Mrs. Homeschool

I’ve decided to take a little “break” from the super deep posts I’ve been doing and focus some time on the topic of “tweens”.

As of Sunday, I have TWO tweens…children that aren’t “children” or “teens” and are in between those stages of life.  As my daughters approach their teen years, I don’t really find myself tensing and bracing for what I know is to come.  I been warned (by family, friends and total strangers) on numerous occasions about girls and their teenage attitudes.  I can still remember some of the thoughts that ran through my head as a teen girl.  Nothing very unusual, but it’s actually quite hard for me to imagine that my girls may struggle with similar negative thoughts in the near and coming future.  I know it’s my role as their mom to try my best to prepare myself just in case those thoughts DO come.

There are so many things that I don’t remember clearly about my teenage years, but others are such vivid memories.  Most of my middle school age memories are blurred by the overwhelming cloud of constantly feeling the need to be accepted by my peers and the horrible teasing of being a “late bloomer.”  I also remember the distinct confusion between wanting to be treated like a “grown-up” and needing to be nurtured and have some boundaries.  I thought I knew everything and I was so frustrated by my parents for being so “out of touch,” or so I thought.  I felt like they knew nothing about my struggles, but as I stand in the shoes of a “tween parent” now, I realize just how much they did understand.

The glue that held me to my parents was knowing they loved me.  There were many times when tempers flared between us.  I remember feeling such anger in my heart at times, but unfortunately we never dealt with it Biblically by not letting “the sun go down on your anger”.  Time did help, but our family now tries to hold to that and confront issues so our children don’t go to bed harboring that seed that often leads to bitterness.  The message we try, albeit not very well many times, is to let our children know that we will love then no matter what they do.

One of the hardest things we can do as parents, but perhaps one of the most beneficial is to apologize to our children when WE lose our tempers with them or speak/react in anger.  I have lost count of the times I have been short or ugly to our chilren and had to swallow my pride and confess that I should not have acted the way I did and ask my children to forgive me.  Forgiveness wasn’t taught to me as a child and it was a very hard lesson for me to learn as a young adult.  I honestly don’t know what my children think when I come back to them and ask them to forgive me.  I can only hope it gives them a small glimpse of how my Heavenly Father has forgiven me.

If I can instill a knowledge of what unconditional love is, and understand how nothing they could ever do can change that, I will consider myself to have reached one of the most important goals for my children…to see how their God and Savior loves them unconditionally.

Romans 8:38-39 “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”