Welcome to the Tween Zone

In the past few weeks my sweet, funny and thoughtful little boy has turned into another person. Suddenly everything is attitude, backtalk, anger and emotional outbursts. I've been going nuts. Our usual methods of discipline such as taking away point cards and time outs have lost all effectiveness. We've started using groundings from things like t.v and gameboy. These have worked for a short period of time, but overall are long term ineffective.

So in my desperation I went on a hunt yesterday for books to help. Anything to explain why, how and where my little boy had gone. After scouring through at least 50 different books I bought this one:



















I decided on 'Taming the Dragon..' because it dealt with solutions for anger management and sibling rivalry. They also talk about working together as parents in discipline matters. I am hoping that this book will help us all live a more healthy and anger free life. I'll let you know how that goes!

and I also bought this one:



















I have already started reading this one and absolutely love it. I had heard the term 'Tween' before but did not know that it meant the 8-11 yr. old age group. Apparently what had always been reffered to as 'pre-teen' before now has a cool new name along with a much needed guide on how to survive these years. While scanning the book I came across this passage:

Tweens are a mass of contradictions. Even as their bodies are maturing in preparation to create other human beings, they can have temper tantrums worth of a two-year-old, sleep with stuffed animals, and need Mom to remind them to wash behind their ears when they take a bath. It's a hard age to comprehend but it's also a wonderful one.

That summed up Alex perfectly. Then entire book is filled with advice and help for understanding the emotionl years that tweens are facing. Many of the differnt little passages and snipets have hit our situation so perfectly on the head, that I wonder if the author has a hidden camera in our house:

Your child may no longer scream, "I hate you!" during a fit of temper as she did during the toddler years, but as the parent of a tween, you are likely to notice that you can be transformed from the greatest mom or dad in the world to the meanest ogre on the planet in a blink of an eye.

Seriously, it's almost creepy how well this person knows my little man. I also love the fact that the book has a specific section dealing with girl tweens and boy tweens. Hopefully by reading this now I'll be prepared in two years when Liberty begins her journey.

One highly annoying thing as I conducted my book hunt yesterday was the lack of books written for boys dealing with the tween issue or anger management. There was an entire shelf devoted to girls and how to deal with their changing emotions and bodies, how to deal with peer pressure, liking boys and so on, many written for ages 8 and up. But the only books targeted to boys were for ages 12 and up dealing with puberty and sex. It really made me wonder if that could be why so many boys grow up to be emotionally dysfunctional men, struggling to deal with women, anger management, and even their own emotional needs.

What do you think?