Quote:
Originally Posted by jannieC
I'm a bit old fashioned, so my immediate response is that I would probably not allow her to see him. Yes, she would sneak to see him but at least she would know that I was strongly against it. I don't know Maria- it's illegal on his part. She may be mature and he may be immature, but she should be able to be a 15 years old, and not try to grow up overnight with a 21 year old man with a baby.
At 15 years old, the parent's responsibilities are to set limits, boundaries and consequences. She's 15, not 18 and I think it's a parent's responsibility to tell a child what to do. Again, I know this comes off as being old fashioned and may even seem unrealistic to many, but after working on the adolescent unit, I've seen too many kids completely f*ked up because they had little or no guidance.
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I agree, and I think she will thank you for it later. I'm not that old, but I'm about to sound it. If you look at this from a neurological perspective, a 15 year old's brain has not fully developed the capacity to make sound decisions and use good judgement independently--especially when faced with raging hormones and being 'in love.' Teens really do need their parents to step in and make some unpleasant decisions for them until they are more emotionally prepared to do it for themselves. You can already see that her judgment is not really clear in this situation based on the fact that she sees this guy as a good catch.
My parents forbid me to date at ALL until I was 16, and of course I hated it and hated them for a while. I don't know if I'll be THAT restrictive with my own kids, but looking back, I was really ridiculously niave at that age. I see now that I needed to focus on more productive things than being hot and heavy with my little boyfriends. If you do decide to restrict her from seeing him, presenting all of the reasons the others in this thread have already mentioned in a calm and loving manner will go a long way over saying "No, because I am the adult and I said so" as my parents did!
Maybe this is all moot and you've already had the talk, but I would, no matter what the two of you decide, try to keep her busy doing other things besides hanging out with this guy/talking on the phone with this guy/obsessing about how to sneak out with him. If she doesn't already have a job, it might help to keep her busy and focus on being responsible. Also, what else does she like to do? Does she have something she is passionate about besides this guy? A sport, a school activity of some sort... Channeling her energy productively might help reduce the chance of a bad outcome no matter which way you decide to go with this.