teens should not be allowed to date in high school.

Firstly, I would like to point out to my opponent that no relationship is failed relationship, regardless of whether or not it ends in divorce. Secondly, my opponent is correct in saying a person does not practice dating, but a person does gain experience in interacting with people flirtatiousl and romantically and gauging whether a person is genuine or not, which does require practice. The older a person gets, the more serious the ways they can be taken advantage of or hurt get. If you don't date sooner on when the consequences aren't as severe, then you won't be able to identify the signs and stop the relationship before it is too late. My opponent states that teen trauma can affect a person in their later life. Trauma is something that happens for everything: If one goes to a restaurant and gets the flu right after eating there, they may experience trauma. One can get post-traumatic stress disorder after experiencing a storm, but neither of these can be prevented. They are parts of life. Also, regardless of whether or not a parent restricts dating, the restriction cannot be enforced. Teenagers could have 'dates' at school or anywhere they choose. Or, because they aren't taking relationships seriously because they aren't allowed to, they will just skip to sexual experimentation. Next, my opponent talks about dating being an avoidable distraction. As stated before, all distractions are. School is an avoidable distraction. I could avoid that distraction by not going, but would that be in my best interest? No. I could have a distraction that is a boy. Would avoiding them make me less distracted? Probably not. This would only lead to more teen angst, which is a distraction itself. Everyone risks their future in everything they do. There is no action you could engage in that would not risk your future. Whether or not I take a sip of a Diet Coke or fill in the D bubble on the test could risk my future. Weighed with everything else, this point is deemed irrelevent. Dating changes with age along with everything else. In grade school the math we learn is basic, but in college it changes drastically and completely. Does that mean the basic math we learned in grade school is completely useless? Absolutely not, considering you wouldn't be able to do any math at all without knowing the basics. The same goes for relationships. If you don't learn the basics earlier, you won't be able to learn the advanced parts later. Also, the last line where my opponent asks how the two in a relationship can grow in judgment when both are trying to grow in judgment. Simply put, the two would learn how to deliberate on boundaries, what they agree with, and what they don't. Teenagers are known to have sex with people they are in a relationship or are not in a relationship with. The difference after the forbiddance of dating would be that no teenagers having sex would be in a relationship. When in a relationship, another person is acknowledged as a meaningful person in the other's life. However, when there is no relationship in question, the sex is meaningless. During this sexually frustrated period in life, some teenagers are going to have sex. Forbidding them from dating just means they won't be having sex with someone they know as intimately, thus the sex means less.