Inside: Puberty sometimes hits like a brick, and it can feel hard to stay connected to your tween. These tips can help build a new foundation that can take you into the teen years and beyond.
Something happens when our kids hit middle school, a subtle shift in the force. It usually starts in those tween years, somewhere between ages nine and 12.
Sure, there’s the dramatic emotions and muffled grunts and push back on rules, but for most parents, it is the loss of connection with our tweens that hurts our hearts the most.
What happens in the tween years
We miss the hugs when they walk through the door and the snuggles on the couch watching a movie. We wish for the days when they asked us to play a board game or make cookies together. We long for kisses at bedtime and early morning requests to hop into our bed.
And it’s frustrating when our big kids start shutting down all the communication channels. One-word answers become the norm. Bedrooms (with the door shut) become their favorite place. Technology takes over.
Sometimes things don’t get any better as they move from middle school to high school, and their peers, phones, and social plans become their priorities.
That means the tone you set in these tween years—and the parenting habits and rules you implement—is important.
Related: The One Phrase You Need to Help Your Child Succeed in Middle School
How to stay connected to your tweens during the middle school years
As much as you may want (and wish and hope and pray) to keep things the same, if you really want to stay connected to your child, you will have to change how you do things.
Here are a few tips you may want to consider:
Have clear family rules regarding technology.
Phones, video games, YouTube, social media, etc. are a central part of today’s world.
Regardless of what your personal feelings are about technology, it is an integral part of our kids’ lives. However, it does not need to distract or fracture your relationship with your child.
You may want to set up clear rules about technology usage to ensure they stay connected to your tween. It may include limiting screen time, no phones at the table or in the car, or perhaps even technology-free days. Some families even go through a digital detox—together, because sometimes the problem isn’t just for our kids.
The key is that this rule needs to apply to the entire family. Tweens/teens often get upset when parents are constantly on their case about technology usage yet won’t adhere to their own guidelines.
It’s also important to remember that we can’t just tell our kids to get off their phones. Instead, moms and dads need to help kids discover alternatives to technology. That may include watching a movie together (tween choice), encouraging a hobby, listening to audiobooks, etc. Here is a great read on how to approach technology overuse in your family: Tired of Yelling at Your Teen to Get Off Their Phone? Try This Trick Instead
Many parents who successfully navigate the teen years claim that embracing their child’s technology usage instead of fighting it also helped them to connect. This means that sometimes you may get your kid to open up via text instead of a face-to-face conversation or getting a conversation started by discussing Fortnite (or even playing it.) Be open-minded about what your child finds enjoyable, and use that as a stepping stone to staying connected.
Related: Here Are The Tech Rules You Need To Be Setting For Your Tweens and Teens
Have a standing date to connect with your tween.
One of the hardest things to deal with as your kids grow up is when they start choosing their friends over you and it feels like rejection. Add to that the busy schedules and academic commitments of our big kids, and weeks can go by without having a real conversation with your adolescent.
Setting up a standing date with your tween is something you can carry on until they move out of your home. It could be something as simple as a Sunday morning Dunkin’ run to Friday pizza night, but make sure you commit to it.
One mom I know with a teenage daughter used to make her daughter go to the grocery store and Target with her each week. She claims she got more communication from those trips than she did all week.
It’s essential to remain flexible, however. Don’t freak out if your child procrastinates on a project and has to work through Sunday dinner or if you miss a coffee date because of a soccer tournament. This will only make your son or daughter resent the time.
Instead, find a way to sneak a few minutes in by bringing a drink to your child while they are studying or a FroYo date instead of pizza night. It’s more about being available to your tween than anything else.
Related: The Best TV Series Families With Tweens Can Enjoy Together
Get closer by teaching them to be self-sufficient.
Once, I walked into a friend’s house and noticed she had post-it notes all over for her three sons.
“Run whites on hot with 1/4 cup of bleach.”
“Cook chicken on 375 for 30 minutes.”
“This shirt needs to go to the dry cleaner.”
She doesn’t do these things because she doesn’t have time (she’s crazy busy but is a very involved parent), but instead, she finds that watching her boys become independent seems to go hand in hand with them becoming more responsible–and enjoyable to be around.
She explained that once they knew she wouldn’t do all these chores for them, they started wanting to learn how to do them right.
They now spend time in the kitchen together making meatballs and taco dip, and then she lets them have their friends over to watch football or soccer games. Brilliant!
Independence is a funny thing. It can be tough to watch your big kid no longer need you, but it can actually help you stay closer and develop mutual respect.
Not sure where to start? Here are 10 Life Skills You Should Start Working on With Your Middle Schooler Today
Buy a pool table (or a foosball table or dart board, etc.)
Another friend recently bought a foosball table for her husband’s 45th birthday. Her husband liked it, but it was the reaction of her two tweens that made the gift worthwhile.
The kids will often ask her or her husband to play so they can improve their skills. And mini “tournaments” with their friends have become a regular event at their home on the weekends—sometimes they even let her and her husband come watch or play.
It can be hard to find something the entire family enjoys, but when your tween/teen asks you to do something together, you don’t ask questions. If you have the time, you do it!
Be available.
For most of us, life is overwhelming. Work schedules, extracurricular commitments, family obligations, household chores, etc., constantly tap us on the shoulder. There is always something to do.
Your tweens/teens feel this way, too.
Sometimes it is enough to merely be in the same room with your kids. Remain accessible if needed–but not in their face needling and nagging.
Your quiet presence can actually be reassuring. Tweens and teens notice this, even if they don’t acknowledge it. And you may be surprised to discover that once the pressure’s off, they naturally gravitate towards you, wanting to chat and open up.
Related: Raising Teens Means Always Staying Available for a Part-time Job
These middle school years are hard.
None of these ideas will solve all the teenage angst and hormonal rage that you’re up against, but they can help avoid many of the roadblocks that form between parents and their tweens and teens.
You may still find yourself on a bumpy road, but if you put in the work now, you may find that extra effort paid off with a smoother path during the teen years and beyond.
Are you in the thick of raising your tweens and teens? You may like this book by Whitney Fleming, the co-owner of Parenting Teens & Tweens: Loving Hard When They’re Hard to Love: Essays about Raising Teens in Today’s Complex, Chaotic World.
Parenting tweens and teens isn’t easy, but these posts may help:
How To Have A More Peaceful Relationship With Your Teen; Guaranteed
How To Teach Your Tween Daughter About Puberty (and the important topics we forget)
Why Seventh Grade Sucks the Most for Tweens and Their Parents
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Thank you for the wonderful article! I am a mother of 3 and my husband is deployed 7 months of every year in Africa, so although there is a strong and loving father in our family, the day to day navigation of parenting falls in my court. We have always had a Ping Pong table at our house, while my middle son was in grade school and high school there were constant tournaments with family and friends and I loved that the boys hung out here! My youngest, who just turned 15 and whose siblings had left the house for college,was constantly playing Fortnight and although loving and kind, was pulled into his world and I would drift to mine. We pulled out the table (in a very sad state) and played a couple games…the next day he asked to play a couple more games, after a few days I said jump in the car, we went and bought a new table and play for about an hour a day, 20 minutes at a time! No matter what I am immersed in, when he asks, I always play. Those times are full of laughter and an easy conversation that would not occur anywhere else and I treasure that time! I leave the Fortnight to my husband