There's No Hurry: Rethinking Teen Dating

Many parents wrestle with the question of when teens should start dating—and the pressure to follow culture can be intense. In this week’s Famology post, we share the hidden costs of early dating, and how slowing things down can actually protect your child’s heart, identity, and future. If you’re navigating teen relationships, this conversation is for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Well, hello, and welcome back to FAMology. We're John and Amy Classen, and we are parents to eight, mother and father-in-law to four, and grandparents to a growing group of babies. And life is really fun. Yeah, we're here and take questions every week about marriage, parenting, and family. And uh we are by no means the world's experts, but we have leaned in hard to the Lord as we have been training and teaching our children and pressing in for his best for our marriage as well. And so this is this is our passion. And um, we're very excited to get to today's question.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

For sure.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

It's a little controversial question, I feel like.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Well, I you know, I have a lot to say about it for sure.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

I know, I kind of was thinking that when I was thinking about you might hear my husband on the like teaching today. I that's kind of what I'm feeling like, isn't that true?

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Yeah, I try not to. I've been you know coached not to, but I'm a teacher at heart, and so um there will probably just be some thoughts that I have in this regard for sure. We'll see. We shall see.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Well, we sure had a Merry Christmas at our house. Yes. Um we had all of our kids together, and our if you listened to our Christmas tradition podcast last week, you know that poems were a part of it, and they were hilarious. We we we went from crying to laughing to crying to laughing multiple times during our Christmas celebrations.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

It's meaningful when you can put things into words for people, whether it be funny or meaningful. Um, it uh it for some reason it it's it plucks a string that that that that uh hits you right in the heart. Yeah, and so it was a fun time.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

It was a good time, and then my brother and his family came for three or four days and just tons of fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

My brother has nine children and multiple married and grandbabies, and so it's and they all love each other, and so it's uh it's a pedal to the metal, you know, three or four days of activity and fun, but we're still upright.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

We are still upright and speaking in full sentences, yes. Yeah, tip, pro tip. If you have a garage, put people in there. We set up all our garage becomes our dining room, yes, and it allows us to host very large groups of people, yes, and it's pretty wonderful. So it is super fun. So hopefully your your Christmas was just as fun as ours. And and I'm gonna read our first question.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Go for it.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

All right, let's see if I can read it in this lighting. What age should a teen start dating? And I feel like this is a question there's just a lot of opinions about and a lot of different experiences with. Do you want to get us started on this one?

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Well, I think I think not only experiences, but you know, even just you know, cultural norms over time. You know, we we just got into the you know, Little House in the Prairie. Yeah, we started watching those again. And and yeah, they you know, they married much earlier back then. Uh some of that was out of necessity, some of that was out of economy. Um, and and some of it was out of maturity because they required their children to grow up a lot faster uh and handle a lot more uh than what we're experiencing now. Um however, our our children are being exposed to a lot, and I would argue more than they probably need to be. Um however, experience doesn't equal maturity, and exposure doesn't equal maturity. That's true. And so um the I I really believe the the greatest factor in answering this question is the issue of maturity. Now that's going to be different with every each of our children as well to a certain degree. So the concl the conclusion of this podcast isn't necessarily gonna be a number, I don't think, unless you have a number in your mind.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

I don't have a number, but I do I I mean maturity, yes, but I don't I mean, this is where it could be a little controversial. I'm not sure that even a very mature 15-year-old should be dating. No, only because there's unless you're will we are okay with them getting married when they're 16, which I would say most of us would be like heckna, which is our new favorite word from our Christmas poems, you know. Um that that maybe it's you know it would be better to wait. So maturity, yes, but I do think that there is the number matters too to me.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Yeah. I I think that there's connected to dating, which is such a serious thing, and again, our culture today has sort of made it super flippant um and super low stakes, right and and in in a lot of ways sort of meaningless and really self-gratifying is really what it's for. And so we have to understand when we talk about dating what Johnny and Amy mean by dating, and and and what I guess our the way we're answering this question is that we take it very seriously. Yeah, and so there has to be a moment where it's not um, you know, you don't want it to be so high stakes that it's like, you know, the second you start dating is the second you're talking about marriage. We don't believe that. Um, on the other hand, it has to be somebody that you are thinking that you could marry um and answering that question. And at age 14, 13, 15, that's not a question that can be answered at all.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

I from my own personal experience, I my mom and dad had a number for us, and they said we couldn't date before we were 16, which at you know, back in the day, that was a a pretty good, you know, set of instructions. Um, but I remember the first guy that I started dating when I was 16. I'm like, uh he's well, he's not somebody that I'd marry, but it's he's fun to be around.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:45

Ouch! I I just feel like it's just it's just a waste of energy, time, and and our souls. It's like when we date and we talk about things at deeper levels because we're in a dating relationship, we're actually handing over a portion of ourselves, even if it isn't with sex and you know, all of the things that can go along with dating that are extremely damaging. I feel like even some of the over-communicating that happens in the dating can be very damaging. And I found it to be for myself.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Right. And I think I think the but the the issue with that, in my opinion, is the maturity to handle it. And so the the point that I guess we're trying to make um separately is that the maturity doesn't line up with the experience of dating. And so when when you have somebody who is immature, um, you know, frontal lobes for men, you know, usually don't fully develop until about age 23 or 24.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

I heard 25.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

25 is the number I heard. I'm giving I'm gonna give some men a little bit of credit and forward them a couple years. Well, if that's true, then then there is an immaturity that before that that is present, and we're asking a 14-year-old to make some kind of relational decisions uh with somebody that they are quote unquote dating. It's actually ludicrous. Yeah, and and I, you know, I I'll use bigger language. I I just think it's ridiculous. And so this idea of dating is is purely, in my opinion, a societal pressure. Yeah, that's what you're supposed to do when you're 14, and if you don't, you're some kind of weirdo.

SPEAKER_02 7:20

14, 15, 16. You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

Um, and and earlier now. Yeah. I mean, so this and it is all just societal pressure. There's no there's no benefit for your child to date at that age. There's no benefit. No. Let me be very clear. There is no clear benefit to allow them to do that, yeah. Other than maybe they'll get teased a little bit less. I I don't know what other benefit there could possibly be. Um, and so I'm I'm a little bit more black and white on this issue. Yeah. Um, and so when you're when you're ready to think about marriage, which in practicality is going to be 20, 21, 22, maybe 19 for a select few that are a little bit more mature. Um, that is the time to start thinking about what dating is and what dating is for, um, because there's the maturity that can come along with handling a relationship.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

Yeah, I agree with that. And I feel like when you date as a younger person, I feel like they become a factor in the decisions of your life. Yeah. In a time frame where your factors should be between your parents and the Lord and your calling. And I think it when you when you factor in a person um into those decisions, I think that that some of our decisions can become warped. Like you choose a school, a college based on where your boyfriend's going. Not a great plan. That's just not a great plan. Um, discerning your calling from the Lord. If he's leading you into missions and you're dating somebody that, you know, just doesn't even know what that is, it's that can be just very harmful in skewing um the singular focus. I feel like the the appropriate thing to be happening in this season of life is for our kids to be wooed by the Lord. Yeah. We want them to be in this season, securing their identity and what it means to be loved by God and learning to hear his voice for themselves as they're getting ready to step into adulthood. That's the primary focus. And I feel like when a dating relationship enters into that, it can make all of those things super confusing. And it does and unnecessarily.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Well, and that's uh that's a word I have on my sheet too, is there's unnecessary pain connected to these early relationships that these young people are entering into. Um, it kind of drives me crazy, honestly, because I even as an ER doctor, I see I see the emotional scarring and pain that has taken place with relationships that have started way too soon, pregnancies way too soon, family getting thrown into life way too early, way before there's the emotional capacity to handle it. Yeah, and so the result of that is is is irregular emotions. You get pathology, things you start you start dealing with depression and anxiety, right? And these things that because the because the human brain at age 14 doesn't have the capacity to handle it. Yeah, and so we as parents, the most passionate thing that we can do, compassionate thing that we can do, is just tell our children to just wait. Yeah, everything needs to slow down. Yeah, and maybe that makes me an old fuddy duddy.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

Nope, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

I don't think so, but we just need to slow down. And and you know, my message to our children too is you know, if this person is somebody that the Lord has in mind for you, they're gonna be there when you're 19. Yeah, they're gonna be there when you're 20 because you just like doing life together. Um, and so if they aren't, well then praise the Lord that you didn't connect these. We we like to call them soul ties, and I think maybe we've talked about these in other podcasts as well. But soul ties, you know, our soul is our mind, will emotions, and feelings, and we connect that to a person, and those aren't things that are just easily unplugged. Right. Um, and especially when you get things that are happening physically together, um, there are there are some serious soul ties that happen with that, and I can prove that to you emotionally, chemically, hormonally, uh physically, and especially spiritually, yeah, that happens in in these relationships that cause some serious damage. Yeah, and so parents, if you're listening to this, I mean our short answer is I don't know. I don't I don't see I don't see a real avenue for where teens should date at all.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Teens and dating doesn't go together in a while. And and the only reason they would want to is because that's what their friends are telling them that they should do, and that's where they're wanting to get part of their identity from, correct, which isn't the appropriate place.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Now, with all that being said, attraction is real, hormones are real, um, even liking people and wanting to be with people and enjoying each other's company, all of that's real, and that's all from God, and and it just needs to be within these boundaries. And the problem is they don't have the maturity to maintain the boundaries. That's the problem. Yeah, and so we have to align the the ability, their mature decision making with the ability to hold boundaries. Yeah, that's true for all of us, it's still true. We've been married 30 years, we still have boundaries that we should need to live in because that's the way we're choosing to do it, and we have the maturity to handle that. Yeah, um, that nothing changes except these are they're way too young, yeah, and they can't handle it.

SPEAKER_02 12:26

Yeah, exactly. And I think that a friendship is a beautiful thing, and it's okay to be okay with having friends of the opposite sex and learning to navigate friendships. And really, you can learn a lot about another person in a friendship scenario where you can be like, okay, she actually is somebody that I could consider marrying, or maybe you know what, I am seeing this just as I'm watching how they interact with other people that can be very helpful and it can actually prevent the rejection and the soul ties and all the other things by learning to navigate great friendships with the opposite sex when you're teens.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Um, I had a I had a dream two nights ago.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

You did?

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Yeah, you didn't even hear this, but in my dream I said this. Wow. So we'll see if it lands.

SPEAKER_02 13:14

Okay, let me hear it.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Because it was just in a dream. But I said that you can learn about somebody's soul by how they enjoy life. I said this in my dream.

SPEAKER_02 13:22

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

And I was I was thinking, you know, if you if you just spend time together and you just go mini golfing together as a group and you just have fun in your teenage years enjoying each other, you learn a lot about people.

SPEAKER_02 13:34

Can you say that again for me?

SPEAKER_01 13:36

So you can learn about somebody's soul by the way they enjoy life. I think that's or the way they don't enjoy life. Yeah, I mean you learn about their soul too. If ever if everything is a downer and everything is a pain and they hate everybody and they don't like their parents, and and you see that you see those interactions as well, you learn about their soul that way too. Yeah, but you don't have to learn about it by dating them, you know what I mean? You can just spend time with them, yeah. And and I think things are exposed just in doing life. And so that's my our recommendation. That's been our recommendation to our children. Yeah, is let's just do life together. If this is somebody that you really enjoy and you like them, even if you're attracted to them, even if you just enjoy their company, yeah, bring them on over and we'll play games and we'll we'll we'll do things together as a family and we'll all kind of see what their soul is like by how they enjoy life.

SPEAKER_02 14:23

Yeah. In fact, one time I'm gonna set my husband up to tell a story.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

We might have told the story before on this podcast, but maybe not. Really? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 14:31

But I under this circumstance?

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Maybe not. No, I don't think so. So go ahead. Because it absolutely applies. I thought of the same thing. I'm assuming what story you're gonna tell.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

Okay. I'm the one I'm I'm not gonna tell it, I'm gonna set you up to tell it. Okay. So uh so um our the this particular daughter is already now happily married and expecting her second child. Um and but when she was in high school, she was also just very beautiful. And she went to quite the sharks began to circle.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

That's what I always say. The sharks are circling.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

She went to choir um at the high school every day uh during her high her last year homeschooling because she you can't do choir as a homeschooler. These are just things you have to outsource. And so she went and did that. And there was a young man in the choir who we have known since he was a little boy. He used to be a neighbor. Like when he was three, I think his parents moved in next door. So their family is just very familiar to us, and we have known him, known of him over the years. And he he came and called Johnny asking to take Lydia. Oops, I just said her name. Asking to take our beautiful girl Lydia out on a date.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Well, he wanted to take her ice fishing, you know, alone. Yeah, are you kidding me? Yeah, so that was, you know, the red flag. DEF CON one. And so uh, you know, and it might even have been Lydia who said, Well, you probably should talk to my dad. Bless her heart. Yeah. And uh, and so sure enough, this young man calls me and we have this conversation, and he says, you know, I I you know, I I like your daughter, and I just would be interested in spending some time with her. And he was very polite about the whole thing.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

Nice boy.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

And I and I said, Well, that sounds great. I said, you know, we don't really have our kids date at this age, but we would love to get to know you and see if you're somebody that she would like because she doesn't really know you either, is what I said to him. So I said, Why don't you come on over and we'll we'll get out the board games and we'll just spend time together. And he's like, That sounds great. That's how the conversation ended.

SPEAKER_02 16:29

Yeah, and you set up a time to do that.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Yep, yeah, yeah. Yeah, tomorrow we're free. Why don't you come on over or do whatever?

SPEAKER_02 16:34

I think it was a week away.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then it was cricket. Yeah, there was nothing. He really wasn't interested in getting to know us or spending time with us. He was just interested in spending time with her alone, and uh, you know, and that maybe was his heart that got exposed. Um, but that's just a it's just a great parenting tool because you know, we can just love each other and have spend time with each other and enjoy each other's company. And there are people out there, there are great teenage people out there that would be happy with it, that are wonderful people and might be great spouse material in the future, yeah. But just slow down, there's no hurry, and and like I said, they'll be there if they are the one and they won't go away. And so there's just plenty of plenty of time.

SPEAKER_02 17:18

Yes, there is, yes, there is, and I think this is an area that as society we haven't done well, and I think that even as moms and dads, if you look back on your own dating experience, some of them um were painful. As I know for me, it was I had some serious pain caused unnecessarily from dating too young. And um, I just wanted more for our kids. I wanted I wanted them to have their focus where their focus needs to be at this age, and so and it's a great time to have conversations with your children about what they should be looking for.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Yeah, there's no reason that you can't have that conversation, yeah. Um, you know, the things that that we value as a family, the things that are um non-negotiables. Yeah, you know, what are those non-negotiables? We've had com we've had those conversations in our hot tub before. Like, what are the non-negotiables? What are the things on your list that would be required? And it's not usually a very long list. And uh, you know, and then you know, what are the things that that you're attracted to? What are the things that you're drawn to? What is your personality like to hang out with? And and all those things, those are all from God and those are all important, and and it doesn't we don't ever want dating or courtship or any of those things to ever be an ugly thing or or a dirty thing. Um, it's a beautiful thing, and it should be a whole lot of fun. Yeah. And when the time is right and there is no hurry. Yeah, that's it. I said that before.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

Yep, there is no hurry.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

All right, let's pray. Father, we thank you for um for relationships. We thank you that you draw us together in love, and uh, that's all it's all your invention, and and you created it and is all part of your plan. And so, Lord, as parents are trying to g navigate this culture, Lord, I just I just release the the wisdom to know that we set the culture. We're not victims of the culture, we're not the ones that that need to go along with what the world is doing. We actually set the culture for our homes and for our families. And nothing is more important than protecting our children's hearts and their souls. It doesn't mean we put them in a in a cell cellar and lock the door, but it means that we train them and we guide them and and we and we um we connect them to those stages of life that connects with their maturity and what you created them to be. So, Father, I just release a blessing over these homes and over these families and over these teenagers uh that are are looking at the opposite sex and and and and and learning and discovering uh the things of relationships, Lord God, that they can be guided in such a mature, beautiful way that comes from your hand. And so, Lord, we just release that blessing right now in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Amen. If you would like to submit a question for Johnny and Amy to answer on a future episode, head over to the FAMLogy page on our website at GoFam.org or simply click the link in the caption below. And if you're enjoying the show, be sure to leave a review or a comment wherever you listen or watch. It really helps us out. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next week.