Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket

12 January 2015

Tween Girls, Mean Girls

There really should be a handbook for raising tween girls.  Like really, there should.  Since there is no such book, I'm just going to put out a few of the things I've learned.

They are hormonal. Y'all.  It's like 2 worlds colliding every 20 minutes.  Good meets Evil.  I never know which one is approaching.  We go from sweet to the world is over in .0006 seconds. 

They test boundaries. Like nobody has ever tested them before.  They push us to the brink.  Just when we think we've got it handled, yep, they push us even further.

They have no clue who they are.  This also can fall under hormonal and testing boundaries.  They think they are sweet innocent girls.  They have no clue that there heads spin when they are angry. Exorcist style.

They think their lives are over.  Again this is every 20 minutes.  Whether its over a friend, a boy, shoes, iphones...everything can cause this reaction from them.

They think they are GROWN.  Bless their little souls.  I promise mine does not know more than me, no matter how much she rolls her pretty little eyes.

These are just a few of the daily woes of a tween girl tween mom.

After a particularly trying day for my girl, I finally get to the bottom of today's meltdown.  What I realized is that its a recurring theme.  Mean girls.  All of them.  Including mine.

Y'all, they have no clue how to handle whats going on in their little tween bodies.  This manifests in all of the above symptoms.  And to top all of those gems off, they just want to fit in.  This causes our sweet, precious little babies to be mean spirited and hurtful to the friends they love so much.  And wait.  Before you start thinking, 'not my little girl', yes, even the sweetest and most tender girls go through it. 

So fellow tween moms, here's my plea to you.  Pray with me for them.  Let's teach them, walk them through this tough age.  Teach them to have grace.  Teach them about their actions and words.  Talk to them about how much they can hurt with their words.

After an hour long talk today, many confessions, many tears, I hope I helped smooth a path for my girl.  She, like many, many young girls get their feelings hurt so easily and then they react.  And lets be honest.  They can be mean.  They are mean because they have been hurt.  The hurt can be silly in our eyes, but in theirs, its everything.  And all it does is create a vicious cycle that they can't find their way out of.

I want us mommas to work together to teach them to let go of jealousies.  To let go of who has the new cool thing.  To let go of who likes what boy {this still kills me}.  These things are real

They use Instagram to out do each other.  To prove who their besties are each week.  To brag about what they got over the weekend or where they went.  They do these same things on the bus or in the cafeteria, talking loudly about what they have or who spent the night.  We need to teach them these things do not define them. 

We need to tell them they are each special in their own right and that its a good thing for them to be different.  They need our love and guidance. 

And we might need a lifetime supply of wine to get through it.

No comments: