Teens & Tweens Round-up: How do I look?

The festive season is looming and we all want to look our best. Teens and tweens are no exception. This may come as a bit of a shock! Appearance is not exactly high on the priority list for young kids. Many of them could easily go for months without washing their faces or running a brush through their hair, if we let them. Yet suddenly, they are spending hours in the shower and in front of the mirror and they may not like what they see.

I’d like to share some amazing blog posts on this very issue starting off with Helen at Just Saying Mum. Her post sets the scene perfectly and describes how parents of teens and tweens are faced with more complex problems that are not that easy to sort out. This applies to their appearance as much as any other aspect of their lives. They have their expectations raised so much by social media and celebrity culture but we can’t make them look like that! Even the celebrities don’t actually look like that most of the time but young minds do not always accept this.

I have used a blog post to voice my concerns that this growing awareness of appearance may contribute to a fall-off in sport participation rates in high school girls. The hot, sweaty and muddy look may not be what they are aiming for but this is a shame. 

Yet, as Jo at Mothers of Teenagers shows us, this issue is by no means exclusively female. In this great post she highlights the pressures on teen boys to ‘bulk up’ which can result in fairly radical changes in diet and hours pumping iron.

Sarah at Mum of 3 World is another blogger who writes exceptional posts about the realities of raising teens and I was struck by her description of her son’s acne and subsequent treatment. Just when their appearance matters so much they are affected by what can be a severe skin condition and the unique problems faced by boys needs to be highlighted. 

We can’t make everything better so we need to come at it from a slightly different angle. Andrea at Thinking Parent explains that our role is to help our children interpret their experiences positively and so build high self-esteem and Alison at MadHouse Mum shares an inspiring post on empowering our daughters. 

This can be even more important with children with autism as Lynne at Raising My Autistic Son shows us in this fascinating post about how she prepared her son for more complex conversations as he reached the teen years. She equipped him with the skills to not be boring and let him get on with it. On the subject of boredom, I also wrote this month about boredom in teens and recount a conversation I had with my kids about what makes them bored. It was enlightening to say the least!

I absolutely loved a new post from Best Dad I Can Be. I can always rely on Mark to write posts that I wish I could write myself. I laughed out loud at this one about teens keeping secrets – another aspect of ‘leaving them to it’. They have to start making judgement calls themselves and we have to accept that they are operating as individuals without us knowing exactly what is going on. Mark is so right – there are some things that we just don’t need to know.

We also have to remember that our opinions are not always sought, or appreciated when they are given, but as a great post on teen fashion from Truly Madly Kids illustrates, a happy compromise is possible – just! 

Finally, moving the focus to older kids, I love reading about how parents adjust when kids leave home because eventually all this will be behind us! However, as Mary reminds us – they have a habit of coming back and not just for Christmas. Have a good one everybody!!