Teen Dating Advice: Is Your Teen Under Construction?

This article addresses teen’s development and teen dating relationships.

Teen Dating Advice: My Teen is a Mess!

Teenage dating advice and guiding teens can feel like perpetual construction on the freeways. Do you feel like the orange barrels dented and thumped from months of standing guard as the watchmen for the never-ending asphalt trucks and busy workers that are trying to “complete” the project? Is there ever any rest? Nope.

Freeways are high maintenance – so is parenting some teens. But the best teen dating advice is to remember that they are still “under construction” for a reason…and a season. Sometimes, it can go on for months, even years at a time! Teens that look all grown up yet still require some final touches - “I’m really tired. I don’t think I feel like going out. I just need to hang out at home.” Again? Still?

I can’t rush the freeway completion any more than I can rush the full development of a teenager’s brain. It can be a real challenge as a parent to monitor the ongoing progress of their precious teen. It is even more challenging to experience your own teen dating someone who is…let’s say, “behind schedule.” Every few feet there is another blatant warning that you will encounter a slowdown or bottleneck in the flow of their relationship. “I just can’t stand my sister. She makes me crazy! That’s why I’m in a bad mood!” Really, for a month now? What’s up with that? You find your teen exhausted from a constant state of “alert” and from white-knuckling for hours on end. In an honest moment, you hope they realize it’s just not the way the trip was supposed to be. And yet they drive on not knowing where or when it will end.

Teen Dating Advice: Road Closed – Will Reopen in the Spring of Who Knows When?

Whether you’re teen has high maintenance friends or seems to attract high maintenance dates, either way, there is a point at which you might want to encourage them to look at why they keep choosing to go down that road. There must be some attraction. Is it the drama of driving over potholes at 75 miles and hour to see how the long they can take it before they fall apart? Or maybe your teen just isn’t paying attention to the signs that repeatedly point to the high level of repair needed.

Here’s the good news and some teen dating help - There is always another way. Always Teens do not have to go down that road. Sure, that was the plan but they don’t have to wait until they have a close encounter with rebar and wire mesh protruding from broken concrete before taking the next exit. Teens can pick another route. Really, give them some teenage dating advice and teach them how to put on their turn signal and give it a try – they might actually discover that they like the smoother, quieter option.

Thoughts on this teen dating advice?

Mama j
In the book Dater’s Ed, Lisa Jander, the Teen-Whisperer, helps parents teach their teenagers to learn how to “date defensively, navigate safely and steer clear of unhealthy relationships.”
www.DatersEd.com

Teenage Dating Advice for Girls: Your Essential Safety Check-List

This article navigates some of the most important safety tips that teenage girls should set in concrete to before dating, and during a date.

An important part of owning and driving a car is knowing how to perform a safety check; especially before a cross-country road trip. By running through a safety check-list, you can identify potential problems before they leave you stranded on the highway a few hundred miles from help. But without the right teenage dating advice for girls, these problems can quite easily be overlooked; how is your teen supposed to learn that checking the oil regularly is incredibly important unless you explain it to them? It only takes a minute, but this essential advice could literally prevent your engine from blowing up! Similarly, how is your teen supposed to date safely without the right instruction from her parents? By running through this essential teenage dating advice for girls – a sort of safety check if you will – you can save your daughter from a world of trouble and heartache.

Teenage Dating Advice for Girls: The Check-List

 Navigating teenage dating can overflow with high-octane emotional highs and lows. But as with any mile marker in life, there are inherent dangers that go beyond having a broken heart. Essential teenage dating advice for girls can prevent your daughter from plowing head-first into very tricky situations that could not only leave her with emotional scars, but physical ones too. So, if your daughter is already dating, or has to mentioned the cute guy she sits next to in biology class, then it’s time you ran through the following points on teenage dating advice for girls.

Teenage Dating Advice for Girls: Cell Phone

Your daughter’s cell phone might be her only means of reaching out for you when she’s out with a date. Therefore, in the case of an emergency:

1.It should be fully charged before she goes out.

2.It should be with her, on, at all times.

3.It should have your number on speed dial.

4.It should have a list of emergency numbers.

Likewise, your cell phone should be fully charged and you should keep it within earshot when your daughter is on a date. Think car. Does it make sense to live with your gas tank on empty? Then why leave home with your cell phone gauge on “E.” You should also have the contact details of her date, as well as those of her closest friends (and the parents of those friends). Trust this teenage dating advice for girls: if something goes wrong, you want to be able to contact someone who will be able to help you locate and even rescue your daughter in a hurry!

Teenage Dating Advice for Girls: Going on Your Date

It is always best for your daughter to date people that she already knows; perhaps a guy she met at school or through close friends she knows and trusts. When we buy a car, we do our research and what to perform as much “fact finding” as possible before we make an investment of any kind. Essential teenage dating advice for girls is that they always take time to get to know a guy first – preferably in a safe social setting - before going on a solo date with him. When your teen eventually does go out alone with a guy, find out:

1.Has she logged plenty of healthy hours with this person in a safe setting?

2.What are the details of the date? (Who, what, when, where, how?) If you don’t know, you don’t go!

3.Teenage dating advice for girls: Has she agreed to notify you immediately of any changes that might be made during the course of the evening? Any change in physical address needs pre-approval.

4.Does she have enough emergency money in a hidden compartment in her bag?

5.Essential teenage dating advice for girls: Does she understand the consequences of “dating under the influence?” Stress to your daughter that if her date is participating in or offers her anything illegal, she must text you immediately to come and pick her up.

6.Bad things happen in dark and secret places. Stress to your daughter the importance of always going to places where there are people nearby not somewhere alone in his car! Text when you reach each location safely.

Some Final Teenage Dating Advice for Girls

With the right teenage dating advice for girls, your daughter can swiftly handle situations that would otherwise cause some serious damage. Like Driver’s Ed teaches us the essential safety check of a vehicle, so too must you – as a parent – provide your teenagers with their ‘dating safety check’. Safe teen dating does not happen by accident!

Teen Dating Advice for Parents: The Changing Dating Landscape, PART 1

"This two part series explores the key differences between the dating game a decade and more ago, and the dating behaviors of today’s teenagers."

An Introduction to Teen Dating Advice for the Modern Parent

The dating landscape has shifted like a mudslide over Route 66 and is virtually indistinguishable from its natural layout as little as 10, 20 years ago. Remember how your boyfriends used to show up at your front door to take you on a date with his hair parted and slicked down? Or how you used to run to the kitchen every time the telephone rang? Well, now the way teens approach dating is as different as a Pinto wagon and an SUV. Even the concept of dating has changed! Going steady? Ask your teen what that phrase means and they will probably stare at you like a deer in the headlights. The difference between dating today and when you were a hotrod is so extreme that the teen dating advice you provide for your kids can prove to be, let’s say, antique, as good as your intentions might be. For this reason, it’s so important that you get up to speed on the new dating terrain and the kind of teen dating advice that will steer your kids down what could be a very slippery slope.

 Parenting Teens: Teen Dating Advice for the 21st Century

So, what are the rules of the road in dating today? How are kids meeting what they think is their “dream date?” What is involved in courting? At what stage in the relationship do they think it is appropriate to become intimate? What teen dating advice can you provide to better prepare your kids for the new dating landscape? These are all questions that parents of teens might need answers to in order to keep from spinning their wheels when their teens start dating. And since love and the discovery and exploration thereof are core components of maturing, the right teen dating advice is essential. Here are some important things you need to know about millennial dating:

1. Teen Dating Advice: Kids date in groups

What ever happened to one-on-one dating? Today, most teens meet and date people in groups. The group itself isn’t necessarily a problem – after all, developing friendships and being social is very healthy for your teen - but this can result in high-octane peer pressure. If your teen is surrounded by friends that are speeding towards in questionable behaviors, such as drinking, smoking and sex, chances are they are going to be run off course in some way by their friends…or worse, the girl or guy they are crazy over. You think peer pressure is big? It is nothing compared to the influence of the BF or GF. This is where good teen dating advice keeps those little spark plugs from misfiring! Clear the fog and help them see the reality that they will always be exposed to people who steer towards behaviors and habits that are unhealthy and often age-inappropriate. Explain to your kids that they should never feel pressured into doing things they aren’t comfortable with, but be firm about your expectations with regards to drinking, smoking, sex and other socially-induced habits.

2. Teen Dating Advice: Sex in the Afternoon

There’s something incredibly seductive about the moonlight, the stars, the dark velvety night… Or at least you thought so. But many teens are using the afternoon to rev their engines and accelerating over the boundary lines. Why? The hours between the last school bell and when many parents get home from work is when “the garage is still empty.” Parenting teens research surveys have found most sexual activity between teenagers to occur between the hours of 3:00 and 6:00. What teen dating advice you can provide to discourage your kids from sneaking behind your back? Encourage them to be honest with you about their relationships and keep an open road to healthy communication. The bottom line is, when teens are bored or without parental eyes, they have a tendency to drift over that solid line that they know they shouldn’t cross. Very few teens engage in risky behavior in math class. It’s the hours alone where we should post the giant “HAZARD” sign.

Stay Tuned for More Teen Dating Advice:

In my next article post, I will be explaining how the dating landscape has changed over the years so that those parenting teens may provide their kids with better and more appropriate teen dating advice.