Tips & Ideas For Supporting Your Children As They Start To Grow Up

A lot of parents assume that raising babies and toddlers will be the hardest time of their parenting lives. However, the fact is that it’s actually when your little ones start to grow up and begin to head towards those pre-teen (tween) and teen years, when things can become a little ‘hairy’ shall we say, and parenting can become that much harder. 

When our cute, cuddly children get to a stage where they no longer want to sit on your lap or hold your hand, as a parent it can be difficult to accept these changes. It’s often during your children’s tween or pre-teen years that they begin to pull away from you and often act like they want nothing to do with you. 

Once your child hits their tween years (10-12 years old), this is when they begin to change physically, cognitively, and emotionally. They aren’t the same person that they were a year or so ago – they’ve started to grow up. They are most likely developing new independence and may be seeing how far they can push parental boundaries. 

However, it’s important to understand that right now, your child needs you more than ever, to help them navigate the strange world of growing up into a teenager, and then a young adult. Of course, knowing how to be there and support your child when they act like they don’t want you around can be tricky at times. 

To help you to navigate the tricky world of parenting a pre-teen, we’ve put together some useful tips, ideas and pieces of advice. 

Photo source: Pixabay

Support their newfound independence 

As a parent, letting go of your child – even a little bit – is never easy. Naturally, you want to keep them as close to you for as long as possible. However, it’s important to try and support their newfound independence. If you swamp them with attention, they won’t thank you for it. Instead, do your best to support their independence in a safe way. 

For instance, if they are wanting to spend more time with friends, encourage them to do so, however make sure that they have a way to contact you from wherever they are, be it at a friend’s house or at the local park. If you are yet to buy your child a phone of their own, now may be a good time to consider it. If you’re going to get a phone, make sure to get them all of the protective accessories that they need to look after it, such as a case, for instance. To see a range of cool phone cases that your child is sure to love, click here and have a browse. You may not want your child to have a phone but if it means that you can help to keep them safe, then it’s worth it. 

Set aside quality time to spend together 

It can often be difficult to get pre-teens to want to open up and talk, which is why making time for some much-needed quality time is so important. Aim to spend quality time with your child on a regular basis, whether it’s a whole day or quality time or just a few hours, it doesn’t matter. What’s important is that you make the time to spend some much needed quality time together. Of course, getting your child excited about spending some quality time together isn’t always an easy task, which is why it’s a good idea to plan excursions that you know your child will love. 

If you’re stuck for ideas, you could always ask your little one to write a list of all the things that they would enjoy doing. Then you can use that list to play fun and exciting days out that are ideal for spending some much-needed quality time together. 

Take the indirect approach 

The chances are that as your child reaches their pre-teen years, they aren’t going to want to open up as much. Instead of asking them direct questions like, ‘how was school?’, try sitting and listening, taking a more indirect approach. Studies show that pre-teens are more likely to open up when they aren’t put under pressure. 

A good route to go down is simply to sit down together at the end of a busy day and chat with your child in a relaxed and chilled out way. Talk to them about your day and what you’ve been doing and wait to see what they say. The chances are that they will open up and share some of what happened during their time at school. By taking a more indirect approach to conversing with your pre-teen, the chances are that you’ll find out more about their life than you would if you asked direct questions. 

Don’t be judgemental 

As your child moves into their pre-teen stage, they are watching and listening to see how you think about different things. By being over judgmental on certain topics, you will impact how your child sees you and whether they feel that they can talk to you about different areas of their lives. That’s why it’s so important to make sure that you aren’t being judgmental when talking about different topics or when answering your child’s questions. 

For instance, imagine you’re browsing Facebook and you see a picture of a half dressed teenage girl. You might be inclined to comment to your partner something along the lines of: ‘I can’t believe she posted a half naked photo on Facebook; if that one of our kids we’d be mortified’. 

Your child may hear this and it’s comments like this that help them to decide whether you’re going to judge them or be overly critical of them. If you want your child to feel like they can talk to you about anything, then you need to try and not take a judgmental approach about anything important. 

Having a pet dog

Giving your child the responsibility of looking after a pet can be great way to help self-esteem and build their confidence. Taking for instance their dog for walk and making sure they are well fed will them mature into awell rounded human being.

Here is a fantastic infographic to help your child to prevent them losing their pet.

Parenting a pre-teen child is no easy task. There’s a lot that you need to think about and consider. However, the tips and ideas above should help to make the process of parenting your child as they get older, a little easier and less stressful.