Tips on Dealing with Your Tween

Image: sxc.hu

Since our daughter turned 12, we’ve noticed that she’s become more volatile and easily irritable. I suppose it’s a combination of the onset of raging puberty hormones and her nearing the “teenage” phase of her life.

We’ve realized that the tactics that we’ve tried in the past of ‘standing in the corner” no longer works so Hubby and I had to adapt the way we deal with her or risk pushing her away.

One of the changes we did was change the way we talked to our tween:

Patience – I agree with the saying “patience is a virtue.” I had to have huge doses of these “injected” into me over the last few months. As I mentioned, our daughter has become irritable. Add to that, her attention got so short as there were so many things vying for her focus, I suppose. I had to repeat myself around 5-10x before she finally hears what I ask her to do. It takes a lot of self-control to not lose it when this happens.

Listening like a Therapist – I realized, I don’t need to dish out advise all the time. Our daughter showed us that just listening and being there for her are as important.