How to deal with the terrible tweens

Obama’s daughters famously rolled their eyes at their father’s attempts to crack a joke on stage. Dave Robbins knows how Barack feels — his daughter is 10 and already he’s been dubbed an ‘embarrassing dad’. 

MY DAUGHTER is 10. Going on 17. Sometimes the eye-rolls and sighs seem to be coming from someone much older.

And the next moment she is wrapping up her Build-A-Bear in blankets and telling me: “He doesn’t like this time of year.”

At any given time, she can be anywhere on a sliding scale that has Shirley Temple at one end and Miley Cyrus at the other — although the twerking hasn’t started yet, thank God.

Ten? I thought I wouldn’t have to listen to “Dad, you’re so embarrassing” for at least another three or four years.

But according to a survey by the mumsnet website, childhood is over by 12, thanks to a “toxic combination of marketing, media and peer pressure”.

More than 1,000 parents responded to the survey, and a third of those thought the transition from innocent kid to Kevin the Teenager started at 10.

US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle may be the most powerful couple in the world, but that doesn’t stop them having normal daughters as Sasha and Malia still cringe at their dad’s jokes.

They believe kids are under pressure to act older than their years: girls are being made to pay attention to their appearance and boys are made to act tough.

My daughter, who wants to be a famous fashion designer by the way, hasn’t really changed her behaviour. It’s more her attitude.

A slight kitchen mishap by yours truly is branded an “epic fail” and the “loser” sign is frequently deployed.

This isn’t puberty either — it’s early onset teendom. The symptoms are the same as they’ve always been — moods, self-consciousness in public, an affected boredom with everything — they’re just coming in a lot earlier.

Another survey, this time by on online security company, and featuring 2,000 parents, suggests that online behaviour is to blame. Kids are learning too much too young.

Nearly three-quarters of 10-year-old owns their own smart phone or tablet computer, and 70% have a TV or computer in their bedroom.

Therapist John Corcoran — father to four girls himself — finds that teenage behaviour is starting earlier. “We have done that as a society,” he says.

“We have brought in sex education earlier, we have pushed them into teenager-hood.

“Tweens are being bombarded from all sides. It’s too easy to blame TV and the internet. But it’s us — we push them harder, push them quicker, push them at school. We have brought down the age of maturity,” he adds.

“We tell them far too much, far too soon. We expect them to have an opinion, to be opinionated.”

When I tell teen therapist Anne Randolph about my daughter’s eye-rolling and heavy sighs, she laughs and says: “That’s what we would call normal. Your little person is trying to make her own sense of the world and not have it interpreted by you.”

Anne, a specialist adolescent therapist with the Leinster Adolescent Psychotherapy and Counselling Centre (LAPC), says that for some children, teen behaviour is starting earlier, but a lot depends on family culture.

For some tweens, they “are trying to mature but they’re not ready yet. The internet is a huge thing.

If they’ve had a lot of freedom to go online, there is so much out there that challenges them and they’re confused. The child doesn’t know what’s going on,” she says.

This is a challenging time for kids, but it’s no picnic for parents either.

“The battles I see are about power and freedom, when the parents try to maintain the kind of strict regime which worked when the child was eight or nine. Some parents don’t like their children to have an attitude, but it has to be tolerated. They have to be flexible,” adds Anne.

When I mention that we have an acronym in our house — DYSE, for Dad You’re So Embarrassing” – she laughs again. “Dads need to gulp and swallow hard and not react,” she says.

The other day, I was thinking about what Anne and John had to say as Grace and I took the train from Dublin to Cork for a funeral. “I hate you, Dad,” Grace said as we passed Thurles.

By the time we arrived at Limerick Junction, it was “I love you, Dad” followed by a hug. If I can swallow hard at the first statement and not react, then maybe the second statement will follow more quickly.

And then, who knows, we may skip the first bit altogether and just go straight to the “I love you, Dad” part, and the hug.

10 rules for staying top dad

Parenting a ‘tween’ is tricky. The behaviour you used to put down to hunger or tiredness now has a new source: hormones.

And the tactics that used to work — praise, the promise of an ice-cream —– just don’t cut it any more. Time for some new techniques.

1. Be the grown-up: Underneath all the sighs, eye-rolls and muttering, tweens are looking for help.

This is not the time to try to be their friend. Maintain your status as a parent and lead by example.

2. Set the ground rules: “Make sure your child knows where the nuclear button is,” as one mum told me.

Let them know when they’ve crossed a line. In her case, she’s prepared to let the heavy sighs go, but walking off in the middle of a conversation or shouting is not on.

3. Crimes and punishments: It’s time to set age-appropriate punishments for bad behaviour. Positive reinforcement doesn’t work with tweens.

Parents I spoke to found that threatening to remove devices — iPads, phones, Xbox, Nintendo DS — was most effective. Also: it’s important to follow through and don’t weaken.

4. Admit when you’re wrong: Under pressure, parents can crack. Apologise if you’ve treated them without respect or simply lost it during an argument. Show them the behaviour you want to see them emulate.

5. Make time to talk: It’s easy to sort of half-listen when pre-teen kids are talking. Giving them one-on-one face time, actively listening to them, sets a good foundation and means that later they know you will listen to them without judging.

6. Nest is best: Even though tweens are beginning the pulling-away process, they’re still kids and like to cuddle up at home too.

One mum I spoke to designated one night a week as ‘family night’ when there were no extra-curricular activities allowed.

7. Nice and slow: Tweens don’t have to know everything. It’s okay for parents to say “you don’t need to know that yet”. Parents can help slow the premature rush towards maturity.

8. Let them stew: When a discussion with a tween gets out of hand, try saying something like: “Let’s leave it for now. Let’s come back to it when we’re calmer.”

9. Strengthen the relationship: “Because I said ‘no!’” doesn’t work with tweens.

Spend time with them, listen to their concerns and then they will want to please you.

10. At the table. Now!: Eating a family meal is possibly the best thing you can do for your tween.

Research shows that kids who sit down en famille every day have fewer problems with sex, drugs and alcohol later on.