Great Waters Press No Longer Little: Parenting Tweens With Grace and Hope/ TOS Review

Let me tell you, that as a parent of a 21 year old and a 13 year old, that parenting through the tween and teen years is not always easy! Some days, like today, I cannot understand why my kids are acting the way the are. Being rude and acting like they have no idea what I am talking about. HOW are they being rude, they say? GRRRRR 
It can be very frustrating to say the least. No Longer Little: Parenting Tweens with Grace and Hope from Great Waters Press is an amazing book that has really helped me understand why my kids are acting the way they are...
There ARE reasons they are acting that way! Our tweens are going through a lot of changes in this time of their lives, and even they don't understand all the changes. 

I devoured this book as soon as I read Love, Honor and Virtue. 
This book walks me, the parent, through the changes my children are going through, or are going to go through during the puberty stages. 
They say that somewhere between 8 and 14 is when your normally sweet, compliant child may start to become a challenge, and talk about the emotional roller coaster the whole family will be on during this time. 
I know that my emotions are on a constant roller coaster because of my children's different behaviors. And they can have a different behavior or attitude every minute it seems like sometimes! WHEW! 
I learned that there are real, physical changes in our children that are contributing to these behaviors; these emotional roller coasters. 
The advice from Hal and Melanie Young is to actually NOT get on this roller coaster ride with them. Oh, sometimes that is so hard, isn't it? Here is an example from the book about how some of these emotional conversations can go. 

This is SO similar to the conversations I have with my 13 year old on the daily. How about you? Sound familiar?
I have learned form this book how important it is to not get emotionally involved at these outbursts. I have learned to stay off of the emotional roller coaster! It only escalates things and makes the problems worse. We need to stay calm. I know with my son that when I raise my voice, or show that I am upset, it definitely makes things worse.
I learned about the stages that kids actually go through as they grow, which explains why sometimes it seems as if your kids can't do some of the things they had previously been able to do. I also learned that there are actual physical changes going on in their brains and that this also contributes to some of these "mood swings". 
Something else I thought was good advice was not to push our children, when it comes to academics, because they may not have reached the stage yet where they can comprehend certain things. If we just wait a bit, they will be able to and there will be no problems like there would have been had we tried to force them to do something they weren't ready for. 
There is just so much in this book that I want to talk about! Social Avoidance is another thing that was put into perspective for me. My son sometimes acts like he doesn't want to go places or come out of his room and visit, etc... I learned how he may be feeling awkward and self conscious at this age. 
The book walks you through how to help your children through these stages and how to help them have a biblical worldview of relationships, and how to maintain a good parent/child relationship. 
I was also blessed with a copy of Love, Honor And Virtue: Gaining or Regaining a Biblical Attitude Towards Sexuality. 

I wrote a full review on this book as well. I feel like both books are a necessity. No Longer Little: Parenting Tweens with Grace and Hope is the parents guide through these rough times, and Love, Honor And Virtue: Gaining or Regaining a Biblical Attitude Towards Sexuality is the guide for teen boys. If you have a pre-teen or teenage boy, you NEED this book. It really helps your son to understand the changes he is going through and will be going through. 
I can not recommend these two books enough. And I thought it was pretty cool that they signed both of my books!

 "Hal & Melanie Young are the award-winning authors of Raising Real Men and My Beloved and My Friend: How to Be Married to Your Best Friend Without Changing Spouses. They are publishers, writers, bloggers, and popular conference speakers internationally, known for their Christ-centered focus and practical, real-life stories. They are the parents of six real boys (four grown!) and two real girls and live in noisy, messy happiness in North Carolina."

I  actually read and reviewed Raising Real Men back in 2011. I loved this book as well. It was a great encouragement to me as a mom of  a back then 6 year old, and now I have a 3 year old again that I need encouragement for! You can read my review of Raising Real Men here. 
I love everything I have read by Hal and Melanie Young. I highly recommend ALL of their books. 
Check out what my fellow Crew Mates thought of these books as well!