My sisters first boyfriend was 19 when she was 13. I was 16 at the time and I know my parents were very worried about it. Personally I think this is sick and was not really happy about some guy with a car driving my sister around. I also seriously question his morals in thinking it is ok to date a minor who is 6 years your junior.

Suffice to say, with what my mum and dad said about it all, it didn't really last that long. Her 2nd boyfriend was much the same and even lived out of his car. He thought it would be ok to park it out the front of my mum and dads house. He only lasted a little bit longer. Now she is happily married to a hard working guy and all is well.

I think the thing is that the more you criticise or say no to a child, the more they will feel like rebelling. Sometimes you need to make a couple of mistakes to progress. Heck, who here hasn't, we are all human. As a parent, it is our role to guide and assist and care for our children but where do you draw the line. I know for a fact that im rather pig headed at times. If my mum and dad had of tried the forceful tactic on me, I would have just done what I wanted.

When I was 15, I was with a friend and he was caught shoplifting. We both ended up down the police station. I was assaulted by the police office who used his baton on me by putting a telephone book on my head and whacking the stick into it. I told him I was going to tell my father. He laughed and said, we cant charge you, you wont tell you father so I went home and told my dad. He called the policeman responsible who said that it didn't happen and that he had his own children and also was arrogant enough to say, it wont stand up anyway, a policeman will be believed over a 15 year old child. My father then told this police officer that overall I was a good and honest kid who knew it was wrong to steal, even if I didn't, the fact I knew my friend was, I should have stopped him or left. I did neither so I got grounded for 2 months.

My father then went on to tell the police officer that he had been a Justice of the Peace for 20 years, was an ex Mayor of a council and that one of his closest friends was a superintendent. Anyway, my father when grounding me said "Glen, I don't want to speak to you, im not angry with you, you know you made a mistake but..... I am so terribly disappointed, can you please leave the room. This to me was more than any grounding or screaming would have achieved, the fact I had let him down.

I think in this case, you need to weigh the pro's and cons, whoever this kid was, its your child's 1st boyfriend, you will be nervous if he is a muso or even if he was on in the maths squad at school and a straight a student. She will get to know him and if she likes him then she will date him, but id say it wont last to long. They usually don't at that age ;-) I guess if you have a relationship like I had with my father, then it would be nice to think that if she has concerns she will address them with you, she will be honest with you and not hide things. Children tend to be honest with you if you are fair and honest with them.

I don't understand that Darwin stuff, you guys all confuse me with that. I have to be honest, I cant really read books on psychology. Just don't follow them or understand them. Guess we all have things we are good at picking up and thing we are not.

My father has a really good analytical mind, I think I picked that up from him as I work in Systems and have recently been offered a consulting job. I struggled with deadlines at school and also with a lot of subjects because I got bored and couldn't follow them but I know that if I start something I cant sleep, rest or walk away until I have worked it out. I apply it to everything I do here which is good now because I am a fix it man but when I wasn't my boss would always say "Glen, get a move on, stop spending so much time on this or that. Follow the process" lol. Never was good at that.

Never got dads genes when it came to drawing, think ive mentioned earlier that he can draw picture perfect, I mess up stick figures but I kind of do have his temper (Guilty, but guess at least I know about it) Still was an interesting childhood, he didn't really know how to show love or compassion eg I still to this day have never heard him say "I'm sorry" or even water at the eyes. He used to yell a lot and we were bought up on intimidation, I don't blame him, he never really had a father but when it came to emergency's, helping those at a disadvantage or sticking up for family. He was fantastic. Its kind of hard to describe. He was the perfect dad but it took a very long time and a medical emergancy for him to open himself up, let the poker face disapear.