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It's Just A Phase .....

It is a whole ten months until The Tween becomes a Teen but she's already in serious training. Gone is
the little girl who used to babble constantly about her days, ideas, wishes and dreams, and in her place is a glowering individual who treats each, every and any query as an infringement of her basic human rights.

Though I've asked the same question each and every single day since she started in school: "Did you have a good day, honey?" now she merely grunts or, on good days, I get a: "WHY?"
And a suspicious look.

Not so long ago her favourite colours were purple and pink and her only worry about what she wore was if it was on the right way or not. Now her favourite colour is black and ALL her clothes have to be black too, though she will tolerate the odd skull motif. And, obviously, she wants her bedroom walls painted black. Obviously. She isn't actually followed around by a storm of rainclouds and the occasional lightning clap, but if she could be, she would. Instead she has resorted to a series of withering, dismissive and hostile looks with which she impales her enemies. Sorry, family.

We, of course, hate her, don't understand her, don't want her to have a life/ fun/ stuff/ hamster/ anything (delete as appropriate). At least she says we do, and don't. And she, of course, hates us, wants another family and is going to run away (well, as soon as she's worked out where to run to).

Do I despair? No, I do not because I've been here before, in stereo, with the TeenTwins and they were, in their individual ways, just as explosive and emotional as The Tween is proving to be. Though TeenTwin2's chosen form of rebellion was developing a passion for Jedward, and that was worrying.

So I miss the little girl that The Tween once was, but I know she's still in there, somewhere. I know that this is a phase, just like all the other phases .. the one where she wouldn't wear knickers, the one where all she would wear were fairy wings, the Thomas the Tank Engine years, the one where she would never eat Macaroni cheese because Daddy called it Worms in Poo Sauce.....though, thinking about it, that's a phase that hasn't passed yet. *Looks pointedly at The Man*

But still this is a phase like all the other phases and it will pass. It looks like anger but it's an assertion, the beginnings of expressing individuality and the first steps towards independence. It's growing and there are pains, and not always for the one growing. All we have to remember to do is to be there to give support if she grows too far, too fast, and not despair. At least not too much.

Oh, and not paint her bedroom walls black. *Tuts at child.*
 Labels: growing up , phases , teens , The Tween , tweens

