Teens & Tweens Round-up: Learn, laugh & think!

So here we are, nicely settled into autumn. Hopefully we have established some sort of routine with our big kids. Those of us who waved goodbye to university students will be getting used to the new dynamics within the household. Those of us with high school kids will have battled through those early teething problems and have hopefully entered calmer waters now that half term has arrived.

As always, a lovely band of bloggers have produced some excellent content to accompany our journey. This month I have selected some that we can learn a lot from (the informative posts); some that will make us laugh out loud (the funny posts) and some that will accompany us as we reflect on our parenting (reflective posts). Here they are.

Informative blog posts

Parenting teens, tweens and young adult children can be very complicated! Not least because their education has ramped up a notch and we are often trailing in their wake. They enter the world of social media; chat groups and cyber space and we do not always understand what is going on. The world is very different to when we were young! These blog posts can give you some valuable help and advice on making family life run a little more smoothly:

• Emma and 3 have a very topical and helpful post on Talking to Teenagers about Terrorism and Travelling. A conversation that we may not want to have but which is a necessary one. 
• My Boys Club have a super useful post packed with ideas for visiting London called 10 Ways to Keep Tweens Happy in London on a Budget
• I have written a guide for parents of older teens who are preparing a UCAS application and who may be feeling a little overwhelmed. It’s called 5 tips for preparing a UCAS personal statement – what every parent needs to know.

Funny blog posts

Raising teens is not all about the heavy stuff! There is an amusing side – honestly! Teens have a wonderful sense of humour and when parents describe their life with teens it can be hysterical. Here are three posts that will hopefully make you chuckle:

• Mark has written a fabulous book describing his walk with his youngest son on the Pennine Way. It is a hilarious account of the experiences they shared and what they learned about themselves and each other. 
• I shared a post describing how I got on when I stupidly allowed my teen daughter to have a party in our house. I guarantee you won’t be able to read Teen house parties – every parent’s nightmare or are they? without shuddering a little!
• Hands up everyone with a tween or teen who has lost a PE kit bag? That’s all of you then! In that case, you must read this hysterical post from Everyone’s Buck Stops Here about the hunt for a missing kit bag. It’s a classic!

Reflective blog posts

As our children become young adults, we can’t help but reflect on what that means for them and us.

• This lovely post (HOW I AM FINDING LIFE WITH TEENAGERS?) from Sarah at Extraordinary Chaos is a very moving reflection on how she feels about her new life with older children.
• Sophie has a beautifully written post called Life lessons for my daughter as she approaches adulthood where she shares the good, the bad and the ugly about being a grown up. 

I really hope that you enjoyed reading these as much as I did.  If you have a blog post that you think will be useful for Mums and Dads of tweens, teens or young adult children I would love to read it. You can submit it for consideration by emailing me at sharon.parry67@gmail.com.