My youngest daughter who is sixteen started having sexual relations with her boyfriend. I had told her to be careful to protect her purity…. But I was able to see messages with her boyfriend on her phone, and found out that she was lying when she would ask for my permission. Instead of doing what she had told me, she was going out with her twenty-one-year-old boyfriend and being sexually intimate with him.
I want to forbid her to use her phone or to go out. What can I do… so that she won’t fall into this error again? I don’t want her to keep deceiving me and continue in sin.
Dear Friend,
We are so very sorry for your situation and for what your daughter has chosen to do! Sadly, her brain is not yet completely developed, so, as you know all too well, she can’t fully understand the consequences of her actions.
Before anything else, we all must accept that it is impossible to completely protect our children. Once they start school, they are out of our presence for many hours each day. There are influences from their teachers, from other students, from literature that they are exposed to, from the Internet, and from television, movies, podcasts and music. Unfortunately, the culture all around us has much more influence on teenagers than do their parents. And though it is human nature for teenagers to begin separating from their parents, it is a perilous process.
The Bible doesn’t deal with methods of child discipline, but it says clearly that sexual relations are to be reserved for after marriage.(1) It also teaches that parents have the responsibility to discipline their children.(2) From these two principles we can determine that you should definitely discipline your daughter and try to keep her from further sexual activity.
However, it is a delicate balance. We have a son who ran away when he was a teenager as a way of refusing to comply with our discipline. Other parents have had their children threaten to harm themselves. For those reasons we cannot tell you specifically how to protect your daughter with discipline. We highly recommend that you consult a professional counselor who has a Biblical worldview.
It would be wise for you to refrain from blaming the boyfriend or speaking badly about him to your daughter. Otherwise, she will feel that she is forced to protect him from you, and to choose him instead of you. Instead of making that happen, invite the guy to your house so that you can get to know him. Allow your daughter to visit with him in your house when you are also home, and in a public room, not her bedroom. Try to discover good things about the guy. Let your daughter see that you are protecting her, not controlling her choice of a boyfriend. When you say good things about the boyfriend, she will be more likely to see the bad things about him.
We wish you well,
Linda
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1 1Co 7:2, Heb 13:4
2 Pr 19:18