I picked up my three year old from preschool last week, and she immediately asked me, “May I date Levi?”
She was talking about a blond-haired, blue-eyed cutie in her class– one who is so popular among the girls that he has to have naps in a separate room, to keep classmates from fighting over who sleeps next to him.
“No,” I responded to my daughter, “You can’t date Levi, because you’re three. Three year olds don’t date.”
My preschooler thought about this for a moment and then pensively concluded, “Okay. I’ll date him when I’m four.”
Is this normal?
Preschoolers “dating” strikes me as incredibly odd– and even a bit unsettling. Although I vividly remember having a “boyfriend” in kindergarten, it’s hard for me to see my own baby speaking so prematurely about boyfriends and crushes and holding hands at snack time. I couldn’t help but feel like there was something fundamentally odd about my daughter’s little preschool-age love interest.
But, according to my daughter’s teacher, these toddler romances are actually entirely normal for their age group. “Kids see relationships in movies, on TV, and in their own homes,” the teacher explained to me, “They want to imitate them, just as they want to imitate cooking, cleaning and going to work.”
Should adults discourage it?
I remember cringing when someone asked my daughter– then only two years old– if she had a boyfriend. As cute and whimsical as these budding little relationships may look, I don’t want my encouragement of her preschool romance to shift into more dramatic issues later in life. If I encourage her to “date” at 3, how can I explain at 13 that she can’t actually go on dates?
All the same, I also don’t want to discourage my daughter’s attempts to form make-believe romances. As long as this elementary “dating” remains a harmless game of let’s-play-pretend, I think it can be beneficial to her social and emotional development.
Teaching limits and boundaries now.
Although a preschooler having a “boyfriend” isn’t unusual or necessarily disruptive, it is important to establish boundaries and limitations regarding the role that this “boyfriend” might play in her life. As amusing that it is that my daughter’s love-interest has to nap separately to avoid harassment from his fan club, it is important that the teachers and parents all explain that these interactions should not disrupt the balance of school or family life.
This is also a good learning-point for teaching kids the importance of personal space. A four-year-old who chases and kisses girls in his class should understand that it’s not okay to hug, kiss, or hold hands with someone who has asked to be left alone.
Overall, there is little harm in preschool-age children pretending to “date” their peers, so long as the children understand that it is only a game and that these relationships can not interfere with school or family life. A balanced, affectionate view of these early-childhood experiments in romance can help to foster your child’s long-term emotional development in ways that facilitate confidence, empathy and connection with her peers.