How to Navigate Through the Terrible Tweens

As parents, we have all experienced those terrible two’s and threenager years, thinking that if we get through this – it’s plain sailing! Right?

The truth is it never gets easier, only harder in different ways.  As the expression goes…’this too shall pass’, but when you’re in the thick of it, it feels like an eternity. 

If you’re a parent of a tween or tweenager – I got you, I can empathize.

I have a 10-year-old girl, almost 11 and we are right bang in that delicate, adolescent tween, ‘wants everything in Sephora’ era.  The stage where she’s still a child but verging on becoming a teenager and it’s all very emotional, worrying and confusing.  On top of the raging hormones and their bodies starting to change, tweens are also dealing with friendship drama, crushes and societal pressure – and it’s just all a LOT for their little minds to take in.  It’s also a LOT for parents to figure out.  I’ve personally been on an emotional rollercoaster with it, struggling for the most part that she will finish up in Primary school this summer and begin Secondary school in September (I am NOT ok by the way!) and potentially not being able to let go of my little baby girl who used to like pink and unicorns. I’m trying to embrace this period with my every being (except when she calls me ‘bruh’) and before the raging hormones inside her take over and I’m thrown a slew of ‘I hate you’ tantrums and slammed doors.

For the most part, so far, her tween era has been very manageable albeit the usual friend’s drama, screen time, emotional outbursts, pushing boundaries and wanting a skincare routine at 10 years of age!  We have a couple more years before she is officially a teenager so I’m trying to navigate the best I can, live my best Swiftie years through her, hold off from giving her an iPhone (that will unfortunately come very soon), have her well informed with the dangers of social media, her body changes and monthly cycle when that happens and emotionally be there for her, for all the hugs and tears and be a source of comfort if she needs someone to talk to.  I’m trying like us all, to be the best mum for her because there will be, I’m sure, tricky years ahead.  Tweens can test your patience to no-end, they’re coming into their own independence, day by day, and it’s just all part of the journey. 

I don’t have any groundbreaking advice to offer, as I’m a first-time tween mum so it’s all new to me and I’m learning on the job as I go along – in the hope that I’ll be very well prepared and informed when my son reaches the stage in a couple of years.  When you have a baby, you constantly worry about all the ways your new precious bundle of joy could be hurt or in pain.  Then, as your kids grown up, you realize that there will be times when they are hurt and in pain, and as a parent, you must allow them to feel that pain to grow.  Letting go is something I know I will find the hardest especially as we are a couple of years away from the teenage years but one piece of advice, I can offer is communication.  Always keep those lines of communication open, they will need their parents more than they think to figure out what’s going on with their bodies and in their brains – enjoy the journey, before you know it, they will be adults.  Just know, you must hold tight, there is no magic answer or textbook for dealing with this stage of parenting, but I do know I will have to embrace the good, the bad and the ugly and learn to enjoy the moments of pure delight as much as the angry outbursts. 

// Irene Feeney Steele