Explanation for parents of the landscape of teen dating today

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Explanation for parents of the landscape of teen dating today

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Teen courtship today looks very different than it did 50 years ago, and even different than it did in my generation. So courtship used to be a time of exploration where a young man and a young woman would decide if this person was safe enough to be called boyfriend or girlfriend. Of course, a lot of the traditional courtship rules involved gender stuff that seemed kind of like discriminatory, like somehow these girls are too weak to open their own doors, they're too weak to order from their own menu at a restaurant. So we've thrown out a lot of old-fashion courtship rituals because they just didn't make sense for today's time. Now, young girls even pay for dates for guys if they happen to be the one with the money, The important thing to remember is that you don't determine if somebody's fit enough to be a good boyfriend or good girlfriend just by them showing up. You look at how they're behaving with you. Are they talking to you in public so their friends can see that you're actually a real reason, not just some compartment in their online world? Are they posting publicly in your online social networks? If there's a guy that a girl has a crush on and he's hiding her in some private text world or private messages on Facebook, he 's not prepared to take her out in the real world as his girlfriend. And this applies to both genders because girls can play boys nowadays too. So we're looking for somebody who will also sacrifice. Well, in the old days you sacrifice with time and money, so we'll look at it, is he willing to wait until you're ready to kiss or is he saying, "Well, if I don't get a kiss from you, I'll get it from some other girl." If he's pressuring you to have sex that you're not ready for or any kind of physical contact you're not ready for, that's probably not good boyfriend material. Also, is he investing what little he has to sacrifice? I don't care if it's $1 on a stick of gum at lunchtime. Is he showing you that he's willing to make a sacrifice so that he could be a good boyfriend someday. So you have to look a little further and wider than traditional courtship and use technology wisely to make sure that this person is going to be the person that you can give your heart too.

See Wendy Walsh, PhD's video on Explanation for parents of the landscape of teen dating today...

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Wendy Walsh, PhD

Relationship & Parenting Expert

Dr. Wendy Walsh was nominated for an Emmy Award for her work as co-host on The Dr. Phil spinoff, The Doctors TV show. She also hosts Investigation Discovery Network’s “Happily NEVER After,” as well as being part of Dr. Drew’s Behavior Bureau on HLN Network. On CNN and 9 Network, Australia, she breaks down the psychology of sex, love, gender roles, divorce, parenting and other human behaviors. Dr. Wendy is an Adjunct Professor of Psychology at California State University, Channel Islands. She holds a B.A. in Journalism, a Masters degree in Psychology, and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, and is the author of three books and numerous publications, including The 30-Day Love Detox. She appears regularly on The Today Show, CBS This Morning, Good Morning America, The Steve Harvey Show, The O’Reilly Factor, Inside Edition, The Katie Couric Show, Jane Velez-Mitchell, and The View.

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