DisappointedDad
10-05-2004, 11:39 AM
My 15 year old son has been seeing a 15 year old girl for 8 months. When the relationship started, it quickly ramped up to the point where the girl was at our house every day after school until about 9pm plus one weekend day with the other weekend day spent at her house. After about 2 months of this, we finally put our foot down and limited the visits much to the disgust of the girl and my son. We asked the girls mother for help on this issue, but she did not see any problems with the amount of time they were together.
This was his first relationship and we were concerned with the intensity of it. We had a discussion about this, expressed our wishes, and gave him some strategies that he could use to “pace” the relationship. However, three months after their relationship started, we discovered they were having sex. We notified the girl’s mother about this and told our son that his visits with her would now be limited and supervised. The girl’s mother responded by putting her daughter on the pill and then dropping her daughter off in the neighborhood in the morning six days a week (it was summer break now) at another friend’s house and the girl would either end up at our house or pace the street in front of our house.
Admittedly, there were many “angry cop” sessions, but my wife and I finally collected ourselves and had a dispassionate discussion with my son and his girlfriend about our four basic rules of the house. One of them included the fact that we didn’t want them to have sex with the main reasons being that a pregnancy at this age would have a huge impact on their lives (they have already named their kids). Not an hour later, we found them having sex again (protected at least). His response, “She changed her mind!” The girl’s mother’s response was that it was no big deal. “Kids will be kids.”
Now, we’ve learned (by our son’s own admission) that the girl and her mother are finding ways to work around our rules, encouraging are son to break the rules and belittling him when he follows our wishes. Our son has told us that he wants to follow our rules and earn back our trust, but he finds himself caught in the middle. Unfortunately, given sufficient time and influence (they go to the same high school), he typically ends up giving in to her pressure fully realizing that there will be consequences for his actions. And in the event that he does go against her wishes, she threatens to kill herself every time. The girl’s mother has also been informed about this, but again, no action is taken.
The LCSW we’ve been seeing doesn’t seem to be addressing this issue that we feel is the core of the matter. We know that cutting the relationship off is ill advised and virtually impossible unless we send him away. He knows we don’t want to do this, but he also knows that we will if he forces our hand.
What else can we do?
This was his first relationship and we were concerned with the intensity of it. We had a discussion about this, expressed our wishes, and gave him some strategies that he could use to “pace” the relationship. However, three months after their relationship started, we discovered they were having sex. We notified the girl’s mother about this and told our son that his visits with her would now be limited and supervised. The girl’s mother responded by putting her daughter on the pill and then dropping her daughter off in the neighborhood in the morning six days a week (it was summer break now) at another friend’s house and the girl would either end up at our house or pace the street in front of our house.
Admittedly, there were many “angry cop” sessions, but my wife and I finally collected ourselves and had a dispassionate discussion with my son and his girlfriend about our four basic rules of the house. One of them included the fact that we didn’t want them to have sex with the main reasons being that a pregnancy at this age would have a huge impact on their lives (they have already named their kids). Not an hour later, we found them having sex again (protected at least). His response, “She changed her mind!” The girl’s mother’s response was that it was no big deal. “Kids will be kids.”
Now, we’ve learned (by our son’s own admission) that the girl and her mother are finding ways to work around our rules, encouraging are son to break the rules and belittling him when he follows our wishes. Our son has told us that he wants to follow our rules and earn back our trust, but he finds himself caught in the middle. Unfortunately, given sufficient time and influence (they go to the same high school), he typically ends up giving in to her pressure fully realizing that there will be consequences for his actions. And in the event that he does go against her wishes, she threatens to kill herself every time. The girl’s mother has also been informed about this, but again, no action is taken.
The LCSW we’ve been seeing doesn’t seem to be addressing this issue that we feel is the core of the matter. We know that cutting the relationship off is ill advised and virtually impossible unless we send him away. He knows we don’t want to do this, but he also knows that we will if he forces our hand.
What else can we do?