of the brain isn’t fully developed yet.</p>

<p>By design, we’re wired to reproduce and conquer the next village at that age:)</p>

<p>three teenage daughters, last one is going through it now so I’ve been through it. Your job, keep her alive! on my last one I’m lucky she’s an athlete, very little time or energy for boys, but still we have challenges, a few of those challenges have been big and scary ones.</p>

<p>good luck!</p>

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<p>If you decide to put her on the pill, then because she is still a child, you need to have oversight to MAKE SURE she takes it every day - best around the same time every day. One missed pill can bring on ovulation (many don’t realize that).</p>

<p>No one should expect a child to always remember to take necessary medication. Teens forget their homework, their gym bags, to make their beds, etc. For something this important, we can’t expect they won’t forget once or twice (and a one time slip up could make you a grandma.)</p>

<p>for the record…I am not a fan of the pill for health reasons. I don’t think it’s healthy for women, and I do think it contributes to various cancers in women - including contributing to the speed of their growth</p>

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<p>Your “overhearing” this much information is suspect…</p>

<p>also, like others have said, get her on birth control because you care enough about her to prevent her from getting pregnant. bulletandpima’s post seems most appropriate.</p>

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<p>Actually, the more common term is tramp stamp. [Urban</a> Dictionary: tramp stamp](<a href=“http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tramp%20stamp]Urban”>Urban Dictionary: Tramp Stamp)</p>

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<p>0_0</p>

<p>That seems like a very defeatist attitude.</p>

<p>My own family has had a very hard line with sex – no sex, no making out in any relationship that’s not marriage at any age, and nothing in between. My sister is not on birth control (no artificial contraception allowed), we haven’t even had the sex talk, etc. Given that we are all religious, it works for us. Just throwing out what is clearly a very different experience.</p>

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<p>I may be in the minority here, but at 16 if the girl has been dating the boy for 3 - 4 months and all they have done is take her shirt off then count your blessings. </p>

<p>The unfortunate fact is that teenagers have sex and will do so no matter what we as parents do. Most parents are in denial about this and think “not my DS /DD”. Sorry but they most likely are having sex. </p>

<p>The best you can do is to share your values and give them the information the need on the emotional impact of sex, birth control, STDs, etc. </p>

<p>I went through this with DS. I found out exactly what was going on with a GF a couple years ago and talked to him. It was awkward but needed. We got to the point where he is open with me without oversharing. It was a long road.</p>

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<p>@Baelor, </p>

<p>what is the benefit of not having the sex talk?</p>

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<p>It wasn’t like a conscious effort not to. There was just no need, so it never really came up. Do you talk about, say, cerebral palsy with your child at some point just because (if no one you know has it)? Maybe, but unlikely – it’s just not really relevant. Sex ed in 7th grade was enough.</p>

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<p>Side note…school just presented annual musical. Grease. Which should be subtitled “It’s Great to be a Slut!”.</p>

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<p>Baelor,</p>

<p>I understand that mindset, but when the time does come (whether it be before or after marriage) 7th grade sex ed. is grossly insufficient.</p>

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<p>I’ve always hated the message in Grease. Change who you are, go against your values and convictions to appeal to your boyfriend/girlfriend.</p>

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<p>The mom has stated she is on bc for medical reasons, this is not a bc issue. This is really IMHO more of an issue that DD is on the bc and fear. DD probably knows that she is “safe” since she is on the pill for medical reasons. Mom is concerned that because she “feels” safe she will risk it and regret it.</p>

<p>She as a Mom is in a very unique situation, she placed her DD on the pill because medically the doctor decided that DD needed to go on to help her. Now she has a DD with a BF and knows that because of a medical condition it created a whole new set of problems. </p>

<p>Look at it this way, DD is on the pill for medical reasons, but you just found out she is sexually active</p>

<p>What are your responses now? You take DD off the pill and hurt her medically, or do you risk the chance that she will act responsibly knowing she is sexually active?</p>

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<p>I guess I am fortunate. My brother is an Albino, my nephew has CP, our niece is deaf and my BIL/SIL are divorced…btw so were my folks, and my Dad died of cancer. We talk about it all! My children know that I do not accept race as a descriptor, I look straight in the eyes of a person in a wheelchair when I say hi, I get emotional pain. </p>

<p>Yes, it doesn’t come up frequently, but my response is maybe you need to acknowledge how fortunate their life is and actually address it…to me it is a variation of the ostrich in the sand, the difference is society accepts this variation.</p>

<p>Finally, I also think there is a societal problem, because for some odd reason we blame the education system for not doing a great job as parents, but at the same time we have no issue relinquishing our parental job and expect them to be parents by having sex ed classes. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say they don’t get your child academically because they gave the a low grade when you didn’t help them, or get mad because as a parent they are teaching sex ed while you blame them. When did teachers become the parent? </p>

<p>IMHO our educational failure exists because parents forget that education is like a marriage. The only way for a child to be successful academically is based on respect. The minute you get that your children spend more waking hours with the teacher and they are not the enemy when they critique your child is the minute your child will flourish.</p>

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<p>In some cases, yes. Not in all. And the parts in which it is insufficient are not necessarily going to be filled in by a parent.</p>

<p>@:b&p: I don’t know what you’re saying, sorry.</p>

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<p>I am simply stating that every parent should address every issue. I highly doubt that your child has never seen someone in a wheelchair. It is not proper IMHO to talk about it in front of that person, but you should have a conversation with your child. I was a teacher for many yrs and I can say that there was never a yr without several handicap children wandering the halls in their (our kids) elementary school.</p>

<p>I also did a long term sub for Special Ed at their elementary school, THANK GOD! My children would come to my room and wait for me to finish up. Because of that they “played” with my students and their opinions changed, they weren’t the kids that were inanimate objects, they actually were people who smiled when they saw them and asked them to color a picture of Aladdin with them while they waited for their ride. Their minds changed the minute they asked the history of that student, their lives changed the minute they realized that the child they colored with was not younger them, but older.</p>

<p>You brought up CP, and as an aunt of a highly functioning main stream CP child, I wanted to let you know your kids see them everyday. Just because you don’t and are unaware of their existence, doesn’t mean they are not in your kids lives on a daily basis. Have you volunteered at your kids school in the library? If you have then you would know that your children are very aware of children with physical or mental handicaps. Every school has an LD or SD classroom. I guess you just decided to be an ostrich and believe that these children are not in your children’s school. Maybe you are fortunate enough to place your children in private so they never see them. If your children are in public actually have a real conversation and ask them if they remember if their schools (elementary and MS) had LD/SD rooms? Ask them if they saw them in the lunch room? 10 will get me 100 they did, but unfortunately for you they were just CP kids that you never talked to your children about. I only hope that the school system talked to your children about how CP occurs in utero in 7th grade sex ed, and that the mother could have done everything, but it just happened. I also hope that they explain to the children that CP is not mental, but physical, and academically they are getting what you just said!

That statement was offensive, because it showed the ignorance. CP is not something anyone should ever shun. We should talk about it! We should make sure that society understands the cause. Like I said, my brother is an albino, and 30 yrs ago nobody talked about it because of fear of insulting the parents. You seem to have the same opinion, my mother did not cause my brother to be born with albinism, my sister was not responsible for her son’s CP. They did not give birth while drinking Thunderbird 20/20 or smoking a crack pipe. They did everything to bring a healthy child in the world, but God had different plans, like I said it is ignorant not to discuss humanity with your children. Actually, my family history might be a teaching lesson to 16 yos.</p>

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<p>Back to the OP, unless you have strong religious or moral convictions about waiting until marriage, it will be a lot better to be open and not prohibitive with your D. A ‘few months’ is a pretty long time for a 16 year old to be with her BF, to her it’s probably a committed, monogamous relationship. My feeling is that this is the best a mother can hope for, when a D starts to become sexually active. It happened for my D at the same age, and while it was a HUGE psychological bump for me to get over (much harder than ‘empty nest’), she has continued to have healty, adult, self-respecting relationships. In contrast, her best friend had parents who strictly forbade any kind of dating and she ended up sneaking behind her parents’ backs constantly. She also had a pregnancy scare which luckily was negative. I think, more often than not, this is the consequence of not being open and accepting with D’s.</p>

<p>(Just want to add that I think it’s fine to be forthright about your own convictions – that your D should wait, etc—I tried that myself.)</p>

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<p>I do not have any strong convictions that one needs to wait until marriage to be sexually active but I would prefer my daughter to be older then 16. She does not have the maturity to deal with the emotional fallout that will inevitably occur when this relationship ends. We have other kids, so I am not naive; I know high school and college age kids are having sex. But this is a 16 year old sophomore who has only been dating her BF for a few months. Perhaps I am old fashioned, but I am not happy that after three months the shirt is already off!<br>
And not to throw another topic into the mix, but I am more concerned with oral sex and STD’s then actual sexual intercourse. IMHO, girls feel a great deal of pressure to have oral sex with their BF’s. I doubt many of them think they can catch an STD from this activity! It seems to be an expectation among high school boys these days. (or so I am told by high school girls)</p>

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<p>I do not have any strong convictions that one needs to wait until marriage to be sexually active but* I would prefer my daughter to be older then 16.** She does not have the maturity to deal with the emotional fallout that will inevitably occur when this relationship ends.*</p>

<p>^^^ Two very good points. </p>

<p>Also, my concern is if this girl is a junior, and begins having sex by - say June - and the relationship ends a short time later, she could go thru this a few more times during her senior year with different boys (especially if this boy tells the other boys)…and the second time it won’t take 3 months to get to that poing because the boundary has already been crossed. Next time it will be 1 month…after that…who knows.</p>

<p>If your young D becomes sexually active with this boy why would she not soon have sex with every boyfriend that she has - even if he’s only a “boyfriend” for a few weeks? And, if you’ve shown your consent by providing the pill, what moral authority would you have to say, "Yes you did have sex with boy #1, but don’t have sex with boy #2 (or #3, #4, etc) all within her high school years.</p>

<p>The thought that within the next 14 months (high school graduation) this girl could have 3-4 sex partners is a bit frightening (at least to me).</p>

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<p>That’s a fair point of view, and I generally agree. But it’s simply a matter of degree; a thought that I conveyed very poorly when talking about CP. I would not expect every parent to sit down with their children and engage in a day-long discussion about the scientific background of every single disease/condition/disorder. That level of detail, in general, is probably not needed (the “relevant” in my previous post). It can be discussed in a more general context. Each family has different ideas that require different depths of discussion. In mine, that depth with sex did not need to extend as deeply as in some other families, and sex ed in 7th grade and 11th grade was considered (and is) enough, at least before the members of my family get married.</p>