<p>Oh for heavens sake. I wasn’t judging your daughter, I don’t KNOW your daughter. I was talking about how my approach as a kid was very different than my daughter’s, and how I appreciated her giving it more thought than I did. None of what I said has anything to do with you or your daughter or the choices you make or don’t make in your family.</p>
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<p>I’m not seeing the judgment about “everyone else’s” relationships. 
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<p>I’ve been at work all day; maybe I need to go further back in the thread to find this disdain of which you speak.</p>
<p>And I wasn’t making judgments about everyone else’s relationship. I was communicating my daughter’s feelings about what she wanted and didn’t want. In her mind, FOR HER, a nine month high school relationship would have not been meaningful. So she chose not to go there. I think it was a great decision FOR HER. Further, I wish I had made similar decisions in similar thoughtful fashion as a kid. None of it had anything to do with you or anyone else.</p>
<p>Nrdsb4, I can assure you no judgment was felt or intended. Truly sorry it was perceived. I feel more like I am actually the one being judged. Lol.</p>
<p>Some of you parents on here are incredibly strict. Let loose a bit and let your children enjoy themselves. It won’t kill them.</p>
<p>I know exactly what xaniamom is talking about. Everytime the discussion of relationships comes up on this board, someone has to say that their child “was too busy” or “their education was more important”, or “concentrated on their career” so they couldn’t be bothered with a relationship. That certainly sounds to me like people criticizing other kids for wanting relationships or “not being motivated enough” to put it off.</p>
<p>Mine managed to get a PhD and law school while dating and “horrors” even getting married while still in their 20’s. Some people can multitask just fine.</p>
<p>Ok, yea, I can see where you might get that. Not everyone CAN manage a relationship, school, work, EC’S and all that at the same time. I know that some can. But for D2 it would have been challenging, and was just not something she wanted to do. Some people multitask better than others. Instead of seeing someone’s commentary on their own kid as some kind of judgment on others…maybe it could just be taken as what works for that individual. Everybody’s different.</p>
<p>If I had looked like my daughter in high school, Im sure I would have taken advantage of that. ;)( I had enough fun just looking like me!) But she wasnt me, and I admire the young women who have made a conscious choice on how they spend their time. I didnt really have a big picture idea of my goals so I fell into things, but that isnt how they do it now.</p>
<p>A friends daughter for example, just graduated from an east coast college and had a serious boyfriend. However, she had planned on finding work in the DC area and when that didnt pan out she broke up with her BF and returned home to the west coast because she didnt want a long distance relationship.</p>
<p>to quote south park: there’s a time and a place for everything. it’s called college</p>
<p>@bharpaz: </p>
<p>Hahaha :P</p>
<p>Naw- that’s what a * gap year* is for.
Some of us * don’t * multitask remember?
;)</p>
<p>Hahahaha!!!</p>
<p>It has honestly never come up in this household. i think its important to be respectful of house rules and it makes things easier on the teen couple as well, reducing pressure for sex.</p>
<p>@cromette: I think my parents and I would agree with your and your husband’s set up in many situations. My mother hates to have a repairman come over when she’s home alone. She’s okay with it if I or my sister are there with her, but she much prefers to have some male relative, even if it’s only my 19 y.o. cousin, in the house at such times. I don’t know how much she or my father would care about friends coming over. I don’t think my father has any female friends other than wives of his buddies, and I don’t think my mother has any male friends who she’s known for fewer than 40 years.</p>
<p>I agree that families are different and that there all sorts of approaches to these sorts of questions. I will note, though, that I think a lot of parents are fooling themselves a bit when they insist that their kids agreed with the rules imposed on them.</p>
<p>Hunt. I agree with you. I have one that COMPLETELY went her own way (bless her little pointed head). One who is probably MORE strict on herself than we were on her, and one who probably complies to get along, but still is pretty strict on herself (by the world’s standards) in some areas. </p>
<p>I don’t think any of them agree with ALL the rules that were imposed upon them. I know my parents were WONDERFUL…I thought half their rules were dumb and useless. 
That is until I had kids…then I realized only about a quarter of them were REALLY dumb and useless.</p>
<p>One of the things I think our children cannot understand until they are in our shoes is that while we have all been teenagers they have yet to have a child, raise the child, watch that child grow from infant, to toddler, to adolescent, to teenager and then to young adult. It is our job to set boundries even if we fought such boundries when we were young. The few years they are teenagers is a major portion of their lives, to us it is a flash. If we treat them as if they are not yet adults it is because we know they are not yet adults no matter how they may feel. They will have all the freedom they can handle and probably more than they expect faster than they expect. In the mean time I will set standards of behavior they will probably find limiting and do so with love and a smile on my face.</p>
<p>D1 recently told me that when she was in 3rd grade she thought she knew it all, there was nothing more we could tell her she didn’t already know. She thought she was a hot shot. I guess maybe that’s why there was a lot eye rolling.</p>
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<p>I would think it would be naive to expect that our kids would agree with all of our rules. However, that’s not the consideration when we establish them.</p>
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<p>That’s very well said. And really, that’s all we can do. We may look back and realize we did a few things wrong, or we could have done B instead of A, but in the end, we do have to make a decision at the time given the knowledge we have, and the best we can do is really just the best we can do. It’s real easy to sit back, point the finger, and criticize when one has never had the responsibility of raising a beloved human being.</p>
<p>would the rule be the same? at that point do you just say stop it and never let them be alone again? in the car? at school ? at the park? how do you keep any conversation going?</p>