Why I Paid My Daughter $100 Not To Kiss A Boy

Last week I received an email from a friend asking me for any advice I had for helping her teenager navigate the tumultuous dating years successfully. As a pastor's wife and a mother of four, two of which are happily married, I guess I am viewed as somewhat of an expert.

What I didn't admit to my friend is that as a parent of a teenager I feel like I'm in a boat that is rapidly sinking and the bucket I'm using to bail out the water has a hole in it.

Overwhelmed. That's the best word I have as a parent of a teen. Right up there with clueless.

I'm always leery of people who claim to have the answers and make neat, little, tidy lists. (And yes, I found the following examples using a Google search.)

Four Ways to Get Your Teen To Use a Chore Chart.

(Seriously! Do you hand out smiley stickers?)

23 Ways for Teens to Make Money. (This post contained the usual ideas of holding a garage sale, selling stuff on Ebay, doing odd jobs and tutoring, but I would have to draw the line at "being a human guinea pig" for medical research. I kid you not.)

Three Steps To Turn Your Troubled Teen Into a Responsible Adult. (Only three steps? Maybe this person should get together with the Chore Chart person. Happy stickers for everyone).

So, like I said, I am resistant to appearing like I have all the answers, but here are a few things my husband and I have tried with our four kids.

Why I Paid My Daughter $100 Not To Kiss A Boy and Other Dating Tips

1.  The Sex Talk. 

At age 13 I took the girls and my husband took the boys to a nice restaurant of their choice. We talked about being a teenager, peer pressure and our young teens could ask us any question they wanted about sexuality. In theory this was actually easier than in practice. Reality involved a lot of awkward pauses on both sides of the table.

The child, who at age 3, would go up to a complete stranger and ask, "Are you pregnant or are you just fat?" was now, a decade later, struck mute. And speaking from the mom's point-of-view, I found it challenging to talk about breasts, boys and monthly cycles while cutting cubes of steak and eating baked potatoes as the waiter hovered, filling our water glasses.

Also, before you are too impressed with my awesome parenting skills, one of my daughters informed me last year that I never did this with her. I don't know how it happened, but she declares it is true. Somewhere in the mountains of laundry, eight years of soccer practice, music lessons and getting homework done on time, she was forgotten. But she's okay with that, as long as I still give her the nice dinner. "You can skip the sex talk, Mom." Since she's in college now, I might consider it.

2. Purity Rings. 

At 16 our teens get purity rings. With our older two children, we picked out the rings, fashioning them around our last name - Hartke - getting rings with a heart and key. With our younger two children, they picked out the rings. Our daughter chose a pearl. Our son had his ring engraved with the words,

amor vincet omnia - Love conquers all.

Getting a ring was a big event, a rite of passage, and for the most part, the kids didn't mind wearing them to public high school, because as my oldest son confided in me - having a purity ring was a chick magnet.

Yeah, just what we were going for.

3. The $100 Deal. 

Here's the deal.

One hundred bucks if you don't kiss someone before you turn 16.

(This does not include grandparents or Macedonians who greet on both cheeks or crazy Aunt Selma who smells like a fish.) At 16, you can take the cash or take the next deal -

Double or nothing if you wait until you are 18. 

Some of our kids made it to 18. Some have wished they'd taken the $100.

We took this idea from another parent who gave their kids $500 at 18. (Sorry kids, we're too cheap).

Just to clarify - it's not that I think kissing is bad. Or dating is bad. The $100 Deal is just a tool to get our teens to stop and think, to use their heads and not their hormones, to realize that this thing called love is complicated and worth waiting for and purity is something to value and not throw casually away.

So, what advice would you have for my friend in regard to navigating the dating waters with a teenager? What has worked for you?