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I would suggest a meet-up with the six of you all in the same room so you son can witness all of this himself. If he gets the news second-hand from you, he may not trust it and will inevitably want to hear from the GF. This "desire for the 'truth'" will impel him to see her just to "hear her side."
Of course, your reaction in the next few weeks will be the prevailing factor in how your son moves forward.
Stay calm, don't baby him, and keep him busy. Listen to him when he's sad, but try not to overplay the importance of this relationship in the whole scheme of his life.
Was she still studying? If so it was their absolute right to do it. Even though there's no need to get the other parents involved at that stage. It's the child's job to break up.
Actually, she has made the dean's list every semester. This kind of heavy-handed interference pretty much guarantees a chilly relationship with the daughter, not to mention the boy who will likely be their future son-in-law. Unless, of course, he looks at his nightmarish in-laws-to-be and vamooses.
Here's the thing. Once the kid spreads his or her wings and leaves the nest, one better really pick one's battlers. When someone is a full-blown adult, interfering in this way simply drives one's children away.
There are always two sides to a story, and the truth in the middle. We may not know the full reason of the young woman's parents wanting distance from the OP son. Or if the girl herself wants out, and her parents are facilitating this for her.
It may benefit the OP to refer her son for Counseling, to have an objective party help her son through this if he has problems accepting this change in status with his GF.
I don't agree with this advice. The lifespan of the average sixteen-year-old's relationships can be measured in weeks or months. Breakups happen and, to be perfectly honest, are usually healthy. I mean, I think back to the girls I dated at 16 or even 18 and think, well, My God.
1) It makes your son look as if he can't handle his own relationship issues. Hey, when were kids supposed to have a completely pain-free existence?
2) It will make a bad situation even worse. If you think the parents of his girlfriend are bad now, just wait until you call up and basically imply that their decisions as parents are wrongheaded and stupid.
3) It teaches your child that he can't solve his own problems.
4) It will absolutely destroy the son's social standing when word inevitably gets back to school.
My 16-year-old son was dumped recently by his girlfriend of 8 months. He was devastated. He sat around for two whole weeks listening to emo rock. Guess what? Some other girl swooped in and snatched him up. Problem solved. Now, two months later, the ex is pretty much forgotten.
The best thing to do instead? Tell him how to handle being dumped with grace and maturity. When my son was dumped and was dreading going to school, I gave him two pieces of advice: First, walk into school the next day with his dignity for he isn't the first person in human history to get dumped. Second, be a gentleman to her. It's okay to break things off with someone if it's not going the right direction. It was her prerogative. The more my son respected that, the better things would be. Evidently, he took my advice. There was no blowout argument, no whiny late night phone calls. And I've run into her parents more than once at the grocery store without the least bit of tension to the conversation.
How do you control another person's emotions? You can control their actions, but their emotions???
Because you do not give them the opportunity to make mistakes that they will regret later. You structure their activities to coincide with your values and ideals which does not include a lot of contact with the opposite sex and NEVER unsupervised by an adult (preferably a parent).
You might not believe this Momma_bear, but not everybody in the universe let's their children behave like little animals, doing whatever they feel like doing, whenever they feel like doing it. Some of the people I know did not allow their children to date *ever* without being supervised by an adult (or preferably a parent). Those children are now grown and married and living a very happy life.
We have been brainwashed by popular culture and the media to believe that living immoral lives devoid of values and integrity is OK. We'll it's not. If people raised their children better, there wouldn't be so much pain and suffering and misery in the world.
How do you control another person's emotions? You can control their actions, but their emotions???
It's called parenting. One may not be able to control one's child's sense of hurt after a breakup, but sure as hell can teach him or her what the appropriate responses are.
The entire purpose of parenting is to deliver a mature, responsible, and self-sustaining person to the cusp of adulthood. A person who cannot control his behavior cannot be called an adult, and the people who raised him cannot be called parents.
You might not believe this Momma_bear, but not everybody in the universe let's their children behave like little animals, doing whatever they feel like doing, whenever they feel like doing it.
20yrsinBranson
WOW this is really uncalled for. ^^^ She is not saying that at all.
In a nutshell, your advice is to subject your family to a Puritanical lifestyle. As for your friends' kids who are living a perfectly happy life, none of us really knows how happy people are behind closed doors.
If you are in your 60s and have no current experience with teens, you should not be so heavy-handed in your judgement of other parents.
Because you do not give them the opportunity to make mistakes that they will regret later.
What kind of parenting would that be? Giving them the opportunity to make mistakes is a hugely important part of parenting. That's how we get adults who can handle making mistakes. Both big mistakes and not so big ones. I think people forget that children and teens are actual people. As they grow and mature, it is our responsibility to gradually loosen the reins. By the time they are adults and on their own, making decisions and living with the consequences of those decisions should be pretty familiar territory for them to navigate.
Because you do not give them the opportunity to make mistakes that they will regret later. You structure their activities to coincide with your values and ideals which does not include a lot of contact with the opposite sex and NEVER unsupervised by an adult (preferably a parent).
You might not believe this Momma_bear, but not everybody in the universe let's their children behave like little animals, doing whatever they feel like doing, whenever they feel like doing it. Some of the people I know did not allow their children to date *ever* without being supervised by an adult (or preferably a parent). Those children are now grown and married and living a very happy life.
We have been brainwashed by popular culture and the media to believe that living immoral lives devoid of values and integrity is OK. We'll it's not. If people raised their children better, there wouldn't be so much pain and suffering and misery in the world.
20yrsinBranson
This is horrible advice. You can not mold your children's lives into one where they will never make mistakes or have regrets. Kids will never learn to cope in the real world if they live in a false one where everything is rainbows and unicorns. Kids NEED mistakes and need to make bad decisions every once in awhile. It is a part of growing up.
20yrs, at a point in their lives, you have to let your kids grow up and a part of growing up is having relationships with people of the opposite (or same) sex. They need to have that time to learn how to have mature, respectful relationships with one another. Banning them from ever forming relationships with other people is NOT healthy.
As far as OPs situation, it is awful that the parents of gf are trying to put you guys in the middle. How old is the girl? This should be something the girl should be discussing with your son and not you guys breaking the news to him.
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