And they call it puppy love....

Forums: Relationships, Dating, Friendship, Teenagers, Tweenagers
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So Mo has a girlfriend. This isn't like his old "girlfriends" who he saw only at school. Thanks to smartphones, these two are texting each other all the time and saying "I love you" and stuff. (Mo showed me the texts, I didn't invade his phone.)

We usually go out for pizza on Saturdays and let Mo take a friend. This week he's invited "Jill" on a "date" and she has said yes. He would like for Jill and him to sit at their own table so it would seem more like a real date.

I don't really want to make a big deal of it, he and his chosen friend often sit at another table on pizza night, and really he's just invited a different friend for pizza but this feels.... well.... different. If he'd invited a new male friend from school I wouldn't feel any hesitation and that feels kind of wrong too.

I know I'll need to talk to one of Jill's parents to set the thing up (and of course they may say no) and I'm kind of floundering here.

Is this just a really bad idea?

I've given him the "you need to slow this waaaaaay down" talk, explaining that saying I love you to someone is a big deal and that he needs to be careful about what he's texting to this girl.

I probably need to expand on this talk but in what direction do I take it.

Thanks to technology, schoolyard romance has reached a whole new level of crazy making.

What say you, oh A2K?

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@boomerang,

Even without technology I think this is about when this stuff hits!

In my class of mixed 4th through 6th graders, (back in the late 70's/ early 80's) 6th grade was always the Romance Year. Several couples, some of them serious. 6th-graders sneaking off to make out during the class camping trip at the end of the year. Etc.

Definitely lots of kids in sozlet's peer group are starting the dating thing. Not sure how many "I love you's" there are, but lots of dinner and lunch date sorts of things. (Most of them haven't amounted to much.)

At any rate, I really don't think it's a bad idea in and of itself. (The kids we know usually go on the "dates" completely unsupervised, though locally.)

The "I love you" part is more of a concern than the "dates" part, to me, but they could be just kinda bandying that around without it necessarily having Deep Meaning, too.

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He says "i love you" . . . so what? I suspect he'd have said that 50 years ago, or a hundred years ago. I suspect it's what kids think is expected of them.

I think it's a good idea that you contact the girl's parents on this one. After that though, i do think you should treat this the same way you would if he had invited one of his buddies. If they decide to suck face in the pizza restaurant, i think it would be reasonable for you to intervene--but otherwise, i'd think it would be OK for you to just let it take its own course.

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Thank you, both. I'm happy to hear that this is really ordinary.

I don't think our group started pairing up until 7th and 8th grade and there really wasn't much interaction outside of school.

I'm feeling very old and out of it today....

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@boomerang,

Sometimes relationships between 12 year olds can be innocent. Earlier this year I took my 12 year old daughter to a dance at her middle school. A boy who has a crush on her asked her to chase him around the dance floor and play tag. They did not dance together. Since then he has written a poem to my daughter and has given her a necklace. My wife is keeping close watch over any developments.

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@wandeljw,

How did you and your wife react to the gift giving?

Mo wanted to take Jill a gift this morning (something I'd just bought for him that cost about $10) and I said I thought it was too soon.

How would you react if he called her up and invited her out for pizza? Would you let her go?

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@boomerang,

Sozlet's gotten some gifts, they haven't come with a clear "I HAVE A CRUSH ON YOU" statement but that's been implicit and I haven't really had a problem with any of them yet.

The main thing we've talked about is what accepting presents can mean, especially depending on their size. (Small tokens OK, be more careful with large ones.)

I'd definitely let her go out for pizza with anyone I can think of who might ask, unsupervised. I guess the "anyone I can think of" part is pertinent, though, I know 95% of the people who might ask (and their parents, and their siblings). If I didn't know the boy that would probably be different.

She's not into dating yet, she doesn't mind the "nerd herd" (a group of about five fairly nerdy boys who collectively have a crush on her) and may have a crush on one boy but mostly just is friends with a lot of boys and is more focused on deflecting accusations of crushes.

I have been thinking about this whole thing a bit though because a big co-ed "Hunger Games" party is in the works, not sure if it will happen but if so it'd be 13 girls and 13 boys running amok in the woods, no supervision (except for some of us parents very far away). Some parents are worried about that, I'm OK with it but definitely have thought about it a bit.

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@sozobe,

I think part of it is the "anyone I can think of". We don't know anyone from his new school yet. And this girl is a bit older, 13, I think. Mo's not quite 12 yet.

I would much rather it be a herd of kids getting together.

What would you consider a big gift or a little gift.

Mo's given girls some gifts before but they were usually very small things.

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@boomerang,

I learned some very interesting things from older girls.

none of them hurt me...

I think it kinda becomes as big of a thing as you make it, boom...

don't make it mushroom if it doesn't have to.

(a big gift is purchased with more than pocket money)

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Stop worrying.

Jeez.

Be happy your kid is happy.
And stop with
the Fifteen Hundred and Sixty-Two Rules of Mine You Have To Follow Until You Are Thirty While On A Date or In A Relationship.
Razz

Call the girl's parents.
Say you are going out for pizza and Mo wants Jill to come with you.
Listen to what they say.

Be happy your kid is happy.

Believe me, this is the good part.

When they break up,
(and they will break up unless they are in that .00003% group who, in interviews when they are both 90, report that they fell in love at age 10 and that sweet love never died),
be prepared to be very kind~~

but, not too kind, "Mom!!!, jeez....not so much hugging!!"
[
Joe(That will be the hard part for you.)Nation

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@Rockhead,

I like that pocket money rule! If he wants to give her a gift it should be something that he pays for.

I'm trying not to make a big deal out of it. I just told Mo that he would need to get her mom or dad's name and number so I could call and set it up but honestly, I'm feeling a little squishy about it.

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@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

I think part of it is the "anyone I can think of". We don't know anyone from his new school yet. And this girl is a bit older, 13, I think. Mo's not quite 12 yet.

Hmm, yeah, I get that. My nephew was in a relationship that was pretty tough for him, he was 13 and she was 14 and wanted a LOT more, he felt pressured and the whole thing was pretty stressful for him. He came through it OK though.

(Aside, isn't the 12 thing interesting? I've been calling sozlet "almost 12" for like 6 months, and she still isn't. She just seems so UN-11!)

Quote:

What would you consider a big gift or a little gift.

Little: A fancy 3-D picture of Aaron Rodgers (I will forever love that boy for giving it to sozlet but she doesn't like him.... sigh).

Big: Nothing yet really, just have talked about it as a concept. I think anything over $25 maybe? Not that she can't accept it, but that she opens herself up to some problems if she both accepts it and doesn't have any interest in the guy.

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@Joe Nation,

Ha! I don't really have a lot of rules.

I do worry about the breakup. Mo doesn't deal well with such things.

At all.

I'll give them a call. I did suggest that Mo bring her over to the car and introduce me to her when I picked him up today. We'll see how that goes!

I am happy that he's happy.

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@sozobe,

Good to know that your nephew came through the older girl thing okay.

I'm older than Mr. B, my mom was older than my dad -- I told Mo I "get it" and I'm not bothered by it but, to tell the truth, I kind of am. There's a big difference between almost 12 and already 13. Mo can be a little immature.

I know what you mean by un-11. Middle school changes everything!

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@boomerang,

Yeah, especially with boys and girls. 11 and 13 -- big big difference for sure.

Varies by person of course (there are immature 13-year-old girls too) and even if there are differing maturity levels that's not necessarily a bad thing.

At any rate, I think the pizza date with mom and dad right there is totally fine (pending approval from her parents).

I think the "I love you's" could bear some further discussion -- not sure if you or Mr. B are more likely candidates for that. Could be both of course.

One thing I've talked to sozlet about as her friends are rushing headlong into the romance thing (in theory anyway, in her circle the dates that don't amount to much is about as far as anything has gotten), is that the period between starting to have crushes and actually entering a relationship of some sort is in many ways the most fun. You get the butterflies and the adrenaline and the flirting, without the heavier, scarier flip sides.

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@boomerang,

BTW: My boys started having girl friends when they were 12/13.

Gifts came out of their own pockets; friendships rings and some kind of stretchy bracelet thingies(??) but really, I have no idea what those guys gave to anybody.

Both kids were creative genius so they made a lot of stuff too.

"What? You drew this, you drew this for me?

{swoon}

Joe(I did teach them that)Nation

PS: IMO~~ Any discussion about "I love you" and so on ~~~Mr. B is up to bat. and, by no means, do the two of you do the discussing with him. This stuff is a bit private......Ma..... It will be okay.

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@boomerang,

Wow your mo must be a cool cat.

When I was 12, I was the unpopular skimpy kid who got his lunch money taken at least once a week, and get giggled at by girls. Middle schools must be better nowadays.

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@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

How did you and your wife react to the gift giving?

Mo wanted to take Jill a gift this morning (something I'd just bought for him that cost about $10) and I said I thought it was too soon.

How would you react if he called her up and invited her out for pizza? Would you let her go?

We let Annie wear the necklace. My wife did stop Annie one morning because she did not want to wear her school ID over the necklace. Annie needs to wear the school ID around her neck like other students whether it covers the necklace or not.

So far Annie meets boys at group social events only. No one has actually asked to take her out on their own. At this time we would of course accompany Annie if a boy asked her out somewhere and hopefully the boy's parents would be there too.

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@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

And this girl is a bit older, 13, I think. Mo's not quite 12 yet.

Actually, it is a plus that the girl is older and probably more mature than Mo.

I had the opposite problem. When I was 13, I got the lead in a school play. My female classmates were not impressed because they knew what a dork I was in real life. Instead, a group of 11 year old girls started following me around. They were not in any classes with me and I am a totally different person on stage. I realized that these 11 year olds were immature and I avoided them completely.

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@wandeljw,

Hmmm.... maybe we should invite Jill and her family out for pizza.

That seems a bit forced though, since we don't know her family at all. I don't want to be one of those "oh look our kids like each other so we have to like each other" even though the kids liking each other will only last a couple of months, at most.

I guess it just seems that Mo needs to know this girl for a bit longer before he starts giving her gifts, etc.

1 Reply

And they call it puppy love....

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