When you have a daughter....
 

So I was just reading over the baby changing table post and started thinking about the fear of teenage daughter. I believe that all guys dread the idea of having a daughter that ends up dating a scumbag, hence the "I will buy a gun to clean the first time the boyfriend shows up" thought process. I just had a boy so I don't need to worry about this dilemma for a little bit but it started me thinking..

So the question is when you meet the guy taking your daughter out for the first/four hundredth time, what is you preferred method of fear?

I think cleaning the gun is played so I would probably sharpen the katana instead...

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

I would definetly like to have a son first. My teenage sister just got her first b/f. This guy damn well better be showing her respect, and he should be a lot more worried about me than my dad.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

yeah, i seriously do not want to have daughters

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

I have a daughter. I think once she's old enough to date, I'll have calmed the hell down about it, but it's 'cleean the shiny chrome shotgun' for me at the moment.

Oh, and make sure her two big brothers are around and snarling too.

Oh, and as they leave, have a quiet word.
"If you touch her, I'll cut you." should suffice.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

I have two daughters (8 & 12) so I have been giving this a lot of thought of late. First, my plan is stay involved in their lives so I know a little bit about Romeo before they have a date with him. Second, I remember all the tricks I used and I plan to have my daughters thoroughly educated before the dating rituals start.

The best way to put the fear of God into a 16 year old boy is to firmly shake his hand and look him directly in the eye as you tell him how much you love your daughter and that you expect him to abide by curfew and treat her nice. When done properly, (in view of the gun case full of semi-automatic weapons is optional, but more effective) this will keep Romeo in line for a date or two. The rest is up my daughter. I have to trust her sometime.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

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I have two daughters (8 & 12) so I have been giving this a lot of thought of late. First, my plan is stay involved in their lives so I know a little bit about Romeo before they have a date with him. Second, I remember all the tricks I used and I plan to have my daughters thoroughly educated before the dating rituals start.

The best way to put the fear of God into a 16 year old boy is to firmly shake his hand and look him directly in the eye as you tell him how much you love your daughter and that you expect him to abide by curfew and treat her nice. When done properly, (in view of the gun case full of semi-automatic weapons is optional, but more effective) this will keep Romeo in line for a date or two. The rest is up my daughter. I have to trust her sometime.

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very well said.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

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I have two daughters (8 & 12) so I have been giving this a lot of thought of late. First, my plan is stay involved in their lives so I know a little bit about Romeo before they have a date with him. Second, I remember all the tricks I used and I plan to have my daughters thoroughly educated before the dating rituals start.

The best way to put the fear of God into a 16 year old boy is to firmly shake his hand and look him directly in the eye as you tell him how much you love your daughter and that you expect him to abide by curfew and treat her nice. When done properly, (in view of the gun case full of semi-automatic weapons is optional, but more effective) this will keep Romeo in line for a date or two. The rest is up my daughter. I have to trust her sometime.

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If you raise her like you talk about in that post she'll be able to make the right decisions. You touched on the biggy though -- staying involved in her life and talking about virtually everything.

I don't have children and never will, but if I had a daughter I'd do it like you. And when she's ready to date, at say age 32 or so, I'd go the shotgun route for sure. Nothing like the sound of racking a 12 guage to make the poor date guy think.

Seriously though, raise her right and she'll have what it takes to handle dating.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

No experience with this but a funny way as described by Bill Engvall was something to the effect...

If you don't respect my daughter, treat her like a lady, and have her back by curfew, I have no problem going BACK to prison...

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

I plan on bricking up all of the doors and windows in 6 years time and taking out the internet.

My stepson has just started asking me dating advice which is pretty cool, it all seems to be done via MSN and webcam these days, but I dont know how I would feel/react when my daughter gets to that age.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

Another thought. When I get my daughter a cell phone (probably for her 13th B-day) it will not have a text message feature. 13-17 year olds do not "need" to text each other. They can use the phone or exchange email if they "need" to communicate.

Young teen girls AIMing each other only creates more problems than it's worth. I'd rather be the hard ass, than deal with the consequences of this stuff gone awry.

Question: What is so important in the live of a 13 year-old that she has to AIM her friends ASAP?

Answer: Nothing.

Also, I don't let me kids participate in chat rooms because a young teenager is not ready to handle the 'real' world environment many of these innocent chat rooms offer.

Again, I know I can't stop my kids from dating boys and everything that goes with it, but I can put them in a position where they will be able to make good decisions. I just communicate with my kids and stay as involved as I can. Hopefully, the 13 years of parenting has had some positive impact on them.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

4_2

It definatley seems the way of it these days as I said my stepson is 13 and he has somthing like 150 contacts on his msn and is on there chatting to his mates, schoolfriends and some people he has met via friends in all his free time. They seem to message rather than ring each other so make arrangements etc on there. It does eem to have replaced the phone as the main teen communication medium.

He comes in from school goes on and all you see is all the kids popping up as they rush home and get online.

I have given him warnings about the potential for dodgy people and not being who they say they are etc, and at the moment we do monitor his logs (for our own piece of mind) but I will prob drop that shortly as there aint much going on there.

Most converastions revolve about being bored and talking crap for hours on end in bizarre text speak.

I am pretty open about the internet and email my daughter at 6 has a hotmail account so she can messenger me while I work away and also email her friend who has moved to Dubai (ovbiously I am the only one in her contact list). There are risks of course in letting her have open internet access but I balance that with what I think is the need to become computer literate and aware of stranger danger in all its forms. I was very proud the other week when I got my first email off my daughter she had worked out how to do it herself without being taught by me.

I can see what you are saying but AIM does seem to be a replacement for spending hours on the phone for teens these days.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

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Another thought. When I get my daughter a cell phone (probably for her 13th B-day) it will not have a text message feature. 13-17 year olds do not "need" to text each other. They can use the phone or exchange email if they "need" to communicate.

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Why not just tape up her mouth? 13-17 year old girls do not "need" to talk to each other, if it's imperative that she communicates then she can write a message on a piece of paper.

Look, of course it's not absolutely necessary for your teenage daughter to use text messaging/IM, but you would be cutting her off from an enormous amount of socialising with her peers if you prevented her from using them, it's far too over-protective.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

My daughter is not quite 6 months old yet, and I've already begun thinking of this. I'm not looking forward to it.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

davey,

I see your point and can see where if monitored, it would not be a big deal. The key thing is that when your teenager knows why (and not just how) you feel the way you do, they are more accepting of parental direction.

I'm sure your stepson knows what the punishment is if he caught visiting inappropriate websites or abusing AIM. That's the key. Kids need boundaries. If parents do not provide them, then the kids will have a free reign which is not healthy.

I would be interested to hear what milo and chesspain have to offer to this conversation. I am no child psychologist, I am only a parent doing what I think is best.

BTW - I think it is awesome that your daughter sends you emails. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

I think it's a pretty big deal to monitor the content of your teenage children's conversations with their friends. Monitoring who they're talking to or which websites they're looking at is different.

To be honest, I expect my teenagers to be savvy enough to stop me from seeing they've been looking at anything they don't want me to see.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

Just accept the fact that your daughter is gonna suck d1ck and have sex before she is married. The more overprotective you are, the more she will want to lash out at you and be a [censored].

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

OOinsight,

I do not have a daughter, but I can only hope that if I do, I will be a good enough father that her decisions on who she dates will be in line with what I wish for her.

I used to say I would threaten bodily harm, but as I get older, I realize all you can do set the best example you can and hope they follow. If they don't, well, dating will probably be the least of your worries.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

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I would definetly like to have a son first. My teenage sister just got her first b/f. This guy damn well better be showing her respect, and he should be a lot more worried about me than my dad.

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LOL, good luck with that. I wanted my first born to be a boy. Was I surprised that after the delivery I had a daughter, nah, I expected it.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

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First, my plan is stay involved in their lives

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you sly bastard

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

just think about some guy busting a nut on her face, or [censored] her from behind and pulling her hair, the way your dad did to your mom.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

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Just accept the fact that your daughter is gonna suck d1ck and have sex before she is married. The more overprotective you are, the more she will want to lash out at you and be a [censored].

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It's true what you say, slickpoppa. Sheltering can really backfire. The porn industry has its share of preacher's daughters.

I have a 15-month old little girl. I just want to teach her to respect herself and others. What happens, happens. I will try to raise a good person, tell her the dangers and which precautions to take, and make sure she is involved in interesting activities that stimulate her. She will probably end up having sex in her mid-to-late teens, but what are you going to do? I won't be able to watch her all the time.

Of course, consensual sex is one thing. If anybody physically harms her, they are going to be in a wheelchair for a couple months while their kneecaps heal.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

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Of course, consensual sex is one thing. If anybody physically harms her, they are going to be in a wheelchair for a couple months while their kneecaps heal.

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I would not be able to show that much restraint. Of course, my prison sentence would be much longer than yours.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

My daughter just turned one. My first line of attack is to raise her to be a strong-willed, intelligent, independent decision maker. I think most young girls get in trouble because society tells them not to think for themselves and let the boys decide what to do, and we all know what happens then. Second, as others have mentioned, I plan on my wife and I staying as involved as possible in her life so she's not sneaking around (my wife is good cop, I will have to be the disciplinarian so it'll be a little more difficult for me).

I don't expect my daughter to never have any fun, and I'd feel awful if I bullied her into being a doormat or a sneak and a liar (like I was when I was a teenager). I'm sure she'll drink, smoke pot, etc, I just don't want her to be a [censored] idiot about it.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

Mike Royko had a great column about this.

He wrote about a friend of his who had teenage daughters. When the young suitors would show up, and the girls would make them wait ("She'll be right down!"), the guy's wife would say, "Why don't you take Billy down to the cellar, and show him your model train set?"

Once in the cellar, Royko's friend would get right in the kid's face, and make all his threats. This way, the daughter never knew about it, and didn't give him a hard time.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

Spam

I agree to a point and I think he would be pretty pissed if he knew I was looking. However as he is ramping up into full moody teenage mode and it has helped stop some situations get out of control where big arguments could have happened.

For example he acted very much out of character and went off somewhere at a strange time totally unusual and acting weird and evasive, turned out he was meeting a girl and going to her house with her friend and probably felt embarressed about telling us (mainly due to his little sisters taking the mick amonst other things). Took me two seconds to find it out and meant no grillings for him when he came home as would have happened otherwise ie where you been what doing.

Theres issues around drugs in his school and in the area where his Dad and mates live, plus you will be aware that in the UK there is a huge underage drink problem as well as high rates of pregnancy.

I make no apologies for using whatever tools available to ensure that over these next few difficult years he stays both on the rails and gets all the support and advice he needs from us (if we have to snoop a bit so be it). I am sure he will untick the save log file box on msn at some point shortly.

Edited to add

I think a lot of this my point of view comes from the fact I had huge problems at school, that made my life hell and my parents were totally unaware of what was going on and as such able to give any support or assistance. I ended up taking an overdose and being hospitalised for a week at 17, even now I still dont know if my parents know what happened or if they beleived it was gastral enteritis like the hospital said.

As such it means I would rather sneak and know what is going on, than not and be totally obvlivious and unsupporting to my kids.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

I don't expect my daughter to never have any fun, and I'd feel awful if I bullied her into being a doormat or a sneak and a liar (like I was when I was a teenager). I'm sure she'll drink, smoke pot, etc, I just don't want her to be a [censored] idiot about it.

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I agree with this. Utah and I have 2 daughters 7 and 9(our 9 year old has already started puberty and is boy crazy)
Kids are savvy and have access to so much information all the time.
My plan is to teach everything I can-no sugar coating. I am a labor and delivery nurse and have delivered many teenage girls-I also worked as a sexual assault examiner and did way too many forensic rape kits on too many teenage girls that got in over their heads. Alcohol was always a contributing factor.
Dating is one thing...drugs, alcohol and the need to be independent will all be present.
Keep it open, honest, and educate them. Remember girls may not always be comfortable talking to their dads...get moms, aunts, girlfriends involved.

I will leave it to Utah to put the fear of god into the boys, after all he was a teenage boy once too.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

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My daughter just turned one. My first line of attack is to raise her to be a strong-willed, intelligent, independent decision maker.

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I agree. This is absolutely the right way to think about this. Also, be close to her. It has been shown that girls who don't have close relationships with their fathers tend to be more promiscuous, among other things. By the way, mine is two and I'm scared shitless.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

This sounds great 4_2_it. I think all kids need strong values and open communication with their parents. I have a son not a daughter, but I think a lot about what I'm going to say to him about sex and when. I think maybe the best way for your daughter to be protected is for us to instill the same values in our sons, so that they will treat the women they interact with in their lives with respect.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

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Another thought. When I get my daughter a cell phone (probably for her 13th B-day) it will not have a text message feature. 13-17 year olds do not "need" to text each other. They can use the phone or exchange email if they "need" to communicate.

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Just a life of what she neeeds then? bread and water lifestyle sounds awesome.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

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Another thought. When I get my daughter a cell phone (probably for her 13th B-day) it will not have a text message feature. 13-17 year olds do not "need" to text each other. They can use the phone or exchange email if they "need" to communicate.

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Just a life of what she needs then? bread and water?

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Can anyone please give me a reason other than status or vanity as to why a 13 year old needs to have a text messaging cell phone? I want her to have the phone as a safety issue. Of course, she can call her friends anytime she wishes.

What is the BFD with text messaging? Are we heading to a society where everyone will just text message each other. I want my daughter to learn how to build relationships. This requires more interaction than AIM can give. When she is older, I'm sure that AIM will be allowed, it's just at this point it isn't on the table.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

Knowledge is the best defense. So just let them read OOT for a month before dating to let them know what guys are really like. They will learn the following lessons:

1. All teenage and twentysomethings guys are obsessed with sex.

2. Aforementioned guys will lie and/or say/do anything to get sex.

Once girls learn this lesson, they need to apply economics. Since the most valuable thing they have is sex, make it a rare commodity. The rarer it is, the higher a price they can charge. You don't even need to sell it, just the mere temptation will often get them what they want. Anyone not willing to pay the price is not worth it.

Girls just need to realize that if they're confident, smart, and independent, there's no reason to put up with guy behavior they don't find acceptable. Raise a smart, confident, independent girl and you'll have a lot fewer problems. OOTers may call her a few names, but you know it's just because they can't have what she has. She owns you.

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I want my daughter to learn how to build relationships. This requires more interaction than AIM can give.

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True, but with kids today, IM/SMS is an excellent way to fortify relationships. If you don't have them, you're out of the loop.

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I don't see why you are against it. Totally blocking it will def. be counter to your wish of 'i want her to build relationships'. All her friends will do it this way. So you are blocking that time with her friends, unless you expect her to call her friend so she can ask what's being said in the 5 way AIM chat.

I could see why you are against internet chat rooms leading to AIM etc, so block those and let her only add people to AIM that she knows from school.

Or if you are worried about her going brain dead from sitting there doing nothing all day just set a time limit on it.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

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I think a lot of this my point of view comes from the fact I had huge problems at school, that made my life hell and my parents were totally unaware of what was going on and as such able to give any support or assistance.

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Dave, I can see why you'd be concerned, yeah, and I'm coming at it from a different perspective as I've never really had a problem getting my parents to stay out of my interactions with my peers and to be honest, I've done some things that if they found out about (and they would have found out about them if they'd been keylogging my computer or something) then they'd have been incredibly angry/worried about me.

But I mean, you've gotta let teenagers have privacy and make mistakes. It's too idealistic to say that you should be close enough to them that they're not going to hide stuff from you, I know I love my parents tons and have hidden tons. But can't you trust your son enough to be sure that he's unlikely to do anything absolutely idiotic? So what if he is meeting girls or even drinking, who wasn't? If it gets to the stage where it becomes a serious problem, you won't need to sneak around to know about it.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

You guys are missing the point. The kids I am talking about are all 13 or so. The boys (for the most part) are not interested in girls yet. She has not asked about AIM and her friends are not using it. I am sure when she brings it up, we will be able to work out something reasonable.

What I am doing is forcing her to justify why she needs it. It's same thing if she wants a new bike or a new pair of jeans. She knows I am very generous by nature and not unreasonable. If she can make a case, then we can usually come to an accommodation.

If she can't justify why she needs something, then why is it necessary?

Just allowing kids to do/have something because everyone else is doing/has it the first step down a very slippery slope.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

So now you're saying you will let her use IM provided she justifies it? OK, will you accept the justification, "I want to chat to several of my friends at once, as well as have the opportunity to converse with some of my more casual friends who I wouldn't call up but still quite enjoy speaking to"?

And for SMS messaging, will you accept, "it's just much more informal than calling people, I want to be able to communicate briefly with people at a fairly relaxed pace who I wouldn't necessarily feel close enough to phone and have a conversation with"?

I suppose that's why im/sms are so popular amongst teens, because they let us chat to more people from our own homes than we would otherwise have an excuse to.

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You guys are missing the point. The kids I am talking about are all 13 or so. The boys (for the most part) are not interested in girls yet. She has not asked about AIM and her friends are not using it. I am sure when she brings it up, we will be able to work out something reasonable.

What I am doing is forcing her to justify why she needs it. It's same thing if she wants a new bike or a new pair of jeans. She knows I am very generous by nature and not unreasonable. If she can make a case, then we can usually come to an accommodation.

If she can't justify why she needs something, then why is it necessary?

Just allowing kids to do/have something because everyone else is doing/has it the first step down a very slippery slope.

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But the argument that she doesn't really NEED text messaging is stupid too. 99% of the technology we use we don't need to survive. It's all merely a convenience.

I think the solution to the problem is moderation, not prohibition. I believe there are some plans that still charge per text message or put a cap on them. Force her to pay for her text messages and she will probably start using them more wisely.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

When she was starting to date at 13, I scared the fellow silly. Partly because I was angry with her because she knew my wife and I had said no dating until high school. She mostly towed the line and struck a reasonable deal. No real dates, just group dates at the roller rinks and other very public places.

She's now 15 and has dated for a year or so.

The real solution has been that we gave her a lot of personal freedom to make decisions starting at a young age. We'd guide and suggest, and say no to some things we didn't feel she could decide intelligently, but for the most part we raised a very self-confident girl.

Consequently, at this point, it's her choice to make. I feel confident whatever she chooses to do, it'll be on her terms and that's all I can really feel happy about as a parent. Her mom and I have told her we hope she'll wait a while, but to talk to her Mom if she needs protection and we'll go see the doctor, no questions asked.

If she dated someone I was concerned about, someone with classic manipulation signs she might not see, I'd speak up. But for the most part, she surrounds herself with people that are like her, so we don't have to step in.

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

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I think the solution to the problem is moderation, not prohibition. I believe there are some plans that still charge per text message or put a cap on them. Force her to pay for her text messages and she will probably start using them more wisely.

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That is where I expect we get when the time comes. If it becomes that important to her, I am open to that. The cell phone bill will contain the number of messages so it will be easy to see if she is abusing it.

Do kids really just sit in their rooms all day IMing each other? That seems boring and not very stimulating. I guess I am just getting old [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: When you have a daughter....
 

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I think the solution to the problem is moderation, not prohibition. I believe there are some plans that still charge per text message or put a cap on them. Force her to pay for her text messages and she will probably start using them more wisely.

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I know someone that got her 14 year-old neice a cell phone for her birthday. She was going to pay for it. The bill for the first month was over $100 because of all the text messages. Needless to say the 14 year-old didn't have the money to pay for it. My friend then told her she wouldn't pay for the text messages any longer. Next month the bill was even higher and she had to eventually cancel the phone.

Girls (and boys) at that age don't really know where money comes from, so how can you expect them to be responsible for something like that. They know that someone else will eventually pay for it.

And to answer your question about where they use it 4_2. They use it at school...all day long. Their friends are in another class and they spend all their time text messaging each other hoping that the teacher doesn't see them.