Teen Girls Dating Older Boys

September 26th, 2007 by Sue Blaney

“Never let your freshman date a senior!” is the recommendation for parents of teenagers from a 20-something respondent to my survey. Her advice has resonated in my brain for months now, and when I came across this additional data I knew I had to write about it:

The younger a girl is when she has sex for the first time, the greater the average age difference is likely to be between her and her partner.*

Teen girls with older male partners are more likely to be sexually active, less likely to use contraceptives, and more likely to face an unintended pregnancy.*

This is powerful information to have…and parents need to pay attention.

A momentary walk on any high school campus will illustrate the wide disparity between the physical development of freshman boys and upper classmen. The challenge some parents with girls face is their freshman girls look much further developed than their male counterparts …thereby earning them attention of the older boys. This may be flattering and exciting for girls, but smart parents will keep firm rules about how far new relationships with older boys may go. No matter what they look like on the outside, freshmen and seniors are worlds apart developmentally.

Don’t think you have to say “yes” to all your high-school-aged daughter’s requests; you don’t. In fact, she may not show it now, but she is counting on you to make the tough calls. She is counting on you to keep her safe. She wants you to know what is going on so she doesn’t get in to situations she can’t handle.

Keep her reasonably supervised. Know where she is, and with whom. Don’t let her hang out with kids that are a lot older than she is.

Note:

One third of sexually active teens 15 – 17 reported “being in a relationship where they felt things were moving too fast sexually;”

24% had “done something sexual they didn’t really want to do,”

over 21% reported having oral sex to “avoid having sexual intercourse” with a partner*.

29% of teens 15 – 17 report feeling pressure to have sex.*

*this data came from a report published by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

[The Kaiser Family Foundation is non-profit, private operating foundation dedicated to providing information and analysis on health care issues to policymakers, the media, the health care community and the general public. The Foundation is not associated with Kaiser Permanente or Kaiser Industries.]

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 26th, 2007 at 6:23 pm and is filed under High School, Parenting Teens, Teens: Sexual Activity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 responses about “Teen Girls Dating Older Boys”

Staci Henderson said:
February 24th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
I live in a very small town. The junior high or middle school aged kids are apart of the highschool for the most part. I have a 12 year old daughter who is infatuated with an 18 year old senior. And from the information that I have been getting he is just as infatuated with her.
My self and my husband have went to the superintendant of the school with our concerns and to the school councelors. We have even went as far as involving local authorities in this matter.
We have taken away the computer, cell phone, after school activities everything we can think of to limit contact between the two.
We have had countless hours of talks with her and get absolutely no where with her.
So what do we do now!!

Nothing seems to be working with her. Anyone have any advice?
Sue Blaney said:
February 25th, 2010 at 11:03 pm
Staci – I think you have an important question and situation here, so I took the liberty of posting the question on our Facebook page “Parenting Teenagers.” You have gotten some really interesting responses there… are you in Facebook? Can you access the page? Here is the link;http://www.facebook.com/ParentingTeenagers?ref=mf I suggest you keep checking back in case more replies come in.
Staci Henderson said:
February 28th, 2010 at 11:15 pm
Would love to add you on to my facebook page. Not sure how to do that. Could you help me with that?

Staci
Renee Geikler said:
November 13th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Staci, I have a similar situation and it is making me sick. My daughter is 16 and in a mutual pursuit situation of a 21 year old. My husband and I have asked her not to see him, but things seem to be heating up and I know she is sneaking around with the help of another friend. I’m having a really hard time trying not to stare down the tunnel of bad endings. I know my case involves older kids, but how did your situation end up? Any advice?