She's Got a New Attitude!
Mom, Dad, Meet Your Adolescent

by Judy Licht

When I opened the door for Meryl, my eyes adjusted to her height, but my calculations were off. She had grown, it seemed, at least two inches in just 10 days. She was taller, poised, more mature - and savvy enough to read the surprise on my face as I gave her the once-over.

"I'm only 10," she said, jarring me back before running off to find my son and his friends in the basement.

I've known Meryl since the day she was born, and I've been watching her personality evolve, but the transition from little girl to preteen happened so quickly it was hard to react to the sudden visual changes. With my daughter Marlene, I woke up one morning to see her standing next to my bed, her arms straight out in front of her, her shirt sleeves up way past her wrists and a confused look on her face, as she said, "Mommy, my shirt shrunk."

While there's no denying the broadening shoulders, budding breasts and curvy hips, the changes in personality lack even more subtlety.

One minute, you're out shopping, laughing, eating ice cream together, and before you sense dark winds blowing, a black cloud descends leaving your normally even-tempered daughter sobbing and wheezing for air.

Preteens Then and Now

What's different today? All of us moms were preteens, hormonal, moody, defiant, at least for a day or two in our youth. Can we compare our experiences to our daughters'?

In some ways, yes, and in others, no, say today's experts.

We worried about friendships, popularity, parental rules, our grades and the way we looked. Some of us strived to be as sleek as Twiggy, but we weren't as bombarded by media imagery or as challenged by academic competitiveness. Today, concerns about getting into college seep into elementary school classrooms. Competing for select spots on sports teams when we were girls was rare, and while it's great that athletic opportunities have opened up - I still wish I could have been a Little League pitcher - not making a team can be socially excluding for a girl today.

Reaching Puberty Earlier

Adding to all these pressures is the fact that girls are reaching puberty earlier than their grandmothers did. According to a New England Journal of Medicine article published in the late 1990s, on average, girls got their periods when they were 14.8 years old in the 1890s. One hundred years later, a survey by the National Center for Health Statistics found that 12.5 is the average age when girls begin menstruating. Undergoing hormonal and physical changes earlier forces girls to cope with challenges before their brains are sufficiently developed. They begin to have sexual urges and desires, which they are too young to understand. They obsess over their body and in response, can develop anorexia, bulimia or obesity. They're juggling new emotions under pressure, and all these changes make them moody, petulant and sometimes aggressive. Throw in some arrogance and you get a girl with an "attitude." At home, "attitude" coupled with a newly curving body can give them a sense of power and a need for independence that affects the emotional balance of the whole family.

"I'm the boss of me," your daughter announces without warning one morning. And the tug of war begins. Bare midriffs, R-rated movies, boy-girl parties, hip-hop music, bedtime limits, homework assignments and household chores are all up for debate. These preadolescent battles can determine how open the lines of communication remain throughout the teen years.

The word "no," so simple in design - just two letters - carries huge weight. Even if you're the type of parent who has had the upper hand through the early years, how you say, "No," and how your daughter hears it can determine the level of conflict you'll feel as a family.

"It's human nature for children to move from their parents into the wider world," says Ethna Hopper, a local educational consultant. In the process, they reject Mom and Dad and "cleave to a friend, believing that everything this friend espouses is the only way to go. Some parents don't understand that this is an absolutely normal progression. They get hooked into the conflict without realizing that these tempests in teapots are really flurries" in the war of independence.

While Hopper warns that the parents who have the hardest time controlling their children at this age are the ones who "abdicate responsibility," getting mad doesn't work either. "The child's game," Hopper says, "is to hook her parents into anger so she can find an excuse for rejecting them. Parents become baffled and frightened and then they become angry. They take it personally."

And it's hard not to take it personally when your daughter challenges how you are raising her. You notice her tank tops reveal too much skin and her skirts are too short, while newspaper articles scare you into worrying she is being pressured to perform oral sex. All of a sudden, as a friend remembers, you're asking yourself if you're ever going to like your daughter again.

Peer Pressures

Girls at this age are feeling tremendous pressure to fit in. The image they're comparing themselves to can be unrealistic, especially if they're mimicking what Hollywood is parading on TV, warns a mom of a 12-year-old. Beauty, confidence and athleticism gain high approval and status. In the pecking order, with all the pressure to fit in, girls "figure out who they need to play to," shifting loyalties to protect themselves, explains Julie Baron, a clinical social worker in Maryland.

Baron describes what typically can happen to two girls "who have been best friends forever. One starts to develop in ways that physically, socially and emotionally don't match with the other one, and she dumps her old friend." For the girl who is dumped, "this is the ultimate devaluing of a person," and the exclusion projects a message of "invisibility."

As a mom of either of these two girls, the story behind the rift can be hard to decipher. Just as the social world is getting even more complicated, preteens are pushing us away. They're keeping more personal information to themselves, relying on journals and the Internet to express themselves. "Peers really become more and more important in terms of confidants than parents. It's a big change for the girls. And it's a big change for moms, as their daughters get more selective about what they say as they get older," Baron says.

For moms, watching kids navigating difficult social relationships is heartbreaking, especially if you don't have any answers.

If your child is having a tough time socially or academically, it's important to "figure out what is going on," says Patti Cancellier, education coordinator for the Parent Encouragement Program (PEP). "I don't advise parents to instantly rush in and give all sorts of help. Let's say a child is struggling in school, and it is beginning to show in her behavior. The best thing a parent can do is offer encouragement to show that you have confidence in your child's ability to handle this particular problem." Conveying empathy rather than sympathy is also a better response, says Cancellier. Don't show that you feel sorry for your kid. "Sympathy and pity tell your child you are worried. Don't foist your anxiety on your daughter."

If your daughter comes home and tells you her best friend is having a party and she wasn't invited, you are in no position to fix the situation for her. The best that you can do, advises Cancellier, is "recognize that this is your daughter's problem," and help her understand that she is in the best position to solve it. Kids learn from the struggle, but they don't necessarily learn from our lectures. Focus on the possible solutions to problems, and talk to your children with respect and humor.

Greater Expectations

Sometimes it's hard for us to put ourselves in our kids' shoes, because our lives weren't as demanding or as fast-paced when we were kids. "The expectations weren't nearly as high for us," says Tracy Gensler, a mom and nutrition writer. "We never had the kinds of homework we see now. My daughter is doing ninth-grade math - and she is in sixth grade. We are asking a lot of these kids too soon."

Adding to the academic pressure, is that kids aren't only moving too fast to learn the basics, they're expected to bring home nearly perfect report cards.

"What's wrong with a B?" asks Gensler. "And why is a C such a catastrophe?" At her daughter's school, parents have to sign tests that are a C or below to ensure that they are aware of their child's grades. "When I was a boy," says William Stixrud, a clinical neuropsychologist in Silver Spring, "my parents had virtually no knowledge of what I did at school." Today, more open relationships between parents and kids can be a positive thing, he acknowledges, "but helicopter parenting isn't good for girls or boys." It sends the message that, "I don't have confidence in your ability to make decisions. Our lives are so stressful and demanding, that the one thing I tell girls is, ‘Don't be too tired and too stressed for too long,' because it is a recipe for depression."

"We didn't have this extreme degree of sleep deprivation, which makes them more vulnerable to be anxious and depressed, to abusing drugs and engaging in promiscuous sex. One of the changes at puberty, which is happening earlier, is that girls tend to need more sleep, but when middle school starts at 7:45 and kids are up late at night on the computer, they're not getting what they need."

My daughter and I drove down to North Carolina a few years ago. After we had a great ride listening to her iPod, we found a motel in the center of Asheville, which was walking distance to our favorite breakfast restaurant. I ordered a spicy omelet with hash browns and she had pancakes. Savoring my last bite, I casually asked her a question about school. I thought I was casual. She thought I was intrusive and reminded me - in a voice I didn't recognize - that I had asked her that same question about 400 times. The coldness of my mild-mannered daughter's voice so shocked me, I turned around in my seat to see if she was really talking to someone behind me, and I realized again how tricky it can be to find the words and the tone to help navigate your daughter through the preteen years and adolescence.

Judy Licht is a writer and photographer in Washington, D.C.