Tween girls

I just took a closer look at that link I posted. Lots of good stuff in there but the reference list at the bottom looks great.

One point in the text jumped out at me.



We did this. I gave them carte blanc permission to blame me for whatever it was they felt pushed into doing that made them uncomfortable. It would be nice, I said, if they told me what it was I was prohibiting in case it came up elsewhere, but even that was optional. I always wanted them to be able to say no, even when backed into a corner by their friends.

No advice - just letting you know I'm in that situation too right now. And just think in another couple of years when she progresses into her teen years, I'll have another tween. Loving it!

But I have found that being involved in sports has helped - she has something that she can focus on that is positive. So maybe having her involved in something that really interests her on a regular basis?

One thing we are contiplated is this - going to mall and other places with just friends. I am conservitive on this as well - fortunately at 11 she hasn't asked to go just with her friends. She did go to the movies with a few friends, but one of the parents attended as well. I do remember this parent which invited them all asked if it was ok for them to go (just the kids) - I responded - I don't feel comfortable with that. But that is the closest.

One thing we are looking to do (not just for the tween thing of course) is to buy a home hopefully by the end of the summer - we hope to have a family type room. We really want some where so they can invite their friends over and hang. I'd rather have a fun secure place where they can hang rather than a mall.

When stuff like that happens, I just re-confirm her choices. Let her know that she knows herself and what is right and important - also acknowledge that it can be tough to stand for what you know is right and how impressed you are that she makes the tough, but best decisions.

Oh, I am bad with the mall thing....Jane is not allowed to go alone with her
friends. Our malls are huge and in the wake of Amber Dubois and Chelsey King who both lived in a San Diego suburb, I am even more reluctant now.
So far, I am just glad that my daughter is not a shopper.

JPB, we had the designer label in private school, despite uniforms. Some kids wore $ 500 backpacks. It got to the point that the principal wrote a letter to all parents asking them for cooperation. I talked and talked and talked to Jane endlessly about how some people define themselves through designer clothes and others shine with their personality and don't need outside stimulants to be popular. Every day we had conversations about insecurities and how each individual acts on them differently.

Each child is different of course, but I made it a point to have my daughter
fight her own battles. All I did is help her in her strategy and make her understood where her "opponents" came from. Once she understood that
they're scared and want a piece of the popularity (contest), she became
much more gracious towards the ones who tried to belittle her. It gave
her the confidence to reach out to them.

I feel that building up confidence is a big big factor. At times I overshot
my goal, but that's another subject....

HA! She won't be 14 forever.

Very good point. I have done that, and her teacher did too in our conference with her. But I should be careful to keep doing that.

I agree about sports, too. I think that's been part of the problem recently, though. She was on the basketball team with Em, who is VERY good, and sozlet didn't do very well at basketball this year. (Esse and Kay were on other teams, O didn't play but her big sister was on sozlet and Em's team and the coach was her dad, so she was at practices and games.)

This was sozlet's first year of b-ball and while she has some natural aptitude, she really needs instruction, and the coach was the yelly kind rather than the teachy kind. (I did what I could and she did get better -- I think she has potential -- but she never had a really good game.) Sozlet and Em had been friendly earlier in the year and that seemed to go downhill during the course of the basketball season. This was a very "winning is the only thing" team. (They did win most of their games but no thanks to sozlet -- she wasn't the worst but she kept hoping to finally do something offensively [her defense was good] and failing and getting mopey about it. I don't think the moping did her any favors in the general scheme of things.)

Soccer's next, she's good at that and all these girls (thinking... yep every single one) play soccer.


Good tip about permission to blame me, JPB, it's a good one. We've used it once or twice but will use it more in the future probably. How long did it work? We're already getting some "well do you do everything your mom tells you?" pushback.

Love it!

Invest heavily in the Twilight books.

Okay, just kidding (mostly). They do seem to be catnip to that set.

Anyway, I'll be back, will also see if I can find a particular photo of myself with the sneer -- my mother has it but I might have a copy. I am 12 or 13 or so in it. Hmm.

Definitely a time when fashion starts to be important, when what Mom picks out so does not work (and keep in mind my mother is a super-feminine Winter whereas I am a sport/classic Spring and already we are going to butt heads in almost every possible clothing arena that there can possibly be) and hair and makeup become serious rituals. And I wasn't even one of those girls who got up super-early in order to be able to shower before school and do up the hair in a thousand different ways, all before school started at 7:30 or so. But I knew plenty of girls who were that hardcore.

We have all Twilight books - in case someone wants them!

Oh jespah, don't get me started about hair. My daughter has these beautiful,
thick long locks - I'd die for those, and what is she doing? Getting up 30 min
earlier and straightening her hair. I just don't get it, but I let her do it, as it
is important to her and it makes a difference in how she feels about herself,
but what a shame.....

Fashion is one area she has pretty well covered, Justice notwithstanding. She gets a lot of positive feedback on her style -- skinny jeans, vaguely rockstar t-shirts, skirts with leggings + Converse sneakers or bikerish black leather boots, sort of Joan Jett meets Miranda Cosgrove (from iCarly) (but toned way down). She'll only wear things she can play football in if she wants to. (No ballet flats, no tight miniskirts, etc.)

We joke that I'm her personal shopper because she gets bored by shopping and I enjoy it, so I've bought most everything she owns, but with her feedback and power of veto. (I buy things I think she'll like rather than what I like per se, though I approve of her style so there isn't usually much clash there. When she doesn't like something I usually see her point.)

She doesn't do all the primping stuff though, and yeah, that's starting to be an issue. (She's NINE. Argh.)

This generation does seem to have something against curly hair, it's so annoying. Same with sozlet -- long (waistlength as of now, haircut tomorrow) curly thick hair. Her friends all have that pinstraight hair that you can run a comb through at any time. You can't do that 15 minutes after you've combed out sozlet's hair (but it's so pretty! she likes it, haircut will be a trim, nothing drastic).

That's like a repeat of my teen years - some used to iron their hair to have it nice and straight like.. the models in Seventeen magazine.
I say this as a natural curly hair person. Luckily the later sixties showed up and curly got more acceptance.

(Reading this thread with interest.)

Ze hair:



Rarely worn down like that, usually ponytail. Longer now.

Simply gorgeous.

Ha! I have to post mine now too!


The caption for this photo at my blog page is:

"Can't remember if I was mad at the world or just trying to look "cool."

Don't you just love those hideously short bangs that mom liked to give me?

That's awesome. Love the smoldering rage...

I'd scowl like that if someone cut my hair that way, too.

I kind of like that picture though, Buttrflynt - very expressive!

sozlet's hair is gorgeous, similar to Jane's except lighter in color. Skinny jeans
and rock t-shirts are just like uniforms - they all wear them. It's got to be Converse or nothing (I am glad, they're not expensive).

It's funny, the kids here don't really wear it that much, not her age anyway. Her friends' uniform is more about skinny jeans, Uggs, and then diaphanous shirts/ tunics from Justice (sozlet's style is definitely more hard-edged than most of her friends). She's one of only two kids in her class with Converse sneakers (Kay being the other). When the other girls aren't wearing Uggs (which is the vast majority of the time) it seems to be running shoes or sneaker-ballet flats, Rocket dog maybe?