Jaydn is going to a school dance?

In line with our choice to have Jaydn start choosing his life choices himself we allowed him to decide if he wanted to go to a middle school dance. He expressed interest earlier so we left it up to him. He thought about it, prayed about it and decided he wanted to see what it was like. They are suppose to dress up like TV or movie characters(he is going as Indiana Jones). I , and his dad, are not too hot on the idea of letting him go to a dance when he is not old enough to go to church dances, and we thought we were going to have that as a rule, then I talked to a counselor friend of mine and she suggested letting him choose(even if he doesn't choose what we would prefer) so it will establish trust between us, he will feel like he really does have free agency. He will have to see how dumb the dance is before he won't want to go. Now I thought " I don't want him to "try" parties to see what they are about????" She said " If he gets to choose something more innocent now and gets the reason why you don't encourage going to stuff like that he will likely choose not to go to parties, and...hello... you can still set some limits!" I am hopeful(especially with Jaydn) that he will think this dance is dumb(he doesn't want to dance with girls... he wants to do the Karaoke and DDR) It sounds more like a school party to me, everyone that has had kids go has said they never actually dance with each other so I felt good about it.

This whole parenting thing is turning out to be much more complicated than I thought it would be. I think there is a fine line between being too strict and not strict enough. I ,surely, don't want my kids doing stuff behind my back..or invalidating what I have taught them because they feel too constrained and unable to have freedom of choice. It is interesting having these older children, parenting ideas must change and grow, not an easy task always. Just 6 months ago I was all about "My kids won't be allowed to do this or that.." After talking with my LDS friend that is a teen counselor I have seen a whole new prospective on life with teens. After all is said and done this is the time of their lives when they will be testing boundaries, experimenting with Independence and establishing themselves in society....I DON"T LIKE IT but I am excited all in one breath. FANTASTIC... the lessons we need to learn. It is so wise and perfect that we get to be parents and have these experiences here on this Earth. I am grateful the Lord has trusted me to be able to get through this and learn something too. I love my children!