What Tweens Need From Their Parents

What Tweens Need From Their Parents

via Tween Summit by Guest on 1/22/12

Tweens is a term used to refer to kids (ages 9-12) who are transitioning to the pre-adolescent stage. The tween years will surely be a challenging transitional phase for the kids, and as parents, you need to help them easily cope with the physical and emotional changes that they have to go through while they transition from childhood to adulthood. Tweens are not the only ones who will have a difficult time adjusting during their pre-adolescent years. In fact, parents will go through tough times as well since tweens can get all grumpy and moody so this stage will certainly test your patience. But, this is not the time to fall short of it since your kids will need your support and guidance more than ever during their tween years.
What tweens really need from their parents at this stage is their patience and understanding. Parents should guide their kids as they go through puberty. As parents, you will have to explain to them what’s going on â€" the dramatic physical transformation as well as the emotional and sexual changes that are all taking place at the same time.
Dealing with tweens is perhaps the greatest challenge for parents. But it is important that parents closely guide pre-teens to ensure that they will be able to successfully pass through the pre-puberty stage. If they fail to guide tweens at this crucial stage in their lives, it is likely that they will take refuge from their peers who can pressure them to do drugs and drink alcohol. In addition, some may even demonstrate self-destructive behavior to get notice or to grab attention.
How Parents Should Deal With Tweens
Rather than scold them or argue with them, it would be best to continue giving positive feedbacks to pre-teens. Tell them that they are great just the way they are. At this stage, pre-teens are struggling to find their true self and amidst all the overwhelming changes happening in their lives (physically and emotionally, it is likely that they will lose sense of themselves. Pre-teens are entering a very fragile transitional phase, and they really need their parents to be there with them every step of the way.
At this critical developmental phase, it is vital to keep the communication line wide open. Parents must learn to embrace the changes that are taking place. You have to accept that your little angel has now turned into a matured adult who is already capable of making decision for himself/herself. Instead of being nostalgic, you have to embrace who they are today and not who they used to be.
While tweens are definitely going through a fragile state, you should never allow them to push your buttons. Never condone unacceptable behavior. Although you want to walk a mile on their shoes (in order to understand and relate to them), it is important that you act as parents and not as their friends. Enforce rules and set limits but not to the point of suffocating them. Most importantly, you need to give them enough freedom (not too much) and also learn to respect their privacy.