Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy PG teens and relationships

I am seeking advice on how to support my dd with regard to relationships. She just turned 13 yo, and recently scored at DYS/SET levels on the SAT. Over the last couple of summers, she has developed a friendship with a boy, at a very rustic residential summer camp. This boy lives in a nearby city, about 150 miles away. We traveled over the recent winter break to that city so that the two kids could get together. Dh and I spent the day with the kids, and then the evening at dinner at his home with his family. We were amazed to discover that not only is this boy incredibly sweet, but that he is also dd's intellectual peer, and has a loving, supportive family. And unlike the very bright university faculty spawn at the school dd attends, this boy is a true kindred spirit in his interests and disposition.

I thus suddenly find myself at a complete loss as to how to support dd, and I seek advice from those with similar experience. I am happy for dd on many levels, to have found a kindred spirit, to be attracted to an intellectual peer, to be smitten. But I never expected to be in this position when she is so young! Part of me wants to tell her to hang on to this boy for dear life, as who knows how long (college?) until she has a chance of encountering someone comparable. On the other hand, 13 yo is so young. She is just beginning to be interested in boys - not the right time to find THE ONE, right? It is a time for exploration...... And the other thing is that I never expected to be coordinating her personal life, but due to the distance she is dependent on us for face to face meetings. Ack!!

So we are arranging another meeting during spring break - his family will come to visit in our city.

Does anyone else out there have experience/advice for young teen pg romance??? Thanks in advance!

Don't know, and honestly, you probably wouldn't want to hear my recent horror story (also have a 13yo DD who similarly found a peer this past summer, but turned out to be-- well, psychopathic is probably the best way of putting it).

I'd caution her about "healthy" relationships, not giving your whole heart too soon-- and boundaries, personally. This is a particularly important talk to have, IMO, because our kids are much more vulnerable to offering themselves heart and soul to anyone that seems actually compatible and seems to return their interest. Trust me, THEY know how thin that selection is for themselves, too, by this age. What they DO NOT seem to know is that there are going to be others. Eventually, I mean.



I understand where you're at, though, and we, too, have wondered what to say to a child who is SOCIALLY so mature, but is also in so many significant ways still very much 13. Do think carefully about what same-age peers are doing/thinking as part and parcel of normal development, here, and bear it in mind. This is very much the age of crushes and shallow attractions-- for MOST kids, that is.

I wouldn't worry too much about it. Long-distance relationships rarely work out, and very few people end up marrying their first crush. And it's a looooong way between 13 and marrying age. But with that said, you have to have a first crush, right?

Everything about this relationship seems healthy so far, and with a boy 150 miles away, it's not like you have to start land-mining the yard below her bedroom window or anything.

So basically, I see no reason to either encourage or discourage this relationship at this point. My advice is to just relax, let it be, and live in the moment.

I wonder if cheap long distance phone calls, video phone calls, texting, and email make long-distance relationships more resilient than the used to be.

Hmm. I'm not sure what you mean by "support" her. If you mean that she wants to talk about it, I would follow her lead. If you mean physical transportation so they can see each other from time to time, also great. If you mean that you'll always be present or very close by when the two of them are together, well, not so great.

I'm with MoN in letting the two of them handle it. IMO, and provided there's nothing damaging going on (which definitely seems to be the case here) kids need their own space to figure these things out for themselves.

I say go ahead and facilitate contact when it is convenient. Try to keep the lines of communication open with her, and chaparone as appropriate. My now 17 year old PG daughter was really quite lonely in middle school. She had some friends, but they were not her "peers". Then she found an online group with Cogito, and that helped. But it still wasn't real, face to face contact. She only really found others like herself when she went to THINK (and still has weekly phone calls with a boy she met there, although she says he is only a friend). But the other day we were chatting, and she commented that so far she has only met 3 people she could really see herself having any kind of a successful relationship with. One someone she met on Cogito, and the boy from THINK, and another student on her robotics team that she has known since K (not completely her peer intellectually, but as close as she has at school). The odds ARE low for our kids to find an "other". As long as the relationship is not taking her in unhealthy directions, I say go ahead and allow/facilitate as you can.

Not necessarily. Actually compatible others, that is.

Good point. At 13, my DD has only met about four people at anything like her LOG. Only one of those people (an EG person several years older) was more-or-less "compatible" as any kind of romantic interest.

Er-- or seemed that way initially, anyway, as noted above.

We've always anticipated that it may well take her until graduate studies to find others like herself, and even that may depend on what field she eventually settles into. It's one reason why we've encouraged more "elite" fields of study.

It is true, however, that at 13-14yo, one has a lot of maturing still to do. That's true regardless of LOG. So even if you found "the one" person in the world who was actually compatible with you at that age, there is no guarantee that the two of you would be compatible at age 25, when you're both nominally "done growing up."

Viewing things through that lens, I think, is problematic. Our kids (as PG people) may well BE emotionally not their chronological ages, but that doesn't mean that we can assign them an OLDER but still-chronological age which does match.

The older they get, the harder it gets to say (with any accuracy) that they are "effectively +10 years" and otherwise comparable to NT people. They aren't. And less so with every passing year.

How on earth can I say that my 13yo DD is "like a 22 yo" in her social awareness, needs, and experience? She isn't-- because as we mature into adulthood, those social-emotional needs FUSE, and that is definitely not the case for her yet the way it is for that 22yo. Her sense of social justice may well be on par, all right. But her life experience is that of a 13yo. Kind of. Well-- a PG 13yo. It's just qualitatively different from NT people.

I'm not sure what "compatible" even means, to tell you the truth.

And people change all the time.

I certainly don't want to be like I am right now in five years. I would prefer to have some maturity and some idea of what I want to go do with myself.