How to deal with the challenging tween years
If you are the parent of a tween, you may be wondering what has become of your little angel. As she enters the tween years, you may find yourself having to deal with backchat, lies and a bad attitude, not to mention curious new tastes in fashion and music.Here are some of our top tips to effectively discipline children aged 9-12:
- A calm approach is the best option
- Try not to over-react or give bad behaviour too much attention. By remaining calm you are giving your tween a much better example.
- When you have to insist on a certain rule, explain why and stand your ground.
- Natural consequences can be useful when it comes to discipline. Simply reminding your tween that if she doesn’t do her homework, she will be in trouble with her teacher can work like a charm.
- Humour can work well when discipling children of this age.If your tween is whining about having to go to school, why not join in and whine about having to go to work.
- Use rewards.
- Give lots of hugs and offer praise, a special family outing, cooking her favourite dinner are all great ways to reward good behaviour.
- Have consequences in place, but only for serious misbehaviour. You could take away treasured possessions, such as mobile phones or suspend privileges and pocket money.
- Positive discipline is important.
- Pay more attention to the behaviour you want to encourage, and ignore minor misbehaviour where possible. Try to avoid punishments that are too harsh and only impose sanctions such as grounding when they have seriously misbehaved.
Read more: Dealing with common tween issues
