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I guess it’s never too early

June 27th, 2008 · by map · 6 Comments

From The Wall Street Journal:

What the Dating Rules You Set For Your Kids Say About You

Parents who are involved in stable romantic relationships with spouses or partners tend more than other parents to set rules limiting teen dating behavior, such as curfews, minimum ages for dating, limits on places teens can go and explicit rules against sexual activity, says a new study of 169 parents and 102 teens by Stephanie Madsen, an associate professor of psychology at Maryland’s McDaniel College. While the reason isn’t clear, the author suggests these parents may hold more conservative beliefs in general; many of the rules involved sexuality.
…
A better way for parents to expend their energy, Dr. Madsen says, is to emphasize constant, warm oversight over just setting rules. She calls this setting “supervisory” rules, or keeping up a free flow of communication without intruding too much. This means asking teens to disclose plans, check in by phone and inform parents when plans change. In such cases, the adults were focusing on their roles as parents rather than their own love lives. These parents also had the healthiest relationships with their children.


I guess I’m anticipating something along the lines of a supervisory role when the time comes for Ava to start entertaining thoughts of romance. God. I cringe just thinking about it. I’d love it, of course, if she felt like she could be open with either Leah or me about what she was up to, but I suppose it’s good to be realistic about the odds of being so involved in her inner life. And I think she should have an inner life that’s her own, that’s run according to rules she makes for herself without answering to anyone. Within reason, of course. Spring Break trip to South Padre sophomore year? Not on my watch. Lower back tat for her sweet 16? Uh uh. Nope.

The plan, as I see it, is to gently mold her so that decisions like those cited above aren’t even on her radar by the time she gets to high school. Which shouldn’t entail her becoming some sort of antisocial hermit; I just hope she’s smart about things, is all. Smarter than I was.

Tags: Ava

  • http://arredonald.blogspot.com/ paida/ Lauren

    Hey I have a totally unrelated question – I want to get more memory for my MacBook. How do you feel about buying non Mac hardware? – it is quite a bit cheaper. The little bit of research I have done on line seems to have mixed advice. Some say it works fine others say it is not a good idea. Whadaya think?

  • http://arredonald.blogspot.com/ paida/ Lauren

    Hey I have a totally unrelated question – I want to get more memory for my MacBook. How do you feel about buying non Mac hardware? – it is quite a bit cheaper. The little bit of research I have done on line seems to have mixed advice. Some say it works fine others say it is not a good idea. Whadaya think?

  • http://mama-tchou-tchou.blogspot.com/ Jenny

    I’ve been thinking along similar – if not identical – lines. And the last two lines keep entering into the equation, too. As for Lauren’s “comment” (made me laugh. Though…), I wouldn’t buy non-Mac for my Mac for the moment. Dunno, though. Maybe that’s just ridiculous super-prudence…?

  • http://mama-tchou-tchou.blogspot.com/ Jenny

    I’ve been thinking along similar – if not identical – lines. And the last two lines keep entering into the equation, too. As for Lauren’s “comment” (made me laugh. Though…), I wouldn’t buy non-Mac for my Mac for the moment. Dunno, though. Maybe that’s just ridiculous super-prudence…?

  • http://dannynovo.com Danny

    Oy. Someone once told me, if you have boys (we have two) you have to worry about the penis, but if you have girls, you have to worry about *all* the penises.

    I, too, worry about setting too many rules, but with boys, I expect I’ll be lucky if they grunt at me on the way out the door each morning. At the very least I will need a list of rules I can show them when I lock them in their rooms.

    On the memory issue… Lauren, I’m not sure exactly what you’re asking, but if you’re buying RAM for your MacBook, you may want to visit crucial.com. They are more expensive than 1-800-memory, but a lot cheaper than Apple.com, and I trust them. I used to buy hardware when I lived in Iowa, and I always went with them.

    Cheers!

  • http://dannynovo.com Danny

    Oy. Someone once told me, if you have boys (we have two) you have to worry about the penis, but if you have girls, you have to worry about *all* the penises.

    I, too, worry about setting too many rules, but with boys, I expect I’ll be lucky if they grunt at me on the way out the door each morning. At the very least I will need a list of rules I can show them when I lock them in their rooms.

    On the memory issue… Lauren, I’m not sure exactly what you’re asking, but if you’re buying RAM for your MacBook, you may want to visit crucial.com. They are more expensive than 1-800-memory, but a lot cheaper than Apple.com, and I trust them. I used to buy hardware when I lived in Iowa, and I always went with them.

    Cheers!