I don't think Wayne is a proponent of dating at 13! LOL! My daughter started dating at 15. Sort of. At home, chaperoned. Her 1st boyfriend. They had dinner together EVERY night with my family or his. For a year, they were together every day! She's an amazing child. Focused on good grades and getting into Princeton.
The more trust and responsibilty I have given her, the more she has taken on and flourished. Depending on the child, yes, they are so very capable of making good decisions. I have a couple of very strict sisters who had a "my way or the highway attitude". They had some truly heartbreaking issues at about 15 because they quelled their children to such an extent. And the girls both chose methods that would devastate their mothers. I feel quite confident that the trust I have in my girls will pay off. They talk to me. Have you seen the commercial which says, "at 4 she wouldn't stop talking; at 16 you can't get her to talk". I had such a laugh at that because at 16, my daughter talks to me constantly! Thank goodness. Sometimes too much.
I let my 14 year old get her tongue pierced. She researched it well. She showed herself to be wholly responsible and brought her algebra grade up from an F to a B. My husband had agreed to it if she got that B but he never believed she would. He was furious when I took her a week before school let out. I wanted her to be able to show it off to her friends. His only objection was what people might think. I felt he was very silly about that. What people might think is immaterial to me when I know my child is a bright, caring human being, well behaved but she wears a barbell in her tongue. I know a 13 year old who has smoked speed, had sex, gone wild. When they say don't sweat the small stuff, a mother had really think about what's small or not. Tongue piercing, small. And the world is much safer than it seems if you watch CNN. Violence is down even since the days when I was a child. It merely gets more coverage. My son is almost 8 and when he wants to use the men's room, I put my foot in the doorway and chat with him, much to the dismay of some guys in there. I keep my eyes averted from the the urinal. But my teenaged daughters, I trust to make good decisons and to be a bit independant. My Sydney, the one who just got her tongue pierced, started summer school, P.E. I walked her to the gym door because she was "scared". She found a friend, linked arms, smiled and sent me on my way. I had tears in my eyes just as I did the first day I let her go into kindergarten. Some people might look at Syd, with her pierced tongue and her 31 types of tongue barbells we bought on Ebay and assume she is a wild thing because of it. But she's a sweet, innocent child who wants to make a statement about her individuality and I feel sure that I am doing the right thing to let it be so. It turned out to be a very little deal. I worried about nerve damage and all that but I trusted her to handle it and she did. The Bible says "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart ...." As far as I am concerned, with each individual child that holds true. You will rarely make a mistake to trust a child to do what is right if you model for them. Not all children hold true in this respect but most do.
I am going to go out on a limb and say, lighten up! You can control the circumstances under which a child goes out into the scary world, make them feel independant and still be certain they are safe, but you need to let go. Kids need to be allowed to taste the world they will one day run. Let her go see Star War's latest adventure without you. Drop her off at the door and pick her up at the door and she'll expand her horizens. In the future you may give her an extra 15 or 30 minutes if the theatre is at the mall as ours are. Trust her and she will reward your trust. Send them in groups. They look at boys, giggle but stay in group formation.
Bobbi
http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de/chicken.gif "Chick's rule!"
Tell me, what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? -Mary Oliver
