Welcome to the newest Your Parenting Info segment, Tween Safety. Here we will take a semi-weekly look at the important safety issues surrounding 10- to 12-year-olds as they emerge from their cocoon of parental protection and take their first fledgling steps toward adulthood.
In the weeks and months to come we will explore tween safety from a variety of angles. One size safety net does not fit all. Tweens in rural areas will not present the same safety challenges as tweens in more urban areas. Online safety is not the same as safety in sports or after school activities. Bullies abound at school, in your neighborhood, and on the internet.
This is not going to be a gloom and doom, “lock the kids in the basement until they’re 18!” kind of column. Yes, we’re going to look at some scary stuff, the kind of thing that makes you want to pull the kids out of school and drop out of society altogether. But we’re going to approach this from a practical perspective, offering (and sometimes soliciting) solutions to the common problems impacting tweens and their parents.
Based on the demographics of this site, I know we will have readers on both sides of the middle line. Some of you need encouragement to cut the umbilical cord and let your child step out on his or her own, at least a little. Others may see the need to rein in your child because you’ve gone too far toward the stand on their own side of the equation.
As always at Your Parenting Info, we welcome your input and feedback. Feel free to let us know in the comments section what you would like to discuss. If you’ve got a success story in this area, let us know. If you’ve got questions, we’ve got answers, or at the very least, opinions.
The tween years can be a scary time for parent and child. Strange things are happening to their bodies, new opportunities are opening to them, the pat old answers that they’ve been given since their toddler days are no longer satisfactory, and curiosity often beats out discretion.
If your child is entering his or her tween years, you’re along for the ride whether you like it or not. But you don’t have to go it alone. Join us here every other week as we forge our way through this thing together.