Eighteen is about the age at which parents here seem comfortable to have their children start dating.

Their teenagers should, by then, have completed their key years of schooling, be moving beyond pre-university or polytechnic to university, work or national service, and be mature enough to be responsible for their actions, say those SundayLife! interviewed.

A 16-year-old, like Madonna's daughter Lourdes Leon, who is reported to be dating Homeland actor Timothee Chalamet, 17, is too young to be "going steady", or engage in exclusive dating, say parents interviewed.

Mr Mutalif Hashim, 53, president of Just Parenting Association, sums it up: "Under 18, teenagers are still shaping their individual identity and sense of self, and should be encouraged to develop their interests rather than a relationship."

Realistically speaking, though, the situation is more like the way clinical psychologist Carol Balhetchet describes: "Today, it's not that parents give their children permission to date. Their kids just date, tell their parents later and parents have to respond to that."

Dr Balhetchet, who is director of the Singapore Children's Society's youth services (Toa Payoh), adds that 11- and 12-year-olds already "feel they are no longer kids and are mature enough" to start dating, particularly when they get to a co-ed secondary school.

This is a point which marine coordinator Abdul Rahman Ahmad, 47, acknowledges. He says: "It's so common to see secondary school students holding hands.

"We would have preferred our daughters to date later, but we knew it was a matter of time before they got attached too."

He dated his wife Fauziah Ishak, a cook at a childcare centre, 47, when he was serving national service.

The elder two of his four girls - polytechnic students Siti Hasanah Abdul Rahman, 21, and Anisah Rahziah, 19 - are in relationships.

Anisah says she and her boyfriend, Muhammad Luqman Lamri, 20, were friends in primary school, went to different secondary schools, but worked together as youth volunteers at a Pasir Ris mosque.

They began dating when she was 16 and he 17. She says: "That's the age when you discover the opposite sex on an emotional level."

Mr Luqman who is awaiting national service enlistment, also tutored Anisah's third sister, Nur Ain, in mathematics at her home a year after they started dating.

Says Anisah: "Mum just knew about the relationship, although dad was hazy about details.

"But I'm grateful they were cool when they found out - they didn't scold me or tell me to back off from the relationship."

Mr Abdul Rahman and his wife say they gave the young couple the green light to go steady after "stressing" their Islam faith's rule about no pre-marital sex.

Dr Christopher Chong and his wife, lawyer Yew Woon Chooi, both in their late 40s, have a dating "timeline" for their children: group dates from say 15 or 16, single dates from 17 or 18, and "real dating" from university.

But there is a caveat, says Dr Chong, an obstetrician and gynaecologist: "Nothing physical in junior college, such as kissing, caressing, perhaps not even holding hands before university."

He and his wife paired up only after a Mount Ophir climbing trip during their days in the National University of Singapore in the mid-1980s.

They have three children: Beverly, 20, Dominic, 18, and Nicolette, 13.

While Dominic shares his parents' view that 17 or 18 is a good time for exclusive dates, he does not agree with their "nothing physical till university" rule.

"I think it's okay for teenagers to show affection as I believe the responsible ones know their limits," says the Year 6 Raffles Institution student, who is not dating and has not been in a relationship before.

"Maybe the maximum teenagers should do in a relationship is hold hands but avoid long, steamy kisses. Just a peck on the lips is fine," he adds.

Restraint is a plus, given that there are more than a handful of those who overstep physical boundaries.

Provisional figures from the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority show that 589 babies were born to girls aged 19 and below last year.

Teenager Samuel Lim who has never been in a relationship, feels that his parents' date-but-do-not- touch rules protect against raging hormones.

"Some teens can go crazy easily. One thing might lead to another with too much kissing and hugging and things could become really complicated," says the 18-year-old, referring to unplanned pregnancies.

Samuel and his two older siblings, Joshua, 25, and Kandace, 22, live with their parents in an HDB flat in Woodlands.

His parents, housewife Evelyn Lim and IT manager Terence Lim, both in their 50s, had practised what they now preach.

Mrs Lim says: "We kept ourselves chaste for marriage."

On hindsight, Ms S. Rajah, 27, who runs a food and beverage business, says a relationship that is stealthy is not healthy. When she was 16, she dated two school secondary school boys behind her parents' back. She lied about why she was staying out late and about the frequent late-night phone calls she made and received.

Suspicious, her father checked her mobile phone one day when she was dating her second boyfriend.

"My father was angry when he read the lovey-dovey messages," recalls Ms Rajah with a laugh.

She was grounded for half a year and her parents, whose details she declined to give, watched her like a hawk.

"I had to give them my school time-table, and after school, I had to be home within an hour - taking into account travelling time on the train," she says. "Before that, they never checked on me at all."

It was "torture" not being able to hang out with friends but she now knows it was for her own good. "It was merely puppy love. My studies would have been affected or I might have gotten myself into a mess."

Fourteen-year-old Mohammad Faiz Ranny Noor Hisham wants to save himself some early heartache.

The only child of a single mum, educator Hayati Suaidi, 41, he feels that "at 13 or 14, when a girl likes you, you feel like you need to like her back".

The Secondary 3 student at Bedok South Secondary School adds: "But when you are older, you can assess a person better and take your time to see her true colours before you rush in, then break up."

On his peers who intend to hook up, he says: "Don't get too serious and make sure it's nothing too life-changing."

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