Teens and Dating

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Your teenager asks if he can sit down and talk to you for a little while because he has something important to say. You?re thinking it will be one of those moments that he showers you with compliments every parent desires to hear. Then out of nowhere, your teen begins to tell you about this girl who has been noticing him lately, and now he has the courage to ask her out on a date. Never mind the fact that he is only 14 years old. You have been the one nurturing him since he was brought into this world, providing food, shelter and always being at their beck and call. Suddenly, someone else has captured his heart, has grabbed his attention, and you are doomed to be the one who is to judge whether or not this possible relationship can go forward or not.

What is a parent to do?

Some parents think they have no choice ? their teen will pursue a romantic relationship anyway, so why fight it? They feel like they have to say yes, and as a result, open the door to a whole new set of arguments, frustrations, and confusions. They assume this is just a normal stage of a teenager?s life.? This issue is not whether you say yes or no about your teen going on a date. The issue is bigger than that.

Society bombards our teens with what looks like the ?fun? or ?popular? way to pursue a dating relationship. You don?t have to look very far to see the results of those types of relationships: broken hearts, immorality, and eventually, broken marriages. It is imperative that we teach our young people about relationships in general. This includes learning how to develop friendships which can lead to happy romance.

Myth #1: If I don?t date, I won?t be popular ? I won?t have any fun as a teenager and everyone will see me as totally weird.

Young people are raised with the notion that they must date. It is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when and who. There is no wisdom or forethought put into what kind of person they should go out with or how to properly begin a relationship.

The fact is there are thousands of young people who have fun every night of the week and don?t have a boyfriend or girlfriend. They have a set of wholesome friends who know how to laugh heartily, get wild, and be crazy without their hearts being attached to another person. In the long run, they will have much more fun with a group of friends than they would by being a part of the dating scene.

Myth #2: Falling in love is just a normal part of growing up. Everyone is bound to do it and get their heart broken.

Statistics say the average person falls in and out of love ten times before marriage. Think about it. The average person falls in love, breaks up, gets their heart ripped out ten times over! Their heart is literally broken ten different times before they find who they are going to marry. Then they walk down the aisle, look at one another gleefully, in the eye and say, ?Here is the one little piece of my heart I saved for you.?

I don?t believe that is God?s best or His plan for marriage! Song of Songs 2:7 says, ?Do not arouse love until it so desires.? That is repeated two more times on the Songs of Songs in verses 3:5 and 8:4. What does it mean? It is making reference to physical sex and act of ?making love,? but it also indicates opening the heart and allowing it to be ripped apart.

There is a part of a young person?s heart and life that is not safe to open up to anyone until they are ready to develop a relationship that will last the rest of their life. The problem is that most young people cannot distinguish which part of their heart is which. Proverbs 4:23 says, ?Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.? We need to teach each other our young people to guard their hearts.

Most parents grew up having fallen in and out of love, and we kind of like the idea that it might be happening to our young person. ?It is so sweet. It is so nice. You can see the sparkle in their eye.? Then your young person loses their purity. ?What did you do that for? What is wrong with you? Didn?t I teach you better than that?!?

Teach your young person to hold their heart. They can have acquaintances and they can have fun with people, but they shouldn?t let their heart go. Warn your child not to open their heart before they are mature enough to know what to do with those feelings. I f you teach them early in life, it will save them years of heartache and heartbreak.

Help your teen understand that a healthy romance must first start with a healthy friendship. A sparkle in someone?s eye sitting across the room in geometry class is not an ingredient of a healthy friendship. At the end of breakup, most young people ? as well as older people ? will say, ?I would never have dated that person if I had really known them.? But regarding people they have known for a long time, they say, ?Oh! I know them way to well. We are too good of friends to date.? They are contradicting themselves and don?t even realize it!

Teach them about courtship rather than dating. Help your teen understand they don?t need to play the American dating game in which their heart gets broken so many different times before they get married. Courtships begin with wholesome friendship when they think they are mature enough, wise enough, and strong enough to handle romance. They should be accountable to their parents, friends, and leaders so they don?t accidentally slip up and give away their purity. Have them set guidelines on the kind of person they want to date, the kind of person they want to be before they date, and how they want to carry themselves in a dating relationship ? before they enter one.

You might say this is too complicated for a young person ? they just want to go on a date. Not so! I have seen dozens of young people who have committed to courtship instead of dating and have been spared the brokenhearted experience of lost trust. They have aborted the legacy of relationship mishaps that scar so many of our pasts.

This is not a hoax, a dream, or a fairy tale. This is reality ? living life by principles found in the Word of God. It will rescue your young person from so much of what you as a parent have already been through.

You can?t regulate your young person?s heart. You can?t tell them who they love and who they don?t. But you can help them sort out what real love is. This world demonstrates many different forms of infatuation and purports them all to be love. We must help our teens sort through the confusion.

As you teach them on an ongoing basis the principles of real friendship, of a wholesome relationship, and of godly, wholesome romance, they will begin to take their own values and develop their relationships according to wisdom. We can help keep our teens from awakening their love before it is time.

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