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  • Q&A with Australian Health Practitioners

    What are some of the challenges of parenting tweens?

    Related Topics
    Parenting Parenting 'Tweens (9-12)
    including advice!
    • 2 answers
    • Debra Mainwaring
    • Susan Wolf
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  • Debra Mainwaring

    Psychologist

    Debra has 28 years experience applying Psychology in Education & the Child Protection System as a Registered Teacher (UK, Singapore & QLD), Chartered Educational Psychologist … View Profile

    This is the time for many young people when puberty begins bringing with it many biological and psychological changes. Probably parents will be caught off guard by sudden mood changes - what some parents will describe as the development of an ‘attitude’. With this comes challenges to their authority as their tween begins to explore their own identity demanding more and more independence. There will be a switch from parents being their important other in favour of peers.

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  • Susan Wolf

    Counsellor

    My aim is to listen and understand. Specialising in LGBTQI/GLBT and all other atypical lifestyles. Other areas include depression, anxiety and communication within families and … View Profile

    Puberty brings a lot of changes, as Debra has mentioned.

    It's also the time when they appear to stop listening to what you say. However studies have shown that your own attitude and opinions still mean a lot to both tweens and teens. Communication is vital, as they become adults, treat them more so, and allow they are forming their own opinions and figuring out who they want to be.

    For a few years they will fluctuate between child and adult, similar to the season of spring! This can prove frustrating as you're not always sure if they are the child or adult that day/hour/minute. But as you treat them more as adults, and slowly give them more things to do in running the home (give them a say in what food is bought, for instance) you will see them grow into the adult they are meant to  be.

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