Is Tween Years The New Teenage Years? Early Onset Eye Rolling and Door Slamming…

The other day, I was having a conversation with a dear friend of mine and we were talking about our middle schoolers. She wisely told me that she does not remember her tween years being so difficult and moody. She wondered if middle school years have a bad reputation that exacerbate the situation that should not be so hard in the first place… We tought teenage years were suppposed to be the difficult one, not the tween years…

I remember, my middle school years, and the everyday mini friendship dramas such as who is sitting with whom at lunch table at school etc… Yet, I do not remember having mood swings that much… I do not remember slamming doors or eye rolling to my mother when I was 10. I fact-checked with my mother and she doesn’t remember it either, at least not at age 10 or 11. Do you?

So what’s changed? Why are we seeing behaviours that we would normally expect to see in teenage years, so early? Even though, there might be several possible explanations, today I will focus on puberty as a possible factor to this phenomenon… Just to clarify the term; puberty is the path to sexual maturity which enables a person to reproduce. The hormones that are involved in this transformation do circulate through the whole body including the brain, impacting social and emotional lives of the children going through this process.

Here is the catch! In 1990’s and before, puberty started around the age 11 for girls and 13 for boys and it lasted about three to four years. Now, it starts earlier and lasts longer. Today, the average age of puberty onset for girls are 8 to 9 and for boys are 10 to 11. Furthermore, it no longer lasts 3 to 4 years but up to 10 years! Why? Scientists argue that the endocrine disruptors (the chemicals) that are present in what we consume, eat, drink or put on our skins might be the reason. Obesity may also be another factor. However, at the moment the answer is ‘we do not know for certain’. Nonetheless, we know puberty starts earlier and this has an impact on the whole body.

In the book called “This is So Awkard” Cara Natterson and Vanessa Kroll Bennett state:

“Puberty is starting much earlier than it used to, which means that hormones like estrogen and testosterone are making their way into younger brains. Since we know that the brain’s maturation is purely chronological, the onset of puberty doesn’t affect its ability to think in an older, more sophisticated way.“ That simply means, that our children are experiencing these hormone surges with a less mature brain compared to the previous generations of kids. Could this be the reason of mood swings in younger children making tween years more difficult for us and for them? Natterson and Kroll Bennett say “we do not know for sure” and then they add: “We have yet to meet a parent or adult caregiver or teacher without an anecdote about how the age of mood swings has shifted downward. The most common comment we hear is surprise over the early onset of eye rolling and door slamming.” They suggest that with the early hormonal surging, mood swings start showing up earlier too. Add this to a less mature brain…. This might actually explain why we are surprised by how today’s middle school years seem more difficult and confusing. We are seeing reactions from our children at age 10 or 11 that we would expect to see at age 13 or 14.

I believe, just being aware of this shift in puberty and what it may mean for our children’s development and their behaviours can move us towards understanding and compassion for them… I don’t think any of us is enjoying the early onset of eye rolling and door slamming, but we now may have a clue about why this is happening so early…

Unfortunately, middle school years and puberty have quite a bad reputation. Our tweens slowly become less cuddly, less dependent and more privacy oriented. However, make no mistake! They still need our support, guidance, love and compassion. More importantly, even though they may have already perfected their skills of making us feel irrelevant, old and embarrasing, they still care about what we think of them and they still want to make us proud! Therefore, in the next few newsletters I will talk about what middle school years entail and what we need to focus on and how to deal with issues like safety, friendship, honesty, school work and etc… The big news is there is no more ‘the talk’, instead hundreads of mini talks about all…

During tween and teen years our children are busy working on developing an adult body, brain and identity. And our responsibility is to support this gigantic task!

Good luck to us all…

If you wish to read further about this topic:

Natterson C., Kroll Bennett V., (2023), “This Is So Awkward”, Rodale, NY