Junior high dance evolution
Filed under: Lifestyle, Going to school, 13-14 years, Adventures in Parenting
Do you remember your first school dance? The sweaty palms, stomach flutters, and hope that your super-top secret crush might say hello or even (ACK!) dance with you wasn't just a rite of passage, it helped prepare you for the social interactions with the opposite sex that would be coming up in the next few years. School dances are the training wheels for dating- a safe and secure atmosphere with plenty of adult supervision.
So when I picked up my 7th grade son from his first school dance, I was excited and curious-did he get up the nerve to ask the cute girl from Science class to dance? His answer startled me:
"It's against school rules for boys and girls to touch each other, so there wasn't any slow dancing."
It saddens me that the sexualization of society has trickled down to junior high level. Sure there are kids who dance a little too close or too sexily, but that has been going on for generations. It's not new.
I'm not promoting behind the bleachers make-out sessions in junior high, I just don't see the harm in 7th and 8th graders awkwardly holding hands and shuffling their feet to a couple of moony, swoony love songs during a school dance.
Am I hopeless naive to think that 13 and 14 year olds can handle slow dancing or is this another example of the bubble-wrapping of kids today?
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