This graduation season, I moved the tassel to the other side of my mortarboard for I have passed Parenting a Tween and commenced Parenting A Teenager. Where’s my stinkin’ cake? What, no moonbounce in the backyard? What a rip-off.
Graduating a kid from tween to teen usually doesn’t register on either end of the celebration spectrum. That’s a shame. Having a child turn 13 is a special time for the child and also the mother and father. It also marks a turning point in the ever-evolving parent/child relationship. In fact, it just might be the most important time in both of your lives.
Of course, the baby years are important. However, I’m reminded of a baseball saying: “You can’t win the World Series in the first month of the season but you can lose it.” I think this applies to parenting too.
So much of the parenting world, from “expert” books to those tired parenting memes to the overall cultural conversation about kids, revolves around the early years and the sleepless nights. In retrospect, all that stuff — the baby, toddler and early elementary years — is the easiest part of a parent’s job responsibility. We can get that shit done with only determination and a stronger gag reflex. For our efforts, we’re rewarded with baby smiles, adorably mispronounced words, a fountain of kisses and air-tight squeezy hugs.
So, don’t drop your baby on its head. Don’t blow secondhand smoke in its tiny face. Definitely don’t be an asshole as your child grows from baby to toddler to tween –someone sorta resembling a real-life actual person. But try as you may, you aren’t going to “win it all” at parenting in those early years.
With that in mind, here’s what I’ve learned about parenting by parenting a tween:
Watch those ‘foreverwords’
I was speaking with a friend when she mentioned the term “foreverwords.” Say your tween child has done something. Maybe that something is grand or maybe it is life-altering in what could be a possibly terrible way. Regardless of how good or poor their decision-making proves to be, how you respond initially — the actions and words you use in that very moment as you and she/he teeter on a high wire — will form the foundation for a possible shift in your parent/child relationship.
The idea of pausing before speaking or acting out those foreverwords hit me hard. The wrong choice could be ugly.
The tween years of parenting require more nuanced thought, on-the-fly nimbleness, and patiently considered words and actions. Our rewards during this often confusing and conflicting time won’t always be as adorable or evident or immediate or obvious as they were in those baby and toddler years. However, they will be powerful for the life of your child.
So tread lightly, moms and pops. The cement is wet still and awfully impressionable. You do not want to misstep and cause cracks in your kid’s permanent foundation. Not now, not after you took such care to keep them alive and reasonably happy for the past decade or so.
Be more involved with them than ever before
You don’t get to parent less or clock out in any way from the job when your kid reaches the tween years. The exact opposite is true. You need to put in more hours, give your parenting decisions more thought, and double down on your commitment to the job of being a dad or mom.
Parenting a tween (and I’m sure a teen as well) requires more from you. I’m afraid many parents don’t get this memo. Many parents think their job is nearly over in the tween years and they check out through the teen years.
That’s a terrible, terrible move.
Yes, your older child is pretty darn self-reliant now. They have a phone, they can let themselves into the house by themselves and stay at home while you run errands locally. It’s kinda great for you and them.
You can have conversations about some grown-up stuff with your tween and it’s actually enjoyable and thought-provoking at times.
While all that is true, your 11-, 12-, 13-, 15-, 17-year-old child needs you to be a more actively involved parent now. More than ever before.
They need us more, even if they insist they don’t. So we need to parent more.
More thoughtfully, more passionately, more earnestly, more actively.
More.
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This blog post is part of the #NoDadAlone campaign. Fathering Together/City Dads Group, the National At-Home Dad Network, and Fathers Eve are joining forces to amplify messages that help dads recognize we are not alone! Follow #NoDadAlone on Instagram, and learn more at NoDadAlone.com.
A version of this first appeared on Out with the Kids. It first ran here in 2017 and has since been updated. Photo: ©LIGHTFIELD STUDIOS / Adobe Stock.
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