Would you allow your high school aged DD/DS to do this?

[Mouse House Mama]

If your DD is asking to go away with her boyfriend for the weekend on a trip, just the two of them, you are ignorant to think they are not being intimate already.

JMHO.

True- but that doesn't mean I want to set the stage for it and make it easy. I also do not think it is appropriate to be taking trips with a SO when you are a teen.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

I guess I will throw this out here then since you guys are talking theory and I am living it.

My dd is 19 and she has gone down to TX once to see her LD boyfriend, last yr. Not that I am thrilled with it but I can't demand she break up with him either. Now we did fund that trip. I guess it was because we moved back to MO for her senior yr which put some guilt on us as parents and she missed her friends.

He has come up here twice and stay at our house. That was last yr & yr before.

This yr nothing. I am not funding anymore "trips". DD has told me that she plans to get a job in her college town and save money to go to TX over Christmas break.

We said that is fine. If she wants to go see him then it is on her nickel.

So stay tuned...Do I wish she would cut this guy loose? You bet.

 

[mjkacmom]

This is what I feel.

I'm not naive. If I give my DD's permission to go away with a boyfriend for a weekend, I know deep down that they are going to be intimate. I may want to pretend they are not by saying that I have instilled good morals, trust them & hope they make the right choices, (which I think we have) but I would be ignorant to think that they are not being intimate.

Your dds' are adults already - why would they need your permission?

 

[bicker]

True- but that doesn't mean I want to set the stage for it and make it easy.

You're not making it significantly easier or harder, regardless of what you decide. The question is whether you want to take advantage of the situation to be able to exert some influence over what happens, or prefer to just adhere to certain principles which can be used to relieve you of the feeling of responsibility for what happens. I presented this dichotomy earlier in the thread, and it was yet-another thing that folks either ignored or didn't wish to respond to: Is the objective what's realistically best for the teen, overall, or is it to impose a principle regardless of whether or not doing so serves the welfare of the teen best. Truly, most parents find themselves in a literally impossible predicament: Either they try to convince themselves that through their imposition they can ensure that their teen isn't having sex (which practically everyone in this thread has debunked, often saying, "I'm not naive enough to believe that . . . "), or they are left without a legitimate objection (at least in terms of sex) for objecting to the trip. "Because I said so," rings hollow in everyone's mind, even if they don't admit it. There are actually legitimate objections for such a trip (like money, as The Mystery Machine highlighted above), but sex isn't one of them. If anything, as I alluded to above, with regard to the leverage the granting of permission provides parents, sex is one of the main reasons why parents should be more positively inclined toward granting permission.

 

[luvmy3]

This is what I feel.

I'm not naive. If I give my DD's permission to go away with a boyfriend for a weekend, I know deep down that they are going to be intimate. I may want to pretend they are not by saying that I have instilled good morals, trust them & hope they make the right choices, (which I think we have) but I would be ignorant to think that they are not being intimate.

Exactly. If I know my dd is in a relationship at that age chances are very high that they are having sex so why would I be surprised if she came home pregnant if I didn't discuss the relationship with her, take her to the OB/GYN for some BC and pack a box of condom's in her suitcase?

I guess I will throw this out here then since you guys are talking theory and I am living it.

My dd is 19 and she has gone down to TX once to see her LD boyfriend, last yr. Not that I am thrilled with it but I can't demand she break up with him either. Now we did fund that trip. I guess it was because we moved back to MO for her senior yr which put some guilt on us as parents and she missed her friends.
He has come up here twice and stay at our house. That was last yr & yr before.

This yr nothing. I am not funding anymore "trips". DD has told me that she plans to get a job in her college town and save money to go to TX over Christmas break.

We said that is fine. If she wants to go see him then it is on her nickel.

So stay tuned...Do I wish she would cut this guy loose? You bet.

But no matter how guilty you felt I'm betting that if you didn't trust your dd and feel she was ready for a trip like that you would have never let her go (or continue to). Sounds like your 19 year old is a mature and responsible young lady

 

[MELSMICE]

If your DD is asking to go away with her boyfriend for the weekend on a trip, just the two of them, you are ignorant to think they are not being intimate already.

JMHO.

I'm sure you're correct. After dating her BF for over 5 years though, she never asked. So, intimate or not, she knew she would have gotten a "no" from us.

Just not something we condone.

True- but that doesn't mean I want to set the stage for it and make it easy. I also do not think it is appropriate to be taking trips with a SO when you are a teen.

Same thoughts.

Your dds' are adults already - why would they need your permission?

In all reality, they don't at this point. My oldest will be 21 next month & would not need my permission, however, she has broken up with long term boyfriend, so I would question her intent if it was just some guy she wanted to take a trip with.

My two 18 year olds, even though they are 18, would ask our permission. They just turned 18 last week & were being taken out to "a club" last night by their friends. They still asked what time they had to be home.

I guess it's just the way they were raised, the values & morals we have continually talked to them about. They respect the fact that even though they are adults they are still living in our house & there are some rules/guidelines that they need to follow. We have always treated our DD's with respect & they in return respect our rules & what we expect from them.

 

[karen l]

I'm a widow so I've had to "talks" with my youngest DS as well as my DD. After reading this thread last night I asked this question of my 15 yr old DS
(he has a steady girlfriend). He told me I'd be crazy to make this offer to them. He said the fact they'd be away & among strangers would be too much of a temptation. We have a very solid relationship (at least right now) & he has told me there's been no intimacy. I've told him I think they're too young for sex & I'd like him to wait until he's older. DS agrees & feels he's not ready for this type of commitment. We've talked about unplanned pregnancy, stds & the emotional impact of a physical relationship. He wants to wait at least until college for an intimate relationship. (I hope & pray this will be reality.)

 

[The Mystery Machine]

But no matter how guilty you felt I'm betting that if you didn't trust your dd and feel she was ready for a trip like that you would have never let her go (or continue to). Sounds like your 19 year old is a mature and responsible young lady

Well yes. She is in China now and comes back Tuesday!!! Her group has 15 guys and 3 girls.

In the age of cell phones, Facebook and Skype, it is a different world for my dd's generation.

Basically what it boils down to for us now, if you want to act like you are a couple then you need to pay for it. She understands this and will hopefully mature even more. (I don't have to like it.)

She did pay for the last trip she took down there. And was still able to let her money she earned for the summer stretch almost to the end of the school yr.

This yr since she went to China she was only able to work for 5 weeks. She also needs to get a job to pay for her "extras" and she knows we expect this from her since she was not able to make enough over the summer.

We will see....

 

[Momvic5]

I am sending the message that ia trust my teen to go on a trip. Haven't we been over this? Kids can be intimate after school, on lunch hours, etc )again hasn't the thread been over this). I trust them to handle those times too.
All of that said: I personally do not think older, responsible teens who are in a long term relationship and take measures to protect themselves against STDs and pregnancy having sex is immoral.


.

You are right, kids can be intimate after school, on lunch hours, etc... so does that mean we should give our high school teens our approval to have sex on a regular basis and provide them with a safe place that is considerate of others. I am not willing to do that......so in my home I would be being inconsistent with what I approve of if I sent them on a weekend trip alone. I am glad, though, that you have found peace and are consistent with what you will allow your high school teens to do...being consistent is often one of the hardest parts of raising kids.

 

[MrsPete]

She "trusts" her DD and her DD is on birth control so she can't get pregnant

Doesn't that sentence contain a contradiction? When people say they "trust" their daughter in that context, it tends to mean that they don't believe she's going to have sex . . . yet she's on birth control?

In answer to the larger question, NO. Under no circumstances would I allow a high schooler to take an unchaperoned trip such as you're describing.

She will certainly take similar trips occasionally in college, but there's a huge line between high school and college -- a vast amount of maturity comes along with high school graduation. I know I've run into former students just after high school, and stepping across that line into adulthood very often makes a world of difference. Just months later, they look older, they act more maturely. Or at least most of them do.

Also, it's a matter of us condoning such trips. Once she's out on her own, she'll naturally be somewhat limited by finances, but she'll know that such trips are not taken with our permission. That will limit some of what she might do.

The wildest kids I know are the ones with permissive parents. Yes, there's the "but they'll be out on their own soon" argument, but parents who teach their kids WHY they should consider the consequences of their actions end up with mature young adults . . . parents who just lay down the law and say, "Obey it 'cause I said so" get kids who end up with no self-discipline.

 

[MrsPete]

You are right, kids can be intimate after school, on lunch hours, etc... so does that mean we should give our high school teens our approval to have sex on a regular basis and provide them with a safe place that is considerate of others. I am not willing to do that......so in my home I would be being inconsistent with what I approve of if I sent them on a weekend trip alone. I am glad, though, that you have found peace and are consistent with what you will allow your high school teens to do...being consistent is often one of the hardest parts of raising kids.

I agree with this statement. My kids know what I expect of them. While I'm aware that they'll vere from that path occasionally, holding my standards firm will keep them closer to the path than saying, "Okay, anything goes."

 

[disykat]

Sorry but I don't see the difference between those who call someone a slut and those who 'believe it to be the case'. Either way it is reprehensible! We are not talking about a girl who is sleeping with anything in trousers here, we're talking about a young woman in a relationship who wants to go on vacation with their boyfriend. I find it interesting that those who choose to be so judgemental often claim to be Christians! Remind me again where was it written 'judge not lest ye be judged?'

I see a HUGE difference between calling someone names and thinking a behavior is immoral (which is the definition of the word in question.) Having an opinion is not the same as judging. EVERYONE has opinions.

My point is that the person who wrote that post was slamming anyone who had the opinion that the action of teenage sex is immoral. That poster said nothing about calling names, they were talking about beliefs. Believing an action to be immoral is NOT the same as calling some immoral. Everyone behaves immorally at times.

 

[snarlingcoyote]

At 17, alone with the boyfriend, completely unsupervised, no. That's an invitation to .

At 17 with friends AND the boyfriend, completely unsupervised. . .maybe. I would take a LOT of convincing, but I could be maybe be swayed, even though I know what might possibly happen as the same thing could happen home alone in the afternoons, so I'd have to have some trust in my daughter to make decisions and have friends who would keep them busy, but not that kind of busy.

At 17 with friends unsupervised, probably, depending upon the child.

At 17 with boyfriend and supervision, yes.

At 18 or 19, however, things would be completely different. A 17 HS Junior is different from an 18 year old college student. I'll be honest, I'm much more comfortable with a college student who is, ahem, "active" than a HS student.

 

[gina2000]

You're not making it significantly easier or harder, regardless of what you decide. The question is whether you want to take advantage of the situation to be able to exert some influence over what happens, or prefer to just adhere to certain principles which can be used to relieve you of the feeling of responsibility for what happens. I presented this dichotomy earlier in the thread, and it was yet-another thing that folks either ignored or didn't wish to respond to: Is the objective what's realistically best for the teen, overall, or is it to impose a principle regardless of whether or not doing so serves the welfare of the teen best. Truly, most parents find themselves in a literally impossible predicament: Either they try to convince themselves that through their imposition they can ensure that their teen isn't having sex (which practically everyone in this thread has debunked, often saying, "I'm not naive enough to believe that . . . "), or they are left without a legitimate objection (at least in terms of sex) for objecting to the trip. "Because I said so," rings hollow in everyone's mind, even if they don't admit it. There are actually legitimate objections for such a trip (like money, as The Mystery Machine highlighted above), but sex isn't one of them. If anything, as I alluded to above, with regard to the leverage the granting of permission provides parents, sex is one of the main reasons why parents should be more positively inclined toward granting permission.

Do you really think a parent has any leverage beyond granting permission to a teen to go away with a boy/girlfriend? I'm sorry, but I am not naive to believe that all our discussions about contraception/pregnancy are not going to mean a damn thing once my teen and his girlfriend find themselves in a non-supervised setting....and as a matter of fact...parental permission to be in that setting by definition in a teenager's mind gives him/her more justification to do whatever he/she is inclined to do.

Kids don't think like adults. They think like kids. Give them permission to do something and they very often assume that gives them permission to do all the perks that come with the situation. They aren't doing it on my dime nor with my permission. My child will engage in sexual behavior regardless of what I say but I don't have to give him carte blanche to do so.

 

[allison443]

I said no, and have an anecdote to share:

My friend's daughter won a full scholarship to a nearby university 4 years ago, and was in her senior year, about to graduate with a 4.0 average, when she and her boyfriend went to Mexico for Spring Break. I was shocked that my friend let her daughter do this! But the friend said, "She's been such a good girl, I have to reward her behavior by letting her go on this trip."

I saw photos of the college graduation on Facebook, and learned that she won more scholarships to pursue her Master's Degree.

When I caught up with my friend in mid-July to congratulate her, she burst into tears and told me that her daughter was pregnant. Big surprise -- it happened in Mexico!

Could it have just as easily happened in her dorm room? Of course. But the fact that the parents openly approved of the Mexico trip made sex permissible as well.

You're talking about a 22 year old woman, college grad, being pregnant, right? Not a high school senior? And her mom talking about letting her go to Mexico as a senior in college? When does it stop? If her dd was in grad school would she still need permission to travel with her boyfriend? I think by 22 that's a different scenario than a 17/18 year old. Really a 22 year old grown woman needs to make her own decisions and be responsible for those decisions. It's certainly not the mother's fault

 

[Mouse House Mama]

You're talking about a 22 year old woman, college grad, being pregnant, right? Not a high school senior? And her mom talking about letting her go to Mexico as a senior in college? When does it stop? If her dd was in grad school would she still need permission to travel with her boyfriend? I think by 22 that's a different scenario than a 17/18 year old. Really a 22 year old grown woman needs to make her own decisions and be responsible for those decisions. It's certainly not the mother's fault

As long as I lived in my parent's house I had to follow their rules. That meant no vacations with boyfriends and no sleepovers. It didn't matter if I was 40. That was their rules. If I didn't like it I could move out. Everyone I knew had the same rules.

 

[Pigeon]

Probably. At 17, she'll be sexually active if she wants to be, despite whatever I might think or say about it.

Actually, provided she was careful, I don't especially care.

 

[Jennasis]

Wow this thing has gone on!

I agree with the poster who said I do not consider sex by a high school age teen with a long-term boyfriend to be immoral.

In fact, I do not consider teen-sex to be bad or immoral at all. I don't approve of unprotected sex. I don't approve of sex unless it is between two willing participants.

But sex in a monogamous. LTR is fine with me. Truthfully, I find waiting for marriage to be odd.

 

[allison443]

As long as I lived in my parent's house I had to follow their rules. That meant no vacations with boyfriends and no sleepovers. It didn't matter if I was 40. That was their rules. If I didn't like it I could move out. Everyone I knew had the same rules.

Oh, I agree with this, but it sounded like that poster was saying if only that mom didn't let her 22 year old daughter go to Mexico, this wouldn't have happened Like the mom should/could have forbidden her 22 year old from having sex. I think at that point it is the 22 year old's responsibility for these life decisions, don't you?

 

[NHdisneylover]

You are right, kids can be intimate after school, on lunch hours, etc... so does that mean we should give our high school teens our approval to have sex on a regular basis and provide them with a safe place that is considerate of others. I am not willing to do that......so in my home I would be being inconsistent with what I approve of if I sent them on a weekend trip alone. I am glad, though, that you have found peace and are consistent with what you will allow your high school teens to do...being consistent is often one of the hardest parts of raising kids.

I think we are just not understanding each other well. I do not (will not) tell my teen to go have sex and I will rent her the room. But in so far as there are plenty of times that she is home alone and could have a boy over, or she is on her own after school and could end up at a boy's house--there are opportunities but nothing that is set up as "a place/time for sex" as you seem to be thinking. Just normal things that one might normally have (time at home, etc) which could be used as opportunity for sex if a teen is so inclined. Likewise, a trip would be a TRIP. The main purpose of a trip is to go somewhere else and sight see or visit friends there or what gave you--there is something about the DESTINATION that is a draw. There are on trips, just as in every day life, times/places where a teen who is so inclined could have sex.
But, yes, I AM consistent--I CONSISTENTLY trust my teen to handle herself around a boyfriend even when unchaperoned--at school, at his house, at our house, at a friend's house and on vacation.

At 17, alone with the boyfriend, completely unsupervised, no. That's an invitation to .

At 17 with friends AND the boyfriend, completely unsupervised. . .maybe. I would take a LOT of convincing, but I could be maybe be swayed, even though I know what might possibly happen as the same thing could happen home alone in the afternoons, so I'd have to have some trust in my daughter to make decisions and have friends who would keep them busy, but not that kind of busy.

At 17 with friends unsupervised, probably, depending upon the child.

At 17 with boyfriend and supervision, yes.

At 18 or 19, however, things would be completely different. A 17 HS Junior is different from an 18 year old college student. I'll be honest, I'm much more comfortable with a college student who is, ahem, "active" than a HS student.

Well mine will be 17 when she is a college Freshman. Where does that put her on your scale? Serious question here.

You're talking about a 22 year old woman, college grad, being pregnant, right? Not a high school senior? And her mom talking about letting her go to Mexico as a senior in college? When does it stop? If her dd was in grad school would she still need permission to travel with her boyfriend? I think by 22 that's a different scenario than a 17/18 year old. Really a 22 year old grown woman needs to make her own decisions and be responsible for those decisions. It's certainly not the mother's fault

That is what I was thinking.