If it feels like our children today are facing more challenges than ever before, you may be right. There are mass shootings in the news, a shaky post-COVID economy, concerns about artificial intelligence and future job security, and harmful information reaching our kids on social media, just to name a few. It can make a parent anxious! Imagine how our kids must be feeling too.

In addition to all of the stress coming from society, parents often report feeling stressed over the ups and downs of tween behavior and emotions. If you’re like many parents, raising a younger child may have seemed more straightforward (even if exhausting!), but communicating with your 8-12 year old feels trickier. Despite parents’ best efforts to help them, tweens tend to push back more often and exhibit more negativity and intensity in their emotions.

Despite the fact that these changes are normal and expected, they can feel hard to manage. Additionally, if you’ve tuned in to the negative findings in the news about teens and mental health, you want to get ahead of the game, because the teen years are right around the corner. The good news is that there are plenty of positive steps you can take to help prepare and protect your tween. You can start now helping your child learn healthier emotional self-management, helpful and positive beliefs about themselves and others, effective and appropriate ways to get their needs met, and ways to resolve friendship issues.

We can’t protect our kids from everything, BUT we can give them the best chances of being resilient and thriving in this world now and in the future.