Preadolescence: 5 surviving tips for bewildered mothers
How to get away with preadolescence and be aware you still are a good person
Before the dark age of adolescence, when if you are lucky you will get a a choked “hi”, you know you are affording the most slippery climb: yes, preadolescence!
From 10 on, the air you breath will be crowded with strange fluids. You will facing a little person who is turning rapidly from a so dental-caries-sweetness to a screwy horse; from a “sorry” whispering toddler to a double outlet kid, floating in a world light years away from yours.
Welcome to preadolescence golden world!
I admit I feel unsuited. Not that I wasn’t before.
Mothers’ inadequacy rate is proportional to their awareness of a natural lack of control on kids.
Once upon a time when our babies sucked tits or baby bottles, they were a kind of our extension.
Preadolescence is a reminder not to forget our kid are persons, first of all, different from us.
They have always been. And they are aware of that.
Do not be afraid. They will do whatever it takes to remind it you. That’ s fine.
But what is disorienting is their Austrian-Hungarian tone to affirm they ARE; their strict logic when arguing without appeal; their blessed I-do-not-care.
I mean there is this refrain I-want-I-very-strongly-want-to-do-it-my-way. Period.
You know it the way they start being a person: by detachment, throughout an ancestral rebellion phase needed for defining.
It’s not worthy remember how we were at their same age.
Kids have to differentiate from the parent they reflex in by opposition. That is fair.
When the first sings of preadolescence faced my mornings, I thought I have to learn and to study. Indeed, I am still studying.
I have used different angles, following uncle Karl (not Marx, but Popper) ratio because when you stumble in preadolescence you can move forward only by attempts and mistakes.
There you are what I have tried so far:
- face-off: a total debacle; to avoid warmly and for two reasons: you will be overwhelmed by a persistent crying; you feel like rubbish floating a pervasive sense of guilty.
- the knight move: overriding the obstacle. Listening patiently the silent request of fighting coming out from your kid. Ignoring. Be let settle. Awarding outcomes.
- all-in: do not show up your cards: meaning, do not declaim your intentions on a possible battlefield, too in advance. Let’s do it when the time is come. Remember you are, still, the one in charge. Surprising outcomes.
- giraffe way: acting gently. Recognize that little person growing up by your side is right and say it to her. Reassuring outcomes.
- give-me-hugs: hug much and more than usual. Not because you do not know what to say, but because of not saying those possible-hurting words, due to the fact your are confused by a certain behavior. Hug and confirm love.
