How can this stage be harder than babies?

[Tweenangst]

Hi, I'm new to MN so please be patient. Just wanted to ask if anyone else find this stage (2 DD's 9 &10) harder than babies, toddlers, little kids. I am trying to choose my battles but it seems that every day a new little mini war is raging between them both and/or with me! God help me when the teenage years hit.

Hi Tween and welcome.

I have an 11 year old and a 14 year old. Both have been exactly as you describe at that age. DS2 can still be like it sometimes. You are not alone.

It is like they have reverted to toddlers sometimes.

Because they answer back! My DD (9.7) has been mouthy and sarcastic for 2 years now. Also, too big to use superior height/muscle on. Really wanted to drag mine out of our pool today because she was making an unholy, 100-decibel toddler-like fuss about getting water on her face, but I realised there was no way I could actually get her out. As you say, there is some kind of battle every day. I am finding it FAR more wearing than the toddler years. Then there was physical exhaustion, this is more emotional. Clinging on to the hope that maybe each child only has so many years of rebellion in them and so the teenage years might be peaceful and calm. Meanwhile

If it helps. DS (14 yesterday) is slowly getting better. He still has off days but can now go a few days without annoying DS2/me/DH.

What I find really hard is that they stay up way past 7pm now so have no evening to recharge before the next round!

Thanks guys. And yes randomMess, I do believe half the problem is not being able to put them to bed at seven and spend a good few hours at peace!! So nice to know I am not on my own through this!!

welcome You are not alone.

My DD is 11 and a nightmare TBH at the moment.
She kept half the street awake the other night, screaming that she couldn't watch the apprentice. ( she goes to bed at 9pm). The shouting and screaming went on until midnight with DD throwing socks etc. around upstairs. She fell asleep eventually on our bed.
Nothing would calm her down. She sobbed herself to sleep.
The next morning she was up, bright as a button at 7am, like nothing had happened. She has been back to "normal" since then.

We have put it down to going to big school in Sept. Friends splitting as some are going to different schools ( eg. you can't be my friend because you aren't going to my new school) and growth spurt ( DD has gone up a whole shoe size in 9 weeks).

I have two boys 22 & 16 who were no problem whatsoever.
I think it's mainly hormones. My mum does say I was much the same until I hit 14.

I would love the baby/toddler years back, DD was easy then.

More importantly, where the hell do I get the smiley faces!!!

scroll down from add your message, the smileys are on the left.
---- [ smile ]

Dd ten, is I suppose, highly strung. She can switch between happy and excited to stressed and snappy in the blink of an eye. She has autism that doesn't help matters either but I try not to rise to the bait and handle her with kid gloves. I also respond to her like a little one when she needs it and a mature one when she's in that frame.
Dd1 is twenty now and she was tricky at times but she's mostly nice to know now and so at least I know it will pass.

Yes thank you muchly

I feel very lucky that my girls have got to this age without problems, and I am hoping that this is the worst of it. It just seems that for every fight that is quenched another is lighted up. I suppose in a few year I will look at these days as the calm before the storm

They want to be grown up and know they can't be.

They don't want to be seen to play with toys, but get bored if they don't.

They think they know everything and arent wise enough to realise they don't.

The things I find work are as much freedom, control and choice as you dare give them.

Whether it's big things like being left on their own, cycling to the shop, walking to school alone or tiny things like which fast food joint or what to wear.

Zero tolerance of proper rudeness to parents or sibblings. No swearing at parents or siblings, no hitting and no properly hurtful remarks.

lots of hugs and sillyness, they are really still children.

I haven't had problems with any of my pre teens. However, my 2 teenagers 13 and nearly 15 are proving very difficult because they have simply stopped communicating and have start giving me supercilious looks instead.

startail Thanks

I do most things you advise already.
I think you have hit the nail on the head by saying. They are too young to be grown up but too old for toys/dresses/anything with flowers!!

DD deffo. thinks she knows everything!! Oh and she's always right!!

I have 2 DDs - 2.9yrs & 8.8yrs
Even with the terrible twos in full swing I know which of the two ages I prefer at the moment

And it needs to be purple not pink (ie more awkward to get, which just about sums up preteens, they need the world to revolve around them).

my dear Tween, I have 2 tweens and a ten week-old. when the health visitor, who we've known since dd1 was ten days old, did the primary visit for ds we didn't discuss him at all, we just drank tea and bitched about the trials of tween girls.
Babies don't argue, there's a multi million pound industry built on keeping them safe and they know they want and need you. Really, it's a piece of cake!

Eat chocolate, drink wine, bitch on Mumsnet, don't count they grey hairs and hold tight.

Thankfully the "knows everything best thing" wears off in time. Ds at 13 has actually been known to ask my opinion about something

Dd at 16 is positively respectful.

I suppose by the time they get to this age, there are so many real and serious questions that they do get to decide that they don't feel much need to kick up a fuss about breakfast cereal.

I never expected this stage to be easier. I find that I have to be more alert, and have my values and judgements and actions questioned and be ready to defend them and worse still, be ready to admit that perhaps mine are not the only ways. I used to always be right. >

Yes much much harder - she was a lovely baby

Hi OP, I definitely found/find my DD harder, she's calming down a bit now she 11yr but from YR 4 to 5 she was hard bloody work! Her and DS (14yrs now) used to fight every day when they got home from school until it drove me to despair. I think Startail said some of the wisest things I've ever seen on here, so true so true, etch it in stone somewhere for all mums to read! Hang in there and hopefully it will get better.

Definitely, definitely harder!!

DD was such an easy baby and toddler - slept well, ate well, always happy and smiling.

Much, much more demanding and difficult now she is nearly 10 yrs.

Felt really low today because I became one of "those" mothers who couldn't summon the energy to "persuade" her to do a few chores around the house when she was being stroppy this morning (nothing onerous - peeling carrots, helping me empty dishwasher) so after her initial refusal, I didn't pursue it although I was secretly quite irritated. (She'd had a massive treat yesterday - full day trip with friend - and quite expensive present afterwards.)

I know this is not going to work well as a long term strategy...

She's not always this bad; she can be very helpful at times ... but she can be terribly stubborn too like her mother and it wears me down frankly.

It is the tweenage friendship angst that gets to me... spending 2 hours in the evening talking whining about 20 min at lunchtime that don't really matter in the wider scheme of things, but they are not mature enough yet to realize it!

I have a "talker" - I know I'm lucky - but it does wear you down!

I have five ranging from almost 14 down to two years old. The two year old is a doddle compared to the almost fourteen and eleven year olds!