Under a father's watchful eye

Mr. Goodspeed, a widower, started a conversation with his daughter when he mentioned that he was surprised she didn't have a boyfriend. He learned she was, in fact, interested in having one - a change from previous talks when she'd said she was focused on her schoolwork rather than dating.

Some dads ask subtle questions to generate discussion about a boyfriend or girlfriend, says Mike Domitrz, an author and speaker on teen dating issues. These include: What do you think about his/her character? How would you describe him/her to me? How does he treat you around his friends versus when you're alone?

Still, some dads say conversing with teens - about anything, let alone a sensitive subject like dating - is often not easy. Questions are met with one-word answers, or responses that require more fleshing out. When Darrel Seife recently asked his daughter, a freshman in high school, if she liked being with a new boyfriend, he recalls her response as being very matter-of-fact: "Would I be with him if I didn't?"

"My wife tends to have more intimate conversations. But I don't push, as long as [Danielle] can talk with one of us," says Mr. Seife, who also has a 10-year-old son.

The new beau looks like more of aman than the schoolboys Danielle had datedpreviously."His shoes are my size," jokes her father, recalling his early impressions of the tall football player who now escorts Danielle to movies. Seife refrained from asking the young man's intentions at their first meeting. But he and his wife did want their desire to meet the boy to send a message that they care about their daughter and are there to protect her.

Finding the right way to send the "protection" message is something dads struggle with. Joe Kelly, cofounder of Dads and Daughters, an advocacy group, has heard many stories from men about how they plan to be intimidating - cleaning shotguns and the like - when a boy arrives for a date. He points out the confusion posturing like that can create.

As a teen, he remembers when he started seeing a girl in his church - a girl whose father he already knew and enjoyed talking with. When her dad became less friendly after the dating ensued, he couldn't understand why, especially when both had something very important in common: They both really liked his daughter.

"That's something I think we lose sight of as fathers," he says. The message young men get is that they are predators and one-dimensional, "which is not how we want our own sons treated. And, if we stop and think about it, it's not how we want other men's sons treated, either."

Some dads talk not only with their children, but with their kids' dates, too. That's what Michael Connor, who teaches a course on fathers and fathering at California State University at Long Beach, did when his now-grown daughters were dating. "I found that nobody talked to the sons," says Dr. Connor, a clinical psychologist. His girls were mortified by the interrogations and speeches on values and rules that their suitors got. Their dates were uncomfortable, too. But some have called years later to say thank you.

" 'I've got other plans for my kids, and being teenage moms is not part of my plan,' " Connor would tell the young men. "I didn't get any more specific than that," he explains, "but I did make it very clear where I was coming from. And then I changed the subject."

Goodspeed, who has a 12-year-old son in addition to his daughter, plans to talk with him about respecting girls when he starts dating in earnest. But for now, the Long Island dad is interested in making sure daughter Brooke makes smart choices in relationships. He lost his virginity at an early age, he says. "I don't want to see that happen to my daughter."

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