I had my share of drop-kick boyfriends over the years...

The one thing I did find, is that the more my parents objected to them, the more determined I was to keep sneaking around behind their backs. All it did was make me lie, close up and keep them completely out of the loop of what was going on in my life.

Eventually, mum got wise. The drop-kick boyfriends were invited over for dinner, etc. Accepted, welcomed... and strangely enough, without the parental objections, I fidgured out very, very quickly that they just weren't for me and that was that.

I didn't really do the rebelious teenager thing until I hit 19, was at uni and able to drive a car, so there really wasn't a lot my parents could do then. I ended up getting myself into some really awful situations that I'm so dreadfully ashamed of now. I'm so glad that I eventually saw my way through to make some changes in my life. I've been married to the most awesome man for nearly 10 years now, and despite the fact that this all went on nearly 15 years ago, I still cringe in shame and embarassment.

Lulu, I think you're doing the right thing. Try to protect your daughter by all means, but don't openly and strongly object to the boy - this will just get her back up and make her sneak around and lie. Give them the opportunity to be together, but in your house in a fairly supervised manner and hopefully you'll be able to slowly and gently open your daughter's eyes to the manipulations of this boy.

It always surprised me that my father never did the gun cleaning thing with any of my boyfriends... but that could have been the fact that the entire family (myself included) were involved in target shooting, and a handful of the drop-kick boyfriends were picked up through those contacts.

I hope this helps, and good luck to you!

BW