Thirteen!

Here is a recent post from Michael Grose- a leading parenting expert talking about "thirteen".

This is a very interesting for us parents of thirteen year olds.

"Thirteen is a notoriously difficult age - it's an age of regression."

 This is not to excuse abusive or uncooperative behaviour but it does provide some context.

You can’t pick and choose

Many teenagers at this age like to distance themselves from their families. Not quite teenagers in the real sense of the term and no longer children they are stuck in the middle of two stages. It can be ‘Struggletown’ for many parents.

It’s common for kids in this age group to want to operate outside of the family with some things, but not with others. Teenagers need to be cut some latitude and not be expected to do the same things as they did when kids. We do need to adjust. But for important stuff such as treating siblings respectfully and turning up for family mealtimes then they need to be expected to come to the party. They can’t opt out of reasonable family obligations; nor can they cooperate on their terms only.

Co-operation is two-way

Sometimes young people need to be reminded of the tenuous nature of cooperation by a parent temporarily withdrawing their assistance for a child around things they value such as being driven to places; having meals cooked; even having clothes washed.

If you withdraw your cooperation in such a manner you need to be very careful how you do this as it can easily be interpreted as a play for power. It needs to be done calmly and methodically so that your young person understands that ‘they can’t pick and choose when to cooperate’. In effect, cooperation is an all or nothing thing so let them experience your non-cooperation for a time. Think this through very carefully. You may need to outlast 
your young person to make a point, so do it at a time when you feel strong.

‘I can use your help’

One way of working with children and young people (and adults) who directly challenge you or the status quo is to get them working for you rather than against you. In effect, you acknowledge that they are older and that you could really use their help to look out for and after their siblings.

I used this method during a parenting course when anyone would continually challenge me. "Jenny, you've got strong views about... Can you share them with everyone, because I think you've something valuable to say?" It rarely failed, as we all like to feel important!

You build your skills with the outliers

The outliers in any group- those that sit on the fringes- will always test you out personally and also test your parenting skills. You have to throw out the playbook that used to work and look for different strategies to bring the outliers in from the cold. Whatever method you use I think it’s essential that you don’t allow kids to operate outside the family rules and norms for too long. It becomes tiresome for you and destructive for family life as well.

This comes from the Happy Kids Newsletter I subscribe to from parenting ideas.com.au

Here is the link if you would like to subscribe yourself:

http://www.parentingideas.com.au/newsletter/archive/HK_582.html?utm_source=MailingList-HappyKids&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Happy+Kids+583