You Can Smell the Difference
A lot of talk about tweens centers around middle school, but the tween years cover the ages of 9-13 with changes taking place before your tween ever steps onto a secondary campus. It may be hard to...
View ArticleThe Boss Has Left the Building: The Developing Tween Brain
A common refrain we hear from parents goes something like this: “I don’t get it. It seems like she changed into a different kid overnight! Now, she ________ (fill in the blank)”: * has tons of...
View ArticleThe CHANGE
No, we’re not talking about menopause or a midlife crisis. (That’s another blog for another time). We’re talking about an earlier developmental change that begins to be evident as children hit the...
View ArticleFresh Start on the New Year!
This is the season of New Year’s resolutions! In their best form, resolutions are a set of goals designed to move you to a better life. Successful resolutions are periodically reviewed to see if you...
View ArticleDeveloping Personal Alignment with Your Tween
In our last post, we introduced the concept of personal alignment. When we are in alignment, our behaviors are congruent with our thoughts and we experience an easier flow of life. If you like the idea...
View ArticleCupid Aims the Arrow: Tween Romance
Happy Valentine’s Day! It is with slight trepidation that I start writing this blog post. Why you ask? Well on this day that celebrates all things romantic, we thought it would be appropriate to...
View ArticleManaging Tween Dating
It is March 1st and spring is around the corner! Spring is a time of all things blossoming and it seems a perfect time to return to our Valentine’s Day topic of blossoming tween romance. In thinking...
View ArticleTweens and Social Media: Understanding the Addiction
Take their phones away and they act as if you had cut off their arm. To many adults, it can seem as if tweens and teens are addicted to social media and the technology required to use it. While there...
View ArticleThe Importance of Summer Boredom
Like many of you during this time of year, our households have been abuzz with activity. As soon as I leave my office, I hit the road to either attend an event or run a multitude of errands. This past...
View ArticleDaily Downtime and Teenage Summer Bucket Lists
School is out. Your tween is relieved and excited about the lazy summer days. Two days into summer vacation your tween sighs heavily and says, “I’m bored. There’s nothing to do.” You let out an...
View ArticleDefiant Tween Behavior: It’s A Good Thing
It’s easy for things to get more lax and loose during the summer and tween behavior is no exception. Because summertime can mean having a less structured routine, altered expectations and a lot more...
View ArticleBeing Able To Laugh At Yourself
My daughter has wanted a bunny forever. As school ended, a friend called saying that she had bunnies to give away. My daughter launched a crusade any presidential campaign manager would have been proud...
View ArticleUnconditional Positive Regard: A Parenting Necessity
We are therapists who work with kids and families but we don’t like to get too psychobabbly in our blog. But there is a term in psychology that succinctly sums up an essential element of what tweens...
View ArticleTeen and Tween Attitude: Don’t Take It Personally
It’s common knowledge that the tween and teenage years are often hard on the parent-child relationship. Knowing this is one thing and experiencing defiance, rejection and ridicule from your tween or...
View ArticleTeen and Tween Behavior: It’s Not About You
Our last post explored the golden rule of parenting teens and tweens: don’t take it personally along with the corollary: it’s not about you. In this post we’ll look at this a little more in depth and...
View ArticleThe Secret World Of Sleep
As families work to switch from summer schedules to school schedules, the importance of sleep for kids can become a hot topic between parents and tweens. There is new information about what is going...
View ArticleDiversity in Development: The Tween Developmental Curve
We are going to talk about diversity in our next couple of posts. Diversity in development abounds in the tween years. If you took a look at a group of 11 year olds (the peak of the tween years),...
View ArticleHow to Teach Time Management to Your Tween (Without Being a Nag)
My son’s involvement in academic and extra-curricular activities increased exponentially this year. There are two words that I have been saying to him a lot lately: “Time management”. We’ve had enough...
View ArticleThe Disorganized Student: How to Teach Your Tween Organization Skills
As discussed in our last post, helping your tweens learn to manage their time effectively also means helping them learn to be organized. While the developing tween brain is prone to being forgetful,...
View ArticleTween Money Management: Theories of Allowance
One important skill that is often low on the tween parent to do list is: tween money management. Unfortunately, many parents feel ill equipped to teach it. Many a teenager has gone into debt by...
View ArticleHome Alone: Is Your Tween Ready?
Is my child old enough to be left at home alone? This question has been asked of us many times. There are many factors to consider and there will be different answers for different children. This...
View ArticleNegotiating with Kids: Should You Make A Deal?
Our current political stalemate has got me thinking about how negotiation and compromise are part of our everyday lives. For parents, compromise and negotiation with our children is something we deal...
View ArticleTrain Your Brain: Being Positive with Your Child
How many of you are now counting the days until school starts again? At this point in the summer, many parents and tweens are ready for a little more space between each other and both sides can get...
View ArticleTransition from Summer: Preparing for School
Here is a post from our archives that we thought would be helpful as we all get ready for the school year: August is still summer, right? Yet since the beginning of July, back to school ads have been...
View ArticleThe Rhyme and Reason of Learning
It is very common for tweens to question the importance of education. As their analytical brains ponder more complex issues, they call all things into question. I came across this quote from, The...
View ArticleTransition Summer
The pomp and circumstance is over. The graduation gown is balled up in a corner of their bedroom. The out of town relatives have gone home. The thank you notes are written (or you are still nagging...
View ArticleThe Teen First Steps
When kids take their first steps it is memorable. They may grab onto a table, steady themselves, pick their hand up from the table and then, wobbling a little back and forth, take that first step....
View ArticleExplaining the Changes
There are a lot of transformations that occur during the tween and teen years. Many of the emotional changes begin as early as eight or nine, long before the physical signs of adolescence. Tweens can...
View ArticleYour Kid and Pornography: One Click Away
Playboy’s Flagship magazine will no longer publish images of fully nude women as of March 2016. Part of the reason according to CEO Scott Flanders is that “You’re now one click away from every sex act...
View ArticleTeen Girls and Social Media: A Story of Social and Sexual Pressure
Take a listen to this interview with Nancy Jo Sales. She is the author of “American Girls”. She spent 2 1/2 years researching the book and spoke to more than 200 teenage girls around the country about...
View ArticleHow to Help Your Sleep-Deprived Teen
As we explained in our last post, teen sleep deprivation can cause or exacerbate serious mental health issues. (That’s to say nothing of the impact it has on academic functioning, body weight,...
View ArticleParenting in the Shadow of Charlottesville
Tweens and teens are developmentally primed to examine and critique their world with newly independent eyes. As they develop critical thinking skills and explore who they are apart from their parents,...
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