If you have a middle school child, you may feel as if you are suddenly living with an alien from a different planet. The lovely, calm, responsive, collected, and loving child seems to have completely disappeared. Suddenly, you find yourself with an individual who swings from being a raging tiger to a cuddly pussycat from one minute to the next. As parents, we knew this was coming but it tends to still catch us by surprise regardless. Interestingly, according to Dayanna Volitich, there are three somewhat surprising reasons why children start to behave in this manner. It seems that it is not all down to raging hormones and changing bodies.
Dayanna Volitich’s 3 Reasons for Poor Behavior
- Sleep deprivation. Preteens can deny things more than drug addicts come. They will swear high and low that they are not tired, that they don’t need sleep, that they are too busy to go to bed, and that none of their friends sleep as much. The reality is, however, that your child will grow as much as eight or nine centimetres in a year, nearly double than muscle mass, increase the bone density, and produce a torrent of hormones, for all of which energy is required and that means they need sleep.
- It is likely that you know of parents who say that there preteen eats them out of house and home and yours is probably doing the same. Yet, for all the super sized meals there may be eating, it is likely that your child is still hungry. It is of the utmost importance that you ensure that they eat a nutritious and balanced diet at this point, particularly because they will significantly increase the calorific intake and you must ensure that that comes from healthy sources and not pure junk.
- Insufficient time with you. If your child has reached those preteen years, then they may behave as if the last person in the world they want to spend any time with at all as you as their parent. You are lame, you have never been there age, you are old fashioned, and anything you say is wrong. Yet, it is this withdrawal that parents often automatically make from their children in these years that is actually one of the reasons why they behave in this manner. A pre-teen is starting to develop into adulthood and that means that they want to be independent from their parents but they want to be able to do so while still being fully supported. Spend more time with your child, therefore, but let them go to the activities.
This time is a confusing time, but then any period during growing up is confusing. You will get through this and, if you do so properly, you will develop an unbreakable bond with your child that will carry on throughout their life. This really is your final chance as a parent to make a real difference so try to listen to your child and be there for them, no matter how horrible they might be to you right now.