Reply to How old qualifies as a “tween”?

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Reply to "How old qualifies as a “tween”?"

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[quote=Anonymous]I'm in the camp of not wanting to push these kids into teen-dom too fast. So tween is 10-12 and also I don't really use the word.

But also, this will always be a moving target because the social behavior of kids is heavily influenced by their physical/hormonal stage. Some kids start puberty as early as 8 or 9. Others might see some hormonal shifts but don't see the physical shifts until much later, sometimes as late as 14/15. This means this age is really complex for kid -- they can swing from playing make believe with children's toys to engaging in early sexual exploration within a very short period of time, plus you have kids in both these phases in the same classes and activities. So I just think of this entire age range (as early as 8 to as old as 15) and the big transitional stage for kids. Even if an individual kid is not going through it yet, they will feel the impacts of peers going through it. And the hormonal changes can be deeply disorienting.

It's worthwhile as parents and teachers to understand that kids don't just wake up one morning physically, mentally, and socially mature teens. It's a weird, disjointed, uneven process that takes years. In that time, they are still children and still very much need adult support and guidance.[/quote]

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