Being a teenager can be very tough. The new change in teachers every year, your body, your classmates, and the world around you. Everything seems to change at that point in your life. You’re growing up and the list of responsibilities keeps on growing. Sometimes, teenagers rely on their peers for help. At times, they might even get involved romantically and they find themselves stuck in a sticky situation. They may not be able to hang out with their partner and are forced to do things they don’t want to do. They hide their relationship from their parents while trying to experience it at the same time. Should teenagers 15 and younger be able to date?  

             While you are growing, so is your brain. During puberty, a strong emotion can easily overshadow other emotions, thoughts and your decision making. A strong romantic feeling towards someone can deeply affect your education and other aspects of your life. When you are trying to maintain a relationship, you block out things and you try to focus on this relationship, therefore, you slowly drift your attention away from things that are more important. It can be distracting for a young teenager. On top of being distracted, dating can also be confusing for an adolescent. According to Dr. Greenberg, she says, “Perhaps the early daters neglect friendships and lack a necessary support group of friends to see them through all of the years of middle school… (Greenberg)” This shows that a teenager can use dating as a way to escape from their fake or un-supporting friendships as a way to find someone who will be there for them, it’s a way of distracting themselves from reality.   

             When you start to date someone, you become more intimate with them. As intimacy grows, the risk of becoming pregnant also increases. Even though the birth rate has slowly been declining, it is still very large. In the U.S alone, there were 17.4 births per 1,000 teenage females (CDC). During teenage pregnancy, a girl is at higher risk of maternal illness, miscarriages, still birth and even neonatal death. Some parents of these young adolescents refuse to help take care of the child which forces teenagers to give up their kids to the foster care system. Even though the girl is biologically more affected, boys are also affected by teen pregnancies. The stress that comes with having a child at such a young age is huge, and it should be the least of a teenagers worries to go worry about a kid when they themselves are children.  

              Many people might say that they can be in a relationship and not be intimate. However, lack of intimacy can cause many problems within the relationship. Humans need to show affection and receive affection both physically and mentally. If you can’t be very intimate with your partner, then the relationship won’t last for long. You might start to develop anger towards your partner which will just cause even more problems. Therefore, relationships should be avoided as a whole. As I mentioned before, during puberty, one emotion can overshadow all the others. If you breakup with your partner, it will deeply affect you mentally which will only pose more challenges for you in the long run. This can be avoided if you don’t date.   

              Overall, dating is a heavily debated topic amongst young teens and parents. Dating in young teenagers can cause many problems that will dramatically affect a teens life. It’s best you focus on yourself during these important years take care of yourself, rather than worrying about someone else who might not even be having the same feelings that you do.