1. Cultural shifts and use of technology, especially social media, are drastically changing how adolescents form relationships. This will, of necessity, impact the manner in which adolescents’ view dating, meet prospective friends/partners, and make decisions about friendships.
2. Excessive use of social media may lead to high-risk behaviors that are detrimental to the long-term health of the adolescent and his or her families.(1)
3. Adolescents should be taught to separate simple friendships from dating relationships. Dating should be engaged in seriously and considered integral to the process of finding a lifetime marriage partner who shares their values and goals.
4. Parents can help teens establish healthy personal boundaries by encouraging the teen to respect his or her own values and body.

See “Conversation: Encouraging Children to Choose Sexual Abstinence Until Marriage” and “Conversation: Adolescents and the Benefits of Saving Sex for Marriage.”

1. The development of healthy relationships outside of the family will allow the adolescent to practice new social and communication skills that will ultimately strengthen that adolescent’s future marriage.
2. Avoiding high-risk behaviors during the adolescent years will not only protect the teen from the untoward consequences of those activities, but will also allow the adolescent to later enter a marriage relationship in a healthful manner—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Adolescents listen to parents and change their behavior when parents convey their values.(2)

Adolescents have immature brain development, especially in the frontal lobe, the part of the brain responsible for decision making.(3)

Increased use of social media may contribute to an adolescent’s inability to appropriately evaluate the emotional status of another person.(4)

Adolescents who wait to participate in non-group dating until they are older than 15 years of age may experience fewer high-risk behaviors.(5)

• Discuss how old the teen should be in order to date in a group.

• Discuss how old the teen should be in order to single date. (It is probably best for most teens to wait until they are older than 15 years of age.)

• Discuss the teen’s motivation for dating. Dating should be a way to develop friendships and communication skills rather than become sexually involved.

• Discuss scenarios that increase the risks associated with dating and how to avoid them; isolated environments, teen females dating older men, sexually charged situations, use of alcohol and drugs, dates that continue after midnight

• Discuss what information the teen will need to tell the parent before the date; where he or she will be, who he or she will be with, what activities they will be doing, when his or her return is expected, if something occurs that will cause a late arrival, a phone call is expected, when is curfew and what are the consequences for being late, and parental expectations about meeting the person the teen will be dating.

• The parent will pick up the teen without any questions; the message the parent is providing is, “I am so glad you called me. I want you to be safe.” A discussion of how the teen came to be in an unsafe situation can be held at a later time.
• The parent will provide money for taxi fare to return home.
• The teen always keeps money in a safe place for bus or taxi fare.

• When the controlling partner will not allow the teen to go anywhere alone or act independently, but instead insists the teen must spend time with only the partner.
• When the teen is losing contact with family and friends and not participating in other activities because the controlling partner forbids it.
• The controlling partner is allowed to participate in other activities, but the teen is not.
• The controlling partner determines all the activities and events, never allowing the teen to make decisions.
• The controlling partner always finds a way to blame the teen for anything that goes wrong, refusing to accept blame or acknowledge fault.

The controlling partner often accuses the teen of inappropriate behavior or flirting and quickly becomes angry, not accepting or understanding explanations.

1. O’Keeffe GS, Clarke-Pearson K, Council on Communications and Media. The impact of social media on children, adolescents, and families. 2011;127:800-804.
2. Resnick MD, Bearman PS, Blum RW, et al. Protecting adolescents from harm: findings from the national longitudinal study on adolescent health. JAMA. 1997;278(10):823-832.
3. American College of Pediatricians. The teenage brain: under construction. http://www.acpeds.org/the-college-speaks/position-statements/parenting-issues/the-teenage-brain-under-construction.
4. Uhls YT, Michikyan M, Morris J, et al. Five days at outdoor education camp without screens improves preteen skills with nonverbal emotion cues. Comput Hum Behav. 2014;39:387-392.
5. Connolly J, Hguyen HNT, Pepler D, et al. Developmental trajectories of romantic states and associations with problem behaviors during adolescence. J of Adolescence. 2013;36:1013-1024.
6. Are you in a manipulative or controlling relationship? http://www.eharmony.com/dating-advice/about-you/are-you-in-a-manipulative-or-controlling-relationship/#.VFAwzudRE40.
7. Hartwell-Walker, M. Signs of a controlling guy. http://psychcentral.com/lib/signs-of-a-controlling-guy/0002644.

1. American College of Pediatricians handout, How Far is Too Far? https://www.acpeds.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/HOW-FAR-IS-TOO-FAR-1.pdf.
2. American College of Pediatricians handout, Strategies for Teens, http://www.acpeds.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Strategies-for-teens32.pdf.
3. American College of Pediatricians handout, Strategies for Parents of Teens, http://www.acpeds.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Strategies-for-parents-of-teens1.pdf.
4. American College of Pediatricians, Suggestion for Parents and Teens, https://www.acpeds.org/parents/sexuality/sexual-responsibility-2/suggestions-for-parents-and-teens.