In BeTween

Most of the bloggers that I read have young children.  Many still in the Toddler Years and just getting into the Terrible Twos.   For me, the Terrible Twos are just a sweet, fading memory.  My son, J, is twelve.  Twelve!  And he is an old twelve, a mature twelve, at least in the physical sense.  He is now taller than me (I'm 5'6"!), he has reached his dad's shoe size (11), and he has hair growing.  Everywhere.

So J is much less of a child and more of a teen.  Or tween, as they say.  And he is right smack-dab-in-the-middle of the Terrible Tweens.  Nobody warned me of this.  I didn't realize that my sweet little boy would all of a sudden turn into an awkward, deep-voiced, lanky, lazy, attitude-giving TWEEN overnight!

Oh, the joys.  Overall, J really is a good kid.  And I understand that tweens are growing up and they crave privacy, individuality, freedom.  They want to do things on their own and not tell Mom and Dad about every minute of their day.  I want to back off, to be a bit more trusting and more lenient.  But man, it's hard.  How can we let him make more decisions for himself when he doesn't even take care of his own body?  Seriously, if we didn't nag at tell him to shower/brush his teeth/wash his hands every day I don't think he would ever do it!  And there are so many serious pressures, temptations and other tweens out there just waiting for him to give in or make a bad decision.  I often wonder if we're doing all we can for him.  Have we taught him enough about Right from Wrong?  About respect of others and of himself?  I hope so, I really do.

J will start high school next month.  He is registered in the sports program offered at the school.  They do half-days of classes and the other half is spent training in their chosen discipline (baseball in his case).  Academics is their first priority and they insist on good grades and hard work.  I believe they provide more guidance and attention to the students in this group than the kids in the "general population" and I am very happy about this.  J needs structure and he loves sports, so it's a winning combination.  The kids in the sports program have their own section of the school.   They stay in that section together and they have separate lunch breaks from the rest of the students in the school.  I hope this prevents him from meeting people who could potentially be bad influences.  I don't want him to start smoking/drinking/experimenting with drugs any time soon.  Don't get me wrong, I know that the kids in the sports program aren't all angels either, but I know that if they are caught doing these types of things, it will not be tolorated and they will be dismissed from the program.  They have a lot to lose.  I hope J keeps that in mind.

Yesterday was a civic holiday, which meant a day off from work for me.  J had received money from his grandparents to buy some back-to-school clothes so I decided to take him shopping for the day.  Initially, the purpose of this post was to vent about his defiance yesterday morning and how he hurt my feelings.  But as the day went on, his attitude improved and we had a nice time together.  So I will put my frustations aside and just blame his behavior on hormones!