Unedited Transcripts of my recent podcast
What are the best house rules for teen “romantic” sleepovers?
Mom needs some guidance as her teen starts a relationship! She has questions about setting clear house rules around things like bedroom doors and sleepovers.
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- All Kids Episode – Question from a Parent: What are the best house rules for teen “romantic” sleepovers?
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TRANSCRIPTION (This is unedited)
Hello from Seattle, where it is blaring sunshine. I know some of you are aware it’s blaring snow, but I am cold, so I’m wearing my cute hat. Hi, I’m Amy, birds and bees and kids.
Welcome to the Just Say This podcast, and welcome to my super low production. I zip through all the music and blardy-blar at the beginning most of the podcasts I listen to, so if you just get me, I am going to use a little commercial interruption. If you have a question for me and you would like one-on-one support, I do quickie consultations.
They’re 30 minutes. They’re a deep dive right to the business, not a lot of bullshit. I’m a consultant.
Therapy’s not bullshit. I’m a consultant. I’m not a therapist, so resources, chatting, making a plan, so that’s a quickie with me.
What else? I love advice columns, so my original version of this was that, and then y’all quit asking me questions, and then I got tired, and you know, here we are again. So today, we’re going to do a question from a parent, and I’m going to go read it because, you know, it’s better from them than from me, right?
She says:
I’m looking for some guidance as my teen may be starting a new relationship. I want to be supportive, but I have questions about setting clear house rules around things like bedroom doors and sleepovers.
I’m also unsure about how or if to communicate with the other parents involved. I’d love help thinking through what makes sense, what’s necessary, and how to handle it without making things awkward. My goal is to support healthy relationships while still keeping clear boundaries at home.
Lots and lots of parents have this question, and I really love that they’re getting ahead of the bedroom doors being open or closed, sleepovers, those circumstances. So here’s what I think.
You have to have a conversation with your kid, and you need to figure out, like, what feels right to you, and how are they feeling, and just so you know, like, they know that you’re thinking about this, and so it’s not a surprise when the kid is over, the partner’s over at the house, that these are your house rules.
Now, things will change, right? So as the relationship progresses, they’re going to need more privacy, potentially. So I would just say, initially, no sleepovers, just no. I mean, just a side note, sleepovers cause all kinds of trouble, romantic, not romantic, whatever, really not romantic sleepovers, all kinds of nonsense goes on.
So back to romance, back to sex and romance. So initially, I would say, you know, hey, this is what we want to do. Initially, your bedroom door needs to be cracked, and even though you say that, they can still get up to stuff, right? They’re sneaky and horny, and so just know that even though you have a door-cracked-open policy that might not do anything for them, if that’s your policy, then you always knock first and wait to be invited in, because they may be up to something and need to get themselves together.
At the point where you suspect they are sexually active, or they just tell you, like your kiddo tells you, like, hey, we’re thinking about doing it, or we’ve done it, then close door policy. So here’s why I am basically advocating for kids to have sex at home. It’s because it’s safer.
Think of all the places that you did it when you were a teenager, if you did it. I remember being in bathrooms in public places, other people’s houses, fooling around in cars, right? You fill in the blanks there. If you want to, you know, make comments in the YouTube thingy, go for it.
So those were not safe places. A house, home is a safe place. In their own bedroom is a safe place.
You can have condoms available if pregnancy or that kind of germy passing penetration is possible, condoms and spermicide. You can also have Plan B available, so they are as safe as possible and have all the opportunities to, you know, take care of their sexual health in that way.
That is the main thing for me with this, and again, it’s a family decision, but things evolve.
And if you’re open to what that evolution is and your goal here is right, you said healthy relationship, right? Like what that looks like, supportive, and this is what that looks like. Also making sure they have all the information they need about birth control. One mom, we just talked about this and they are having sex and the girl is very reluctant to use birth control.
I posted this on my Facebook page, actually. And so my advice to them was they have to have, if they’re going to be in the bedroom, whatever, they need to go to Planned Parenthood and have a birth control consultation because she was, I don’t know what was going on, misinformation from TikTok, no good information from her family, who knows? So price of admittance, right? So the other thing is that Kerry used to say, “I don’t want to hear it, see it, or smell it, which I think is perfect because I don’t want to hear it, see it, or smell it.” And I’m sure that you don’t either.
And then, okay. And then the question about, do you tell the other family? Yes, you have open communication with the family. You talk about the kids dating, you see what their values are and just get to know them, meet them if that’s possible.
And you need to smell them out and you need to kind of get a bead and a vibe on about what their family is like. The other thing too is to make sure that she’s involved in your regular family life. You invite her to do things with you.
She comes over for dinner, goes out to brunch. So you can also see how their relationship is going and accept her into your family. Now that’s again, the process, right? That’s a process.
And your kid may be like, but you can also say, you know what? We just want to know who she is. You don’t have to talk to us, right? You can just hang out with us. So if the other family, if sex is on the table and the other family is really very conservative and like, we cannot have this happen, that gives you some information.
And you can talk about the rules at your house and the open door policy and whatever you have in place. But if your child tells you they’ve done it and there is no birth control on the scene, then it is your responsibility to make sure that child is able to prevent a pregnancy and your child understands their responsibility if there’s an impregnation. And their responsibility is that they are on the hook for whatever she decides.
So at that point, I would say not communicating with other family if it’s complicated about this and encouraging her to talk with her parents and talk with her family or take care of her own health care. You can help her make an appointment with her doctor, whatever. But it’s, you know, it’s always kind of a delicate, it’s kind of delicate, but also, come on, nobody really likes a pregnant teenager.
I mean, you know what I mean? Like, that’s not something we hope for for our children. We don’t want our kids to be parenting before they’ve really, you know, are capable, whatever. You know what I’m saying? I’m not a fan.
So you need to set everything up for them to be safe. Okay. I think I’ve blathered on long enough about that.
Thanks so much for listening and sharing, please. You know, I know I’m not for everyone, but also everyone needs to hear this stuff and make their own decisions about things. So, and if you’re listening and you’ve got a six-year-old, go you, right? This is something you can stick in your hip pocket, figure out what you’re going to do when the time comes.
And then one other thing. So I’ve been doing this for 20 years, which freaks me out. And early days, I think Milo was seven.
I was doing a talk for a parent group and somebody said, I’m going to let my kids have sex at home. And I was like, oh, I could never. And then I was like, okay.
And I had that reaction to it. And she was, she had teenagers, I think. And then over the next couple of years I evolved.
And I was like, please have sex at home. Please have sex at home. Anyway.
Okay. That’s me. Take care.
Lots of resources in the show notes or whatever you’re looking at. And again, if you need help with a specific issue, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me and thank you. And for those of you who are losing their shit over the state of our country, please do not sit idly by.
Find one small thing you can do. Call your senators, even if you know they’re going to vote the right way, call them anyway, because they’re counting us. They’re counting us.
Okay. That’s my political moment for the day. All right.
Thanks. Talk to you later.
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai
