As I currently traverse the experience of raising a tween I am calling on some powerful education and experience that I am so grateful to have received earlier on in my career as a social worker. My life seems to include a lot of deep breathing, biting my lip and choosing my battles, and let’s be honest…. Doubting and over-analysing all the decisions I have ever made as parent up until this point! Yep we are IN.IT.

The tween years begin around 9 yrs old and it is a time of great change internally for our young people. Around this time you hear parents exclaim ‘where has my child gone!?” As they no longer recognise their young person amongst the eye rolls, foot stomps, grunts and potentially poor decisions.

There is a reason for these changes and learning about them will *hopefully give you a sense of solace and some really great tools to help yourself and your young person through this time.

In this episode I teach you about Brain Pruning and how essentially your 15-20% of your child’s brain is closed for renovations for many years. I also share some tips on how I am getting through this with a long-term focus on maintaining connection and communication over their teenage-hood.

It’s most certainly a ride, for them and us. I hope this gives you some hope for them and some practices for staying sane and available to them. There are resources below that have at times felt like a lifeline for me so please go and equip yourself with knowledge from those who have gone before you.

If this helps in some way I hope you hit subscribe and let me know what your parenting challenges are so I can create more of this content for you.

Big love,

Carlie

Resources

From Boys to Men and Girlhood - Maggie Dent  https://www.maggiedent.com/product-category/books/

Raising Resilient and Compassionate Children - Lael Stone https://laelstone.com.au/

Brainstorm - Dr Dan Siegel books https://drdansiegel.com/books/

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