Perhaps the biggest hurdle to helping your child through puberty is getting into the right frame of mind yourself. In modern society, we’ve been trained to regard sexuality as something antithetical to childhood. Therefore the emergence of sexual characteristics in a child can seem like a profound loss, almost as if it marks the death of childhood
“For many parents, the need to deny that their little girl is growing up so fast can make it difficult to listen to what their daughter is really saying. The first hint that their daughter is sexually maturing can fix parents with an anxiety that only widens the communication gap with their daughter – at the very time when the daughter needs guidance the most.” (Wiseman, 2009, p. 14)
Celebrate their maturation
Remember when your child learned to walk or talk, and how thrilled you were at these maturational developments? How you clapped your hands and hung on their every word? Try to take the same approach toward puberty. Well maybe not the clapping your hands part, that might make them self-conscious now that they’re older.
Look upon this stage of life as an expansion of your child, something that makes them into a more complete person, not something that takes away. Focus on the positive developments:
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They become a more unique person
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They start forming their own perspectives on the world and have more opinions on a wide array of things
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They develop new interests and hobbies.
Just like the terrible twos, parents run into problems when they try to fight against this push for autonomy and independence rather than embracing it. So celebrate your child’s continued growth. Not only will it make things easier on you, your child can sense your discomfort, so it will make the process of puberty easier on them as well.
Teen drama isn’t a foregone conclusion
Some adolescent angst is bound to occur, just as there were stumbles along the way when your child learned to walk. But the type of teen conflict and drama parents dread is mostly a result of environment. It arises because parents fight against their child’s development rather than allowing their adolescent room and freedom to grow. If you do your best to live the first tip I gave you, you can limit adolescent rebellion and conflict.
Coming to grips with your child’s sexual development
Most Americans have a rather poor and dysfunctional relationship with sex. When a child enters puberty, it dredges up all these negative associations. Try to take this negativity and turn it into something positive by reworking your own attitudes. “When we see our children mature sexually we face the task of redefining our own perception of healthy human sexuality,” write Babcock & Keepers.
Acknowledge the ambivalence
“Our own sexual identity is challenged by the maturing sexuality of our children. While our adolescents are maturing, we parents recycle our sexual development.” (ibid, pp. 172, 2181) The maturation of children can stir up mixed emotions in parents.
Coinciding with this this can be feelings of jealousy or confusion. As one woman says of her two daughters: “I’m experiencing mixed emotions. They are ripening and growing more luscious daily. I’m getting a bit dried-up around the edges …. I feel pride and pleasure when young males turn around as we walk through the shopping center … and yet, all the same, I experience terrible tinges of jealousy.” (ibid, p. 220)
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