Parenting in the Preteen Years

Parenthood brings unexpected challenges as children enter the preteen years, with pushback and boundary-testing occurring earlier than anticipated. Navigating the contrast between professional respect and parental rejection requires consistency, patience, and deliberate efforts to break unhealthy patterns before they become ingrained behaviors.

• Decision to prioritize academics over extracurricular activities this year to focus on homework and reading skills
• Surprising amount of resistance from children, especially my nine-year-old son
• Stark contrast between daytime professional life where advice is valued versus evenings where parental guidance is rejected
• Noticeable gender differences in how my son and daughters handle conflict and assign blame
• Importance of correcting unhealthy thought patterns early to prevent relationship issues later in life
• The exhausting but necessary consistency required in parenting pre-teens
• Recognizing the connection between childhood experiences and adult relationship patterns

Tune in for our upcoming livestream on Saturday evening at 7pm on YouTube or LinkedIn. You can also catch the replay on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, or YouTube after the event.

Chapters

• 0:00 Podcast Introduction and Schedule Changes
• 1:03 Balancing Academics and Reading Time
• 3:12 Dealing with Children's Pushback
• 5:49 Parenting Challenges and Work-Life Balance
• 7:27 Gender Differences in Children's Behavior
• 10:42 Breaking Cycles and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is Still vs Podcast. This podcast was created for and by women, to elevate women's voices. Happy midweek to all of you. I don't know if you've picked up on it. You're a steady listener. I think you would have seen the cadence of episodes being updated, but they've become a little bit fewer and far between, and I want to explain why, and I think I might have mentioned it like briefly on other calls.

Speaker 1: 0:24

This year for the, the fall, I made the decision not to have my kids be in any sports or extra activities because I really wanted to focus on their schoolwork for like, first grade, second grade, third grade well, third grade for my son, but first grade, second grade I let them be in a bunch of activities and I was really excited about it. But then, you know, there was no homework, there was nothing really to be concerned about. And this year I was really concerned because I'm like you know, there was no homework, there was nothing really to be concerned about. And this year I was really concerned Because I'm like you know all my kids definitely need extra help. They could use the extra attention when we have commitments for sports. I'm the one who always goes crazy trying to like figure out schedules and figure out getting them dropped off and picked up and the whole bit. So school was academics was really the determining factor for me For wanting them to not do any extracurriculars.

Speaker 1: 1:05

Now, for me, this meant I wanted to make sure that I had time at night, each night, to check their homework, make sure they were doing it correctly, and to read with at least one of my kids. Now, the reason why I'm only saying one of my kids is because the times that I have tried to get each child every single night to read to me it becomes this like really horrible thing. Nobody ends up wanting to do it and then we give up on it after a week. I didn't want to do that. So I'm like, let me set us up for success. One child one day a week reads to mommy and then they get a little break and then we read another book or chapter or whatever. It's really just for them to obviously get the practice of reading and we all know how beneficial that is right. Like I was an avid reader when I was really little, I think it impacted my entire professional career, my academic career, um, and I love reading it's. I mean, you've heard me talk on a lot of episodes with these authors. It's therapeutic in some ways. It's a release in some ways, like the distraction, like there's just there's so much good things with reading.

Speaker 1: 2:06

So challenge now is that while conceptually I had this great idea about being able to get quality time with them each night and, you know, having things refocused a little bit, I was not anticipating the pushback as much as I've been getting now. My twins are eight, my son is nine I wasn't sure what I was expecting at this age. You know it's crazy because I'm gonna reflect back like way back when I was pregnant. I think the biggest thing is like you're told all these milestones, oh, from age one. You know this is the milestones for the first year and these are the milestones. And you know you get your like little tick marks up until age like whatever four or five, whatever it is, and then there's nothing, there's no guidance on what is going to happen and how you have to be prepared to deal with this.

Speaker 1: 2:53

And I was complaining to my husband last night and not complaining so much. As I said, I'm pretty scared at this point because my nine-year-old is pushing back so hard and really trying to stretch the boundaries so much that it's like a shocking thing for me and shocking not in the sense that's like he's doing anything really outlandish. He just wants to talk to on this on the phone to his friends, like that's really all he wants to do. He wants to hang out with his friends on facetime and they all play video games together and hang out like that. I really don't have a problem with this. I think it's actually kind of adorable. But then there's like the they're so he's so focused or they're so focused on the game or the phone or whatever that they get to do for a little while after school that they don't want to do any of their other responsibilities. It's pulling teeth, it's just constant fighting.

Speaker 1: 3:41

This is where, like, the exhaustion factor comes in, and this is the hard part about being a parent is continuing to be consistent in pushing your kids to make sure they're meeting their own expectations really, but also setting boundaries, making sure they're turning into responsible adults. Everything that comes out of your mouth is shaping their future. So you have to really set the tone early and it is a tremendous amount of work that, while I knew I'd be raising humans and raising young people, for some reason this little gap here that I'm in right now. I wasn't expecting pushback. I was expecting it a little bit later on, but in this this is like almost like my rough practice, basically for the teen years. And I said to my husband I was like my god, I'm like if this is the nine-year-old years, what are the teen years gonna look like? Like I can't even imagine what that's gonna look like. So it's just one of those things that I'm like I needed to vent with all of you, basically because this is like the wild part that like I knew it was coming and I kind of anticipated, but not really and you're really never prepared until you're actually going through it. And the three different characters in my house for my kids is so vastly different. Now, and it's interesting too, my son is pushing back sooner than the girls, but I think the girls are probably going to push back harder once they hit that 11, 12 year old mark, because I do start. I have seen signs of that already.

Speaker 1: 5:05

She's exhausting, to be perfectly honest with you, the way that my husband, my parent, our kids is. We're very hands-on with them, we're very communicative with them and we consistently push them consistently. We really don't let up, um, in any way, shape or form. Now guess, like sometimes you know we'll let them, you know, relax or veg out for a little bit longer or what have you. But we stay really consistent. Monday through friday we're very scheduled. Because I work, my husband works. Kids coming home from school dinner, bedtime a whole bit very scheduled. Because I work, my husband works. Kids coming home from school dinner, bedtime the whole bit Very scheduled. Plus, sometimes I have to work at night. So it's just like one of those things and because we're so much on a schedule of keeping them on track and keeping on top of them, it is a tremendous amount of work and I know I already said that, but it's just.

Speaker 1: 5:53

You know, I don't think a lot of people really go into being a parent thinking about this part of it, because you're always so focused on like the adorable baby part that when you get here it's like, oh man, it stinks. I feel like maybe there should be some kind of fun support group for parents. That's like you need a night out, let's go somebody. Business idea. There is no real end goal here with the message that I want to give you guys, but I felt like this was something to be shared today.

Speaker 1: 6:17

You know, between being professional during the day and working and making sure I'm hitting my deadlines and helping my team and being on top of everything, and then to have. The irony is, during the daytime, my opinion is valued, but then in the evening with my kids, they're like get out of my face. So it's just like it's such a shock because it's like polar opposites. I'm laughing because now I'm thinking about it, I'm like it's really funny because I know that I'm mentoring and guiding people during the day and it's it's well received and often like sought out, and then at night it's like get away from me, I don't want to, I don't want to read with you. It's like the contrast is shocking. Nevertheless, I will make it through this, as I usually do with all other things, but I just did want to put it out there and acknowledge all the parents out there that are also really just trying to stay on top of their kids and make sure that they're good humans and good people. This is a really tough job. It really is. It's one of the hardest jobs in the world and I do hope that the things that we're teaching them are getting through to them Now I do want to note one thing actually I thought about it the other day that I'd like to share with you all.

Speaker 1: 7:27

Very interesting having raising daughters and a son at the same time, because I get to see the contrast between how girls approach things and how boys approach things. Now you would think that it wouldn't be that different, but it actually is vastly different. My son is unapologetically driven to lead and wants to tell everyone what to do, demands that people listen to him, basically like I'm running the show, like no apologies, and he's really really quick to act as if he doesn't understand. He's like as if he has done nothing wrong. He's very quick to do that. We're actually trying to work him out of that right now. My girls, I've noticed, have a response where if something goes wrong, they blame themselves first. Now, as I'm saying this out loud, I realize that you know, things that the kids are showing and exhibiting today are direct lifts from me and my husband, because who else have they been observing consistently? I'm well aware of this, so I very adamantly will approach things and make sure that I make things really clear to them, and An instance that happened recently was between one of my girls and my son.

Speaker 1: 8:36

My son got mad or he got mad about something and he hit his sister, right. We discipline my son Like we do not allow that, we don't like it. We make sure he understands, like this isn't okay, it's like a constant battle, but we are working on it. My daughter, she's upset, you know, she's like I understand. And then she says to me tears, big tears in her eyes. She goes well, I, I'm sorry, it's my fault and I was like what do you mean? And she goes it's my fault because he was mad, because I did whatever, whatever it was that she said, and I stopped her and I was like you need to hear me. I was like you need to hear me loud and clear. I'm like there is no reason anyone should hit you ever. There is no valid reason. It does not matter if you irritated him slightly, it doesn't matter if you made a joke at him, none of that matters because, at the end of the day, no one has a right to treat you badly. I was like and I need you to hear me and I made her repeat it back to me and I was like you do not need to have someone treating you badly. It is not okay, it is never okay. And she was just like okay, mommy, and I sent her on her little way.

Speaker 1: 9:44

And it's little moments like that that it's almost like a little alarm bell goes off in my head and I immediately hone in on needing to course correct the thoughts. Now I do the same thing with my son and he's like makes these big, bold statements and acts very alpha. Now I correct him in the same way and I let him know you need to understand something and I explain break down whatever it is that needs to be broken down. Because if we don't do this now and if we don't start pressing them now to break bad habits that they might have learned from me and my husband, or to get them to understand like a larger picture, they will get to their teen years and they will have these jaded already like little seeds in their head and it will turn into something else. And I'm speaking from experience here with this part, because things that were never corrected for me allowed me to be highly codependent and ending up in these horrible relationships. It took years for me to break out of that cycle in my, you know, in my young adulthood, and I am working really hard to try to make sure that the kids have a better understanding or the kids have a better path. So, on that note, any takeaway. Being a parent is super tough.

Speaker 1: 10:54

I want to recognize all of you. I hope all of you are doing well. I really am grateful for all of you listening Today. I do have a live stream happening. It's scheduled for Saturday evening, I believe it's 7 pm. If you tune into YouTube my YouTube channel or if you tune into LinkedIn, you can watch me on either of those channels and, you know, listen to the live interview. You can also follow on instagram, linkedin, facebook, whatever youtube, to catch the replay, because everything gets posted. Well, stream live and then post reposted. Very grateful for you all. I hope you're all having a great week. Thank you for being with me and I will catch you on the next one. Take care.