Where has my chatty child gone? - Clare Cogan, Creating Calm
/Where has my chatty child gone?
Understanding the changes during the pre-teen years.
Early days of being a parent, we are front and centre......
When we have children, they become the centre of our world. We spend our time caring for them, nurturing them, taking them to pre-school or school, organising activities and play dates for them and experiencing the highs, and lows of being a parent. One thing that is a constant in the early days of being is that our children are largely dependent on us for their health and well-being, and we are pretty much the centre of their universe. We have the biggest influence over them, who they see, what they do and in the large part they will go along with these decisions.
Then, it starts to change. It might be changes in how much your child talks to you, or wants to do the things they used to. They might start to talk about things being ‘boring’ or even change their friendship groups. We start to feel less in control and more in a state of reacting to an ever-changing landscape where we can’t always keep up with what is happening.
I want to reassure you that this is completely normal, and a part of development which we can sometimes feel unprepared for, especially as it feels like it is happening earlier and earlier.
What is changing?
Much is now emerging about the ‘tween’ years, defining that time between childhood and adolescence. They often relate to your child coming to the end of primary school and moving to secondary, creeping towards those teenage years which, when I talk to parents, they often anticipate as a time of immense challenge and struggle. This can, however start to happen as young as 8 years old, when you start to notice changes in your child, how they behave and who they choose to spend their time with.
A number of parents I talk to identify these changes as a shift in what their children are happy to talk about, a reluctance to share or answer questions and the emergence of what has traditionally been termed ‘moody teenager’.
This is the stage when parents often do start to struggle, they feel it’s too early for their gorgeous child to morph into adolescence, where slammed doors and arguments are the rhetoric, they want to hold onto the sweetness, light and innocence for as long as possible, and don’t want to let it go.
I totally understand that, and we all know our children are not doing it ‘on purpose’ although sometimes the changes in attitude are hard not to take personally when any rudeness or shortness seems to be targeted directly at you.
You still have a huge influence over your children as they get older, and more independent. You will notice that they may want to spend more time with their friends, do activities which don’t include you, and the previous willingness to come out for a family walk or bike ride may now take superhuman effort to get them over the threshold.
I want to tell you that your child is still there, they are still them, but over the forthcoming years they will undergo changes which will allow them to become adults and develop the most important life skills which will allow them to become independent, with a life of their own.
You might want to hold onto them for dear life, wrap them up in a blanket and never let them see the outside world lest they be unsafe or harmed in any way, but the hardest thing about being a parent is this, learning to let go.
What does this transition mean?
As part of my work with teenagers and their parents, I spend a lot of time researching and learning about this move between child to teenager, and what happens in-between. What I have found really interesting is this. Your child, emerging into adolescence may start to respond to you in a different way, be less reluctant to share, and treat everything you say as the most inconvenient question in the world, but you are still their role model. Many parents will say to me that increasingly they feel like they are talking to a brick wall, that the grunts and limited responses, or even ‘don’t talk to me’s’ mean that there is no point in saying anything, and they often withdraw.
I want to reassure you, committed and caring parents, that these children, are listening, are taking what you are saying on board, they are just starting to face a tug of war in their minds and their lives.
However, it really isn’t them, your tween, being deliberately obstinate or obstructive, it’s their brain. The pre-teen years are the start of a change in our children’s brain, another stage of development. It is the time when they are primed to move away from parental nurture and care and to explore more of the world for themselves. To start with they will still remain close to you, and have that safety and security to come back to, but as the years go on, they will continue to break away more and more to prepare them for a time when they will hopefully be fully functioning members of our society and fulfilling their own dreams and desires in life.
What else is happening?
At this time their brain is also ‘re-wiring’, and the way that the teenage brain starts to change lends itself to that intense, emotional behaviour you might have already observed, or the withdrawal and reluctance to participate in family life. It is important for you to know that you are not doing anything wrong here if they don’t want to engage in as much as they used to, but celebrate the small wins such as when they watch a film with you or share a nugget about their day. Our older children may start to do this inconsistently, they might be chatty and engaging one day, and different the next. This is because in the early days, this can happen gradually, and for some children it starts at a younger age than others.
I want to highlight here that hormones do play a part in this developmental journey, and have a profound influence. However, gaining knowledge and understanding about teenage brain development and emerging independence which, our children are pre-disposed to experience can make the journey for us easier to navigate. This can help us during this tough time, often when we just want our child back and feel bereft that they are not responding and engaging with us the way they used to.
What can we do as parents?
We have to almost renegotiate how we parent during these tween years, arm ourselves with the knowledge and understanding and also the support to give us the opportunity to appreciate the challenges our children may face during these years. We cannot stop it happening but we can face it in a positive, forward looking way, excited for their future rather than mourning how our children ‘used to be’. Be proud of how far your children have come and be prepared for the next steps because, although they can be tricky times, they can be immensely invaluable and rewarding as we see the time, energy and commitment we put into raising our children come though how they are as people.
Bio:
I am a therapist specialising in Teenage Mental Health and helping parents and teenagers understand how their mind can impact on their mood. I work with them to move teens from anxious, stressed and angry to calm, confident and motivated through an increased knowledge of how their brain works.
See more of Clare over at:
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