Navigating the Tween Years

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Tweens are emerging teens, but they're still children. They'll astonish you with their ability to conceptualize and argue brilliantly, and then to do foolish things.

The Middle School years are a time of great blossoming, but as with all huge transitions in our kids' lives, they can be turbulent. The biggest danger for Tweens is losing the connection to parents while struggling to find their place with peers.

Parenting tweens is a challenge because the pressures of the peer group magnify, kids demand more independence, and hormones flare as puberty approaches. Here's how to navigate these exciting waters.

1. Parents who don't accept and constructively negotiate their Tween's growing independence may invite rebellion, or even deception. Recognize and work with your Tween's need to figure out who he is. Instead of breathing down his neck, agree on and enforce standards. Set reasonable limits with empathy.

2. Many parents react to their Tween's moodiness, focus outside the family, and maturing physical body by distancing somewhat from their child. But your Tween needs to have a secure nest as she launches herself into an exciting but scary world. Kids who feel disconnected from their parents lose their anchor and look for it in their peer group.

3. Struggle fiercely to retain your connection with your Tween. But be aware that as we feel less powerful as parents we often compensate by becoming overprotective and controlling. Remember that he can become his own person and still stay connected to you.

4. Insist on spending regular time together. Don't expect your Tween to invite closeness or volunteer vulnerable emotions at each interaction, or when you expect it. But if you set up enough regular opportunities to be together, it will happen.

5. Don't underestimate hormones. Your Tween's body is already changing, creating mood swings, distractibility, competitiveness, and preoccupation with the opposite sex. It can be hard for kids to focus on much else, and they don't understand their moodiness any more than you do.

6. Don't take it personally! When she hurts your feelings and you're tempted to withdraw, take a deep breath and stand your ground calmly. That doesn't mean you don't insist calmly on civility, and it doesn't mean you can't use strategic withdrawals as a chance to regroup, but always re-commit to your love for and connection to your child.

7. Stay involved with your Tween's school and homework. Their intellect is bursting but their schools, unless you are very lucky, are too focused on classroom management to take advantage of it. Maintaining high expectations and insuring that homework doesn't get neglected will help your child not to fall behind.

8. Be aware of the special needs of boys and girls in a culture that perpetuates unhealthy attitudes about men, women, and sexuality. Girls may need your help handling cultural ideas about body type and the pressure to be sexy. Boys may need help integrating their tenderness and vulnerability with societal images of manliness.

9. Help your Tween develop good judgment by walking him through decision-making of all kinds, instead of making decisions for him. This is your last chance to teach him, because like it or not, we lose much of our influence once they get to the Teen years.

10. Cultivate your sense of humor. She may be exasperating in her childish insistence on being all grown up, but this really is just a stage, like todder-hood. Before you know it, she really will be all grown up and you'll wish you had your little girl back. Enjoy her, and yourself.

Dr. Laura Markham
Aha! Parenting.com