Should Tweens Spend Time Away From the Family?

If you have an older tween, you’re probably noticing that she wants little or nothing to do with you. She’d rather stick pins in her eyes than hang out with you – this despite the fact that she complains she’s bored. She won’t help with chores, cooking, or go on errands. Even with nothing to do she’d rather hang around the house and complain. Or find excuses to while away time with her friends.

Naturally you’ve probably concluded that it’s best to let her go her own way. But that’s not always the best strategy -tweens, even the older ones who are primed for an friend-facing focus, still want and need to spend time with their families – their parents especially. But for the most part, they’d never admit it – it would be terribly uncool to do that.

So how can you combat that – start to like their activities. Yup. It may be time to figure out how to skateboard. Ok, maybe not, but perhaps you want to start watching the x-games and figuring out who her heroes are. She may not have much interest in long heart to heart to chats, but try a common movie or game night, complete with tween friendly snacks (think sugar and salt) and you can have a whole evening of stress free interaction.

See if you can get your tween involved your favorite hobby or if possible, have them help out at work – this works if you’re have your own. What happens if there is no common interests – time to develop one – and you may have to the bigger person and take up a hobby just for the sake of tween bonding.

Good luck – and let us know what activities work best for you to have some together time with your tween.