Feeling love, having both emotional and physical attraction to others, and seeking close companionship is a large part of the human experience. It is common for kids as young as five-years-old to begin talking about crushes they have on peers and becoming curious about relationships. However, these expressions may reflect feelings of closeness to their crush, rather than true romantic attraction. Young kids' ideas of relationships may come from movies, fairy tales, and the romantic relationships they watch play out for parents or other adults. Essentially, they understand that people want to spend time with their partners and like them as a person. At a young age, it is easy to confuse this for any close relationship they may have with friends, a babysitter, or even parents.
As kids get older and go through puberty, often in middle school, sexual attraction may begin to emerge as part of the picture. They may develop a greater understanding of how romantic relationships are different from friendships, and their crushes may be based on attraction, shared interests or hobbies, or emotional connections. A middle-schooler's social life can feel like their whole world, and ups and downs in romantic relationships can be a big deal. Emotions are strong as they try to navigate complicated situations for the first time and may look to caregivers for support. At the same time, talking about relationships can feel embarrassing for kids at this age. Normalizing their experiences and being responsive and non-judgmental when they do choose to share is a great way to set the tone for future conversations about relationships. While from an adult’s point of view, it may seem easy to write off these early experiences with love, it’s important to keep in mind that these moments feel huge for kids, and they shape how your child may approach relationships, and conversations with you, moving forward.
Seeking romantic relationships in teenage years is normal, and these relationships play a key role in developing communication skills, understanding complex emotions, building empathy for others, and informing their own sense of identity. Adolescence is often understood as a crucial time for identity development, and figuring out who you are as a partner, and what you need from partners is a part of that. However, it is also becoming increasingly common for teenagers not to be in a romantic relationship, so if your child is not pursuing romantic experiences, that is okay as well. The path towards relationship development will look different for everyone, and it may also depend on their culture and sexual orientation. In some cultures, focusing on romance and dating as a teenager is less accepted, and this could delay first relationships. For sexual minority youth, there are hurdles to meeting and engaging with potential romantic partners, like discrimination, that heterosexual and gender-conforming individuals may not encounter. Overall, research indicates that adolescents now are dating less and having sexual experiences less than for generations in the past. In 2015, it was reported by Pew Research Center that two thirds of teens had not experienced a romantic relationship. This may be a result of changing social factors, like social media or norms around relationships, that have a widespread effect on youth. For example, Pew Research Center in 2025 found that overall, highschoolers are less likely to say they want to get married than high schoolers in 1993. Further, a survey of 12th graders found that girls are now less likely than boys to say they want to get married in the future. This could be reflective of a larger social shift and change in how children and teens learn about relationships and evaluate their choices in life.
Dating experiences for teens are shaped by the messages that they are given, both explicitly stated, and experientially. Children’s experiences with caregivers and siblings can also influence the quality of their romantic relationships. Like all learning for developing minds, what you witness and notice about the world becomes normal for a child. If a child is witness to adult relationships that are communicative and positive, that child is likely to interact positively with romantic partners later in life, since they have learned to enact the same behaviors. If a child is exposed to unhealthy relationship patterns, like excessive fighting, lack of communication and support, and even domestic violence, it increases the chance that they may enact some of these same patterns later. How parents model conflict, both with each other, and with the child, can set the tone for how the child approaches conflict with others. However, this does not mean that these patterns are set in stone, or that the child’s future is foretold. Expectations and behaviors can always be reshaped and relearned, if given the the opportunity to. We don’t have the ability to change what a child has seen in their past, but caregivers can be intentional about how we talk to kids about relationships. As caregivers, if you are open to having conversations with your kid about relationships and the aspects of relationships that they want to keep or change in their future, compared to what they have seen, it can help build their confidence and ability to create healthy relationship patterns for themselves in the future.
Families often struggle with the changes that come in adolescence. As the child’s worldview shifts outside of the home, it can lead to a distancing from the immediate family in service of developing independence and developing close relationships with peers. This shift is normal, and the conflict that may come with it is normal too. As a caregiver, being able to understand the developmental need for this shift, while also providing emotional support and setting limits for the teen is key. Caregivers can help to minimize teen risk behavior through effective communication and limit setting and can help to share the teen’s moral and social values. While it may feel like your teen is being heavily influenced by factors outside of your control, like peers, research shows that caregivers still have influence on important risk outcomes.
The increase in social media use, dating apps, and texting can make it difficult for caregivers to monitor a child or teen’s peer interactions, both platonic and romantic. Kids today have access to a wider world of people to interact with at their fingertips, and compared to the past, it can be hard to know who they spend their time talking to. Structuring open and non-judgmental conversations about how their phone shapes their social life can help caregivers stay informed about relationships that may not be in person. Social media can also expose kids and teens to many different types of relationships and understandings about sexuality, that they may not have been exposed to at home or at school. This access to a wider variety of information can make it difficult to know what their kid does or does not understand about romantic relationships and sexual attraction. Encouraging your child to ask questions about what they see online can help caregivers create an opening to discuss further what they may have seen, and what it might mean for them.