Tween Turning Point: Breakfast with your Beauty
We’re so excited to introduce the column - Tween Turning Point - by our Contributing Editor, Stephanie Elliot. Whether your tween daughter is your oldest or your only, your middle child or your youngest, it’s important to give her quality one-on-one time, especially during these formidable years. She’s dealing with emotions, body changes, challenges with her friendships and so much more during her tween years. In Tween Turning Point, we’ll suggest great ideas on ways to connect with your tween daughter so you can create lasting memories while instilling the values you want to bring into your daughter’s life as she grows and matures into the young woman you want her to become.
We’d love to hear from you too! Where are some unique spots you and your tween go to connect and chat? Are there special places that you take her where you know you can get her talking, where she feels she can open up and be herself and not feel like she’s talking to Mom?.
We know the importance of one-on-one time with your tween daughter and getting the opportunities to have her really open up to you in easy-going, non-confrontational ways. We’ll be bringing you suggestions on how to do this through Tween Turning Point.
We’re thinking breakfast - what better way to chat with your tween than over a stack of fluffy pancakes piled high with whip cream and syrup. Surprise her by waking her before the rest of the family gets up and head to your favorite breakfast spot. Sure, she might not be too happy about an early-morning date, but let her order a hot chocolate or something she usually doesn’t get to have when the whole family is out for breakfast. It’s a special morning for you and your daughter.
You don’t have to talk about anything that’s too heavy, and you can let her lead the conversation - sometimes it’s nice to check in with her to see how school is going and if things are okay with her friendships. In a relaxed atmosphere like your favorite breakfast place, she might feel like opening up to you and really letting you know how things are going with her friends, classes and other social situations that she might not usually share with you.
If there are some important topics you have been meaning to talk to her about - family issues, puberty, whatever might be on your mind - gently ease these subjects into the conversation. You’ve got her across the table from you, happily eating her favorite foods, and you have her attention, it’s a great time to talk about any weighty matters you need to discuss.
Whether you want to share a special morning with your daughter and just catch up on what’s going on in her life, or you have some crucial things you need to discuss with her, a morning breakfast date is a great way to spend some one-on-one time with your tween. And pancakes and hot chocolate… not a bad way to start out the morning with your little girl!
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Stephanie Elliot
Stephanie Elliot, in no particular order, is a wife, writer, blogger, book reviewer, editor and mother to three kids, two who have already been tweens, and one who is right smack in the middle of his tween-ness. Her oldest son is almost driving and her daughter survived her tween years so Stephanie must be doing something right. Find out more at stephanieelliot.com.
Stephanie,
My daughter and I have the “tradition” of going to our local diner once a week for breakfast. She’s sometimes still half asleep, but I realized how much it meant to her when the diner closed several months for renovations. It’s going to reopen soon. She said last week, “It better be before school ends. We have to get one more breakfast in this year!”
Lesa, I think that’s great that you and your daughter get to do this tradition once a week! How lucky for the both of you! We’ve started going to a new coffee shop that’s not a Starbucks that we love! It’s so fun spending one-on-one time with kids — they really do open up that way! Thanks for sharing and I hope that your place opens soon! Steph
I guess I’m a lucky mom that gets to drive my tweens all over and I get a lot of ‘car-time-talk’…we are in the car to get to school and after school activities, so we are able to connect on a meaningful level each day. Weekends are totally chill, with fitness together and just having fun. I’m lucky, I’m able to chat whenever the inspiration strikes! We bought a sailboat, so this summer we intend to have a lot of family time, while we still can!
This is a beautiful comment. I think this is so important for moms to read. Thanks for sharing this.
- Audrey
Mom’s Lifesavers — that would be AWESOME to have a sailboat to spend the weekends just sailing away and spending time with the family! What great memories to be made!