Are you parent and you have a child that's getting into dating perhaps? Do you want to
know how to prepare for a first date? Well in this video, I'm gonna be sharing with you
a parent's guide that you can use to help prepare your child.
Hi, I'm Nicholeen Peck
and I teach parenting and communication all over the world and in this video, I'm gonna
be sharing with you what I've done in my own children. So I have 4 children of my own and
every one of them has reached dating age by now. I also was the previous foster parent
for many troubled teens. They were all between the ages of 12 and 18 years old so of course
they were right at that age where I was helping them with their boy-girl relationships. In
this video, I'm gonna be sharing with you 3 steps for preparing your child to date and
if you stick with me to the end, I've got a really fun bonus that I know you'll enjoy
afterward. There's 5 different ways that we teach our children things and one of those
ways that is really effective is called a parent counseling session. So a parent counseling
session is a special meeting that you have with the child about one particular issue.
When it comes to dating, this is a big topic and so it is definitely worth a sit down one
on one, heart to heart conversation. That's basically what a parent counselling session
is all about. This isn't a time to lecture to the child. This is the time where you discuss
the upcoming situation and you help them prepare for success. Let me explain to you what a
parent counselling session sounds like when it's a dating parent counselling session.
So when I notice that my child is getting to that age when they are ready to start dating
somebody else, then I will initiate a special conversation with them. I might take them
out to lunch or dinner, it might be on a drive in the car, I might tell them hey, come for
a walk with me. I want to talk to you about something that I think you'll find is very
exciting. And so I initiate this one time conversation and then later we're gonna follow-up
on it. so this one's gonna set the foundation for everything that we discussed related to
dating over the course of the years. Now I know every family has different rules when
it comes to dating. Some people have a certain age that it's at this age, you can start going
on dates with people and then there's other people who say well, whenever happens is fine
but these are the standards or the rules that you need to abide by. So as the parent or
set of parents, you need to decide what rules are you going to have in place for dating.
That's got to be determined ahead of time. For instance in my family, children are not
allowed to date until they're 16 and when they do date in our family, it's going to
be group dating or group experiences, not one on one, single paired-off dating. That's
not gonna happen until they're a little bit later, until they're closer to a time where
they're more developed mentally and mentally and socially prepared to have a paired-off
type relationship. So, when they're young, it's just about having fun with the other
person and I explain to them dating is the time where we learn what we like in a person,
maybe what we're going to be looking for one day when we're trying to find a future mate
for our lives. So this is not the time to necessarily pair off. Now I know in modern
times the word dating is actually really confusing. There are a lot of people who think if you
go on a date with someone, that means you're automatically connected to them and paired
off. This can be very scary for young people. I wish we would get back to the old way of
looking at the term. When I was young, when you went on a date, you could go on a date
with anybody but that didn't mean you had any obligation or commitment. No one was gonna
socially see you as an item or have expectations and increase your stress-level. We need to
get back at that. I know a lot of times nowadays you call it hanging out and because they use
that term, that differentiates between the two. But in our minds as parents, we know
that when someone is "hanging out" with somebody else or a group of people, that is essentially
a date. As part of your parent counselling session with your child, you are going to
want to discuss what certain rules are such as when is curfew and how long can dates be
and things like I mentioned before like how many people need to be there and do you get
to date the same person time after time? So in our family, we didn't want pairing off
so we actually told our children we don't want you to go on a date with the same person
back to back but try to mix it up so that maybe you date person A and then you go on
a date with person B and then maybe person C and then you can take person A out on a
date again. This keeps us so that the children don't feel like they are pairing off with
somebody and they don't have to have a loyalty to one person just because they went on a
date or a hangout with them. So those are gonna be some of the rules you're gonna wanna
share. Also you might want to have rules that you explain to them about boundaries, personal
boundaries. Maybe saying things like well, what's okay. Will we hold hands? Is that okay?
When would you hold hands with a person? When would you give a person a hug? What if a person
wants a kiss from you? What would you do about that? So you're gonna be talking about all
these kinds of things that the children wonder about. They don't know when the best time
is or maybe they've seen certain friends engage in all kinds of physical activity and they
feel like that if they date someone or go on a date with someone, they're required to
do all of those things. So make sure you talk about the ways that we touch and communicate,
the ways that you might want to talk with a person, that's also important. One things
that I always shared with my children when they were starting this dating journey is
I would say if you want to have a 2nd date with that person, if you want that person
to enjoy your company, you've got to make sure that you ask them questions and give
them the chance to talk. If you are only talking about yourself, that's not very fun for anybody
and they don't have a great memory that is usually made on that experience with you.
So to create good friends, turn the attention on them instead of on yourself. This was super
helpful information. Other things that you're gonna want to talk about is respect, how to
respect each other, how to respect their parent because that's also a key player in dating
life. What are the parents thinking about it? What are the parents rules? If you keep
the parents happy, then the whole dating experience is better for everyone and less stress. So
we're gonna want to talk about relationships, developing relationships, all of those kinds
of things are important bits of conversation for that parent counselling session. Also
as part of this parent counselling session, you want to establish what consequences might
come into play if a person does not keep their curfew or if they happen to engage with the
other people in ways that is not safe or healthy or might go against some of your family standards.
It's got to be clear, they need to know everything. Before I get to my next 2 steps and my bonus,
I would like to know from you what types of differences have you noticed in the dating
world from when you were a teen to where now your children are a teen? There are some differences
and I would love to see what you're seeing so put those in the comments below. Step number
2 is have a date with your child. So if your child is a son, then that means me, mom, I'm
gonna go on a date with a son. I'm gonna say listen, before you can go out on dates with
other people, we've got to have a practice or maybe even a couple of practices. So you
need to ask me on a date when it feels like a good time for you and then we will go and
have a good time. You will get to run that date and I'll give you tips afterward on how
it's going. We'll have good conversation and you'll get to experience what a girl feels
like when they're being taken on a date by you. If your child is a daughter, then this
is a great time for dad to take your daughter on a date, right? And he asks her on a date
and then he shows her how she should be treated when she is on a date with a man. This is
a beautiful thing that she gets to experience so that she has a bar, she has a criteria.
She wants to find somebody who will treat her as good as daddy will treat her. So this
is important. When the parents set the bar for how dates should happen, then the children
have a very high bar for what they're hoping for and they won't sell themselves short or
put up with behavior from other people that really puts them in danger or is not really
comfortable for them. Step number 3, before the date, do a pre-teach. So while I'm all
about self-government, there are multiple videos on this channel that talk about self-government
and what that means in a relationship and with your family. So go ahead and look that
up. I'm not gonna get into tons of detail there but I will say that one of the key principles
of self-government is preparing ahead of time. So both steps number 1 and 2 have all been
about preparation, but the night of the date or the day of the date comes, you need to
pre-teach one more time about what they can expect, what kinds of conversation starts
that they can use, how to behave themselves, what to do with the doorstep. All of those
kinds of things need to be taught just one more time so that they are fresh in their
mind when they leave out on their date so that they will have success and confidence
as they go and do things with their friends and start to work on what it feels like to
develop different relationships and get to know new people. Alright are you ready for
your bonus? You stuck with me all the way until the end here. The bonus is the follow-up.
A really good parent who is conscientious about teaching their child good social behavior
and helping their child take those steps toward adulthood that will actually make them successful
always does a follow-up afterward. So after the date, whether it's that night or whether
it's the next day, have a heart to heart conversation about what happened and be totally safe. If
your child explains well, I ended up kissing him. I didn't want to but I did. Don't be
shocked. Just say well that can happen, let's talk about how next time you can make it so
that you can get more of what you want out of a date or a hangout with a certain person.
Make sure that they know you are a safe person to talk to. There is nothing they can't talk
to you about. You are not going to be shocked about anything. You are the one that's gonna
help them succeed and help them through some of those bumps that happen when you're in
the dating age. Has this been fun for you? If so, give me a thumbs up. If you would like
more content like this, there is a free class that I would like to share with you and it
is called "The Expectation Trap vs. The Cycle For Success." So click on that video and I'll
see you there.