3 Steps To Loving Your Tween On Purpose

This post is part of Day 15 of The 30-Day Tween Parent Encouragement Blog Party over at LikeMindedMusings.com

I got the word ‘tween’ all wrong when I first heard it a few months ago! I thought it referred to young adults in their late teens and early twenties! There is a ‘tw’ and an ‘een’ in there, after all!

And when I mentioned the term ‘tween’ to my kids the other days, they looked at me blankly and said, ‘What? You mean the Tweenies?’ (A TV show my kids watched when they were little – VERY little – better make that clear in case they read this!!)

So, anyway, for anyone who is as confused, or as ignorant, as we were (maybe ‘tween’ is not a British thing), the official definition of ‘tween’ is a child beTWEEN the years of 8 and 12, beTWEEN the years of childhood and adolescence.

If you’ve been following along with the wonderful 30-Day Tween Parenting Encouragement Blog Party (of which this post is Day 15), you’ll know that anyway!

Needless to say, I didn’t know I was parenting tweens until just a few weeks ago (when I looked up want it meant)!

I’ve actually completely ‘missed’ my boys’ tween years – they are now teens! And I only have four months of tweendom left with my daughter, who is 12. I want to make the most of it (not that the teens aren’t wonderful years too).

One of the things I most want to do for my beautiful tween daughter, and my three teen sons, is love them with intention.

I love them. Of course I do. A lot!

I pour myself out for them each day – picking up dirty clothes, cooking for them, chatting with them after school, listening, encouraging…

But I want to do more than that. I want to love my kids on purpose, not just the everyday-default-kind-of-loving (though that is a wonderful and necessary love).

I want to look at my tween daughter and think, ‘How can I love my daughter in a way that uniquely touches her heart today?’

This post continues on the Like Minded Musings Blog. 

Click here to carry on reading and find out the 3 steps I use to love my kids on purpose!