It's not always easy to deal with and some parents even dread the awkward "transition stage". For us, this was more than true. Ages 10-14 were definitely the most difficult with our kids. For most, it's time when they're going through dramatic changes both mentally and physically, some developing faster than others. For a while we struggled to find a solution to the differing personalities because as our kids began developing their own identities, more conflicts between them ensued. At a loss for what to do, we once again constulted the Brooks book. According to Brooks, a sense of identity in early adolescence "depends on exploring a variety of alternatives and making a commitment to values, goals, and behavior." These "pre-teens" are exploring new groups of friends and figuring out where they belong. Brooks states that finding their identity gradually occurs throughout this period. Some adolescents choose traditional values that reflect those of their parents, while others tend to follow their friends and are influenced by outside experiences. Another path some tend to take is referred to "moratorium" which is when a pre-teen explores different identities, but can not firmly decide what or who they identify with. In sextuplets, you often find that the children will compete against each other when they begin to discover their identities. While you might want your children to act similar to keep things more calm in the household, it's best to let them explore and decide for themselves who they are.
Brooks states that some girls need to come from an aggressive atmosphere in order to pursue individuality. Obviously, our home has been nothing but love and care so this statement confused us. We understood what that meant, seeing that girls in a nice, stable home may not feel the need to express individuality because they are already comfortable with the way things are. We did not want this to happen with our girls so we encouraged them to explore different paths and made sure to enroll them in different extracurricular activities. Our boys were already exploring different groups at this age, but we still tried to have some control to help them feel like individuals rather than one of six.
As you read in our first post, each our of sextuplets turned out completely different, but it wasn't always that way. When Jon first noticed that he was achieving high marks in school more quickly than the rest of his siblings, he wanted to do badly on homework assignments to fit in with everyone. But we encouraged him to appreciate his abilities and take pride in who he was. There were also some issues with Karmen because she loved playing outdoors and being the "boss" of the group, delegating who played what. We noticed that she was sort of a tomboy and her sisters really wanted her to be girly like them. But we enjoyed that she was different and got her involved in sports which she absolutely loved! The friends she made really helped her express her individuality from her sisters. All our children struggled at first during this stage, but they all came out of it unique and different!
♥J&K
1 comments:
I have triplets and let me just say, I don't know you do it with 3 more! But my husband and I also struggled with giving our kids as much individuality as possible. We have 1 boy and 2 girls so the girls were always nagging our son to play dolls with him. But we made sure to set him up on play dates with other boys his age and he turned out just fine! Thanks for your advice! Even though we don't have sextuplets, it sure helps :)
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