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I am the mother to both a tween boy and a teen boy. (Not to mention a kindergarter daughter.) It has been quite a ride watching these boys grow up. More than once I have muttered, "When I was that age..." Yes, I know that is the classic "you are getting old" phrase, but nevertheless, it happens. In all honesty, the shocking truth is that tweens today are far more "grown up" than they were when I was a tween. Experts say that today's tween is yesterday's teen. A quote from this article left me thinking about our tweens and the roles that parents and society are playing in the role of them growing up so quickly.
The shift that's turning tweens into the new teens is complex — and worrisome to parents and some professionals who deal with children. They wonder if kids are equipped to handle the thorny issues that come with the adolescent world.
"I'm sure this isn't the first time in history people have been talking about it. But I definitely feel like these kids are growing up faster — and I'm not sure it's always a good thing," says Dr. Liz Alderman, an adolescent medicine specialist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. She's been in practice for 16 years and has noticed a gradual but undeniable change in attitude in that time.
She and others who study and treat children say the reasons it's happening are both physical and social.
Let's face facts. If you have driven by a middle school any time in the last couple of years, you should have noticed that the tweens of today certainly look more grown up than they did when I was that age. So, physically, it is obvious to see the changes. But what about the emotional changes?
The only people who were talking about sex when I was in middle school were the "bad kids" and the school nurse telling us that the answer is always NO! (Shocking, isn't it?) No one was doing "it" even if they were talking about it. Which means, it wasn't something common to be put in the hot seat about your sexual life. Today, our tweens are flodded with images of sex, sexiness and "do you measure up" messages. By the time they actually become teenagers, they have been acting and feeling like a teen for years.
Ugh.
Beyond the drugs, sex and rock'n'roll their boomer and Gen X parents navigated, technology and consumerism have accelerated the pace of life, giving kids easy access to influences that may or may not be parent-approved. Sex, violence and foul language that used to be relegated to late-night viewing and R-rated movies are expected fixtures in everyday TV.
And many tweens model what they see, including common plot lines "where the kids are really running the house, not the dysfunctional parents," says Plante, who in addition to being Zach's dad is a psychology professor at Santa Clara University in California's Silicon Valley.
He sees the results of all these factors in his private practice frequently.
Kids look and dress older. They struggle to process the images of sex, violence and adult humor, even when their parents try to shield them. And sometimes, he says, parents end up encouraging the behavior by failing to set limits — in essence, handing over power to their kids.
Now, I cannot say I blame the parents for the kids of today acting more grown up than they actually are, but I do think that there are issues we are faced with as parents that our parents were not faced with. Just as our tweens are facing issues we never had to. There has to be a shift in parenting that is new. The issues are coming at us when are children are younger. Parents need to adjust to this change.
It gives you pause. Or if you have tweens, it should.
Are our kids growing up too fast because that is how the world works and each generation is less naive than the previous or are parents and society allowing this increased behavior of acting older than they are? What can we change and what is inevitable?
Is this a fact of life or can we slow down the pace in which our children are growing up? If our tweens are the new teens, when
