Brat or typical tween behavior?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I agree with PPs who say I probably am not awesome at navigating their tweenness.

I did collaborate with them in planning the weekend, both beforehand and during. Everything is optional. If one of them ever wanted to stay back at home, I always offered that.

Here was the plan we did for the weekend:

Thursday: they arrive in AM. Chill at home until evening. Then College walk (15 min), bookstore, and ordered grub hub delivered to campus and ate on picnic table on the mall

Friday: pioneer tour/gun show/horseback ride/ice cream and lunch at pioneer village. Also starbucks.

Saturday: I got day passes to a 5 star resort with lazy river/water slide/wave pool. We went there and also had lunch by the pool

Sunday: chilling and grilling day. We have a pool and they went swimming a lot. At sunset we went on a hike up a nearby mountain for approx 12 minutes before abandoning ship due to whining over walking.


Amazing!! My tweens would have LOVED that weekend. Good job1 I think when they get home they will rave about it. Some people just perpetually complain.
Today: the plan had been to go to an aviation museum (one niece wants to be a pilot. Ok actually she wants to be a flight attendant because she told me women can’t be pilots so yeah I intend to dissuade her of that notion and tell her that SHE can be a pilot). But I’m sort of dreading it and thinking instead we go to effing Starbucks and they can spend the rest of the day sitting and watching tv since walking is apparently so painful for them.

[Anonymous]

Amazing!! My tweens would have LOVED that weekend. Good job! I think when they get home they will rave about it. Some people just perpetually complain.

[Anonymous]

Ignore everyone. They sounded completely bratty!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You needed to address what they were trying to ask. Stop saying you're sending it back to Verizon and say "I'm not giving you my old phone."

Maybe the kid didn't need another t-shirt. You should have just given her a dollar limit. "I am willing to spend up to $15 in this store on each of you. I won't buy candy and you are not obligated to get anything."

Some people just really HATE walking. I can walk for hours, but can't stand still.

Op here. They haven’t asked directly for me to give me their phone, but I assume that’s why they keep bringing it up. I’ll have to try directly saying I’m not giving it to you.

Next time I’ll try the $15 technique.

I seriously don’t understand how there are people who just “hate walking”. This was approx 2 miles total, at the absolute max, but broken up over 3 hours with water and a Starbucks break. I think it was about 5k steps according to my Fitbit. I’m obese and I can certainly walk that much and enjoy it without issue, how can they struggle so much?

Was it outdoors in the heat? Both my son and I get overheated easily. Not just hot and sweaty, but nauseous with a pounding headache. Indoors in the AC, we are fine.

[Anonymous]

Op, you sound like a drama queen. Yes, you planned some nice things and are being generous (want a cookie?) But over reacting in a major way. Maybe the girls rarely walk anywhere. My kids are city kids and huge walkers but they get tired too and kids who aren’t used to walking/being out in the heat will complain. Saying you’re removing your television and never buying your children toys because of 3 days with older kids is massive over reacting. Read some parenting books, set limits and boundaries and remember that everything is about moderation.

[Anonymous]

I knew there was some background other dynamic going on. OP, just go worth the flow and try to connect with them. Be grateful for this time. Sounds like you may not seem them again for a while? No need to overly plan “wow” activities. Follow their leads . Maybe just a visit to Michael’s with $10 each would be fun. Maybe not. I do not know them. One of my DDs would like this and one would not. But here is what is hard: follow THEIR lead and try to get to know them each as individuals and what makes them tick. I realize you only have a short time with them and you truly have gone in with good intentions. Just try to create a foundation for a continued relationship and hope it can grow from there. I am sorry there is kind of a weird family situation going on but again I commend you for trying. Hopefully, if nothing else, they can feel that if nothing else. Just do not give off any whiffs of judgmentalism. Just be there.

Op here. The Michael’s idea is a good one and giving them the money directly I like. On past outings I’ve given them a set limit and then they spend the whole time finding things over the limit and asking if they can have the more expensive thing. Maybe giving them the money would help and then staying out of it entirely.

I think it’s probably fair to say I am a little judgment of certain things. I know they need my love and acceptance and not my judgment but it’s hard. One example would be one of my nieces told me she wants to be a flight attendant when she grows up. I asked her why not a pilot? She said because that’s only for boys. Like, I can’t just let that go.

Another example is the walking thing. I just think it’s kind of silly for them to come so far just to sit on their iPads in another location. So I’m going to force them to get out at least once a day. I want to try and open up their world a little bit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you set them up to fail by bringing them to Starbucks once and then disallowing that for the future. You should have kept Starbucks in your pocket for the *last* day, if things went well and if they were “good.”

Some of what you are saying here just sounds like you do not have much experience with these ages, and how to head things off at the pass. Your messages are not clear enough and are a little confusing, especially to three young girls who may not know you or your limits very well.

Op here. I guess lessons learned. I don’t have any experience at all with these ages, or with kids in general (other than my own kids).

[Anonymous]

OP you did your best. Don’t be so hard on yourself. I’m sure later these tweens will be ashamed that they acted so badly. It’s part of growing up. 3 tweens is a hard vacation. It sounded like a lot of fun but they were being bratty. It happens.

[Anonymous]

OP my girls make fun of me for “reading a book in another location”. It’s a vacation for me!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pretty typical. My son loathes walking. You would think it is walking on fire. And they probably have no interest in a cheap souvenir tshirt. Of course they are going t ask for what they want. Just say no and give them a price maximum.

As far as the phone, they likely are all afraid you will give it to one of thier sisters if they do not show an interest.

And yes, tweens are as exhausting as toddlers and worse because they do not finally cave and go for the hug.

Op here, so what is the deal with the hating walking thing? Like how can a human being hate walking, especially if there are cool and interesting things to look at?

When they complained so relentlessly about walking I assumed something must surely be physically wrong with them-like I thought their shoes must be not suitable or that they were injured or disabled in some way. I could understand if we were walking all along the mall and through DC....this was like from the car to the activity, to the ice cream stand, to the other activity, to lunch, back to the car, etc. just like a normal amount of walking as a person on the earth. At one point I was like, ok guys, so should we just go home then? I’m sorry, like some walking is going to be required. If you take walking off the table then that limits the activities we can do to very very few things.

[Anonymous]

Yeah that's annoying. But after checking to make sure their shoes are ok, etc, it's time to shut down the complaints. "Girls. No more complaining about walking. That's the rule. If you complain, you don't get the ice cream. " Then stick to it.

I get that the walking thing REALLY bugs you. But treat it as a behavior/rules issue and let it go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like you want to be handed a medal for having your nieces and showing them, gasp, a college. My 12yo would not more be interested in touring a college than she would be in shooting a hole in her head. I feel you are out of touch with this age demographic AND also mag have some issues/problems with this family you are not getting into here, like you expected them to treat you as a hero for taking them to a Tweetsie Railroad type of place and a college? Yeah, tweens are way more complicated and HONEST than toddlers and will call it as they see it.

I could totally see them getting flat out offended by the college tour.

Op here. Ok so more background-DH and I both work at the university and it’s one of the most beautiful campuses I’ve ever seen.

What we did was talk about what each of them wanted to be when they grow up. One said teacher, the other said flight attendant, the other said a nanny. We tried to brainstorm other ideas/thoughts and then walked to the respective colleges to do pics in front of them, thinking someday maybe they would go to this university and that’s where they would study. So we took pics in front of the college of education for the one that wanted to be a teacher, etc.

They did not know what a university is, or what college is, or even when you go there. And then they said they can’t go to college because they can’t afford it. We were telling them yes you can!! There are scholarships, financial aid, etc. and we told them we would help them apply and figure it all out.

I guess I didn’t expect this would be thrilling but I feel like it’s important. I can’t remember when I knew about college but it was definitely by age 12......

[Anonymous]

For kids you don’t see often and don’t know well you may have packed too many things in. And the college activity was not really necessary. Plus if you have a pool they may have seen that when they arrived and decided they just wanted to swim and hangout the entire time, even though you planned and coordinated ahead of time.

And for your niece wanting to be a flight attendant vs. a pilot, it’s ok to say “Larla, of course women can be pilots!” Then let it go. You said you couldn’t let it go. Did you keep bringing it up all weekend? Tweens and teens hate that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP my girls make fun of me for “reading a book in another location”. It’s a vacation for me!

Op here. I need that kind of vacation after a few days with tween girls haha. A book and a margarita on a beach somewhere!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pretty typical. My son loathes walking. You would think it is walking on fire. And they probably have no interest in a cheap souvenir tshirt. Of course they are going t ask for what they want. Just say no and give them a price maximum.

As far as the phone, they likely are all afraid you will give it to one of thier sisters if they do not show an interest.

And yes, tweens are as exhausting as toddlers and worse because they do not finally cave and go for the hug.

Op here, so what is the deal with the hating walking thing? Like how can a human being hate walking, especially if there are cool and interesting things to look at?

When they complained so relentlessly about walking I assumed something must surely be physically wrong with them-like I thought their shoes must be not suitable or that they were injured or disabled in some way. I could understand if we were walking all along the mall and through DC....this was like from the car to the activity, to the ice cream stand, to the other activity, to lunch, back to the car, etc. just like a normal amount of walking as a person on the earth. At one point I was like, ok guys, so should we just go home then? I’m sorry, like some walking is going to be required. If you take walking off the table then that limits the activities we can do to very very few things.

I've taught middle school. They're tweens! Sometimes they complain about anything and everything just for the sake of complaining or to be contrarian. They also have no filter at that age and will let you know exactly what they are thinking even if it's rude. It's a very hard age. Your sweet toddler will be at this stage before you know it. Don't think it won't happen. All kids go through a bratty stage in one way or another. Also, a lot of adults hate walking. Some of my friends in their 30s complain if they have to walk more than a mile or two! On a final note, you sound like a middle schooler yourself with how much you use the word "like" in your most recent post.