Entries in the Category 'Tween years'

Teaching our children about dating

March 11th, 2010 / 3 Comments

It’s a radical idea, but a good one.
My daughter’s teacher, the school Christian club adviser, told the kids that her approach to dating is that she hopes to marry her first boyfriend.
What did she say??
Let me clarify. She doesn’t mean she’s going to blindly marry the first guy she happens to go out with.
She means [...]

Do your children know you love them?

March 3rd, 2010 / 2 Comments

I hear many teenagers tell me, “My parents only care about ________(fill in the blank with “my grades”, “not embarrassing them”, “keeping my room clean”, etc.). They don’t care about ME.”
What do they mean their parents don’t care about them?? I bet their parents would die for them. Yet that message doesn’t get across to [...]

Holistic approach to helping your tweens

July 13th, 2009 / 1 Comment

“My 11-year-old is disrespectful, talks back to us, and unmotivated in school. We’ve tried talking to her, giving her rewards and punishment, nothing seems to work. What should we do?”
I’ve been answering this parent’s question in the last two posts:
Dealing with difficult tween years

Our teenager is growing up and away!

I’ve stayed away from offering specific [...]

Our teenager is growing up and away!

July 8th, 2009 / 2 Comments

In the previous post, I started to address the question by a parent: “My 11-year-old is disrespectful, talks back to us, and unmotivated in school. We’ve tried talking to her, giving her rewards and punishment, nothing seems to work. What should we do?”
Here’s the 2nd part of the answer where I take a different [...]

Dealing with difficult tween years

July 8th, 2009 / 2 Comments

A parent asked me, “My 11-year-old is disrespectful, talks back to us, and unmotivated in school. We’ve tried talking to her, giving her rewards and punishment, nothing seems to work. What should we do?”

My son also had a difficult time when he was 11, just going into middle school. I’ve talked to several parents recently [...]

Plan for the Perfect Teen Summer

June 9th, 2009 / 1 Comment

It can be hard entertaining smaller children for the summer months but have you ever tried keeping a teenager engaged and entertained?
School ends and suddenly, your teen has no idea what to do. Or they waste their days staring blankly at the TV screen, playing video games or even worse, they just get themselves into [...]

Answering teen girls’ questions

May 27th, 2009 / 3 Comments

Teenagers have all kinds of questions from acne and periods to makeup and mood swings.
The Ultimate Girls’ Guide to Understanding and Caring for Your Body by Isabel and Emily Lluch is a fun and easy-to-read book written for girls to address many sensitive issues.  Two sisters wrote the book to give their peer perspective on [...]

From childhood to adulthood

May 1st, 2009 / No Comments

Early this week, Pete Aldin guest posted a series on Initiation into Manhood/Womanhood: Rites of Passage.
I’ve not read too much on this topic, and I think Pete had great ideas.
I particularly like the idea of having mentors for our children.
A 5th grade boy at church, I’ll call Johnny,  has been going through what I might [...]