Tweenhood, the formative stage between childhood and adolescence, has remained an awkward rite of passage for generations. While the boundaries of tweenhood are often blurred, most agree that the period between the ages of 10 and 13 represents a significant change in maturity and identity. Kids begin to become more aware of themselves and the world around them, trying on different identities as they develop.
Tween years are spent with one foot left in childhood, the other just beginning to test the waters of independence, individuality, and maturity. Or at least, that’s how it used to be.
Ninth grade counselor Gavin Stewart is only one of many Haven faculty members who have observed dramatic changes in tween and early teen development over recent years. Students have begun to mature and change in a new, accelerated fashion, compared to what is usually considered typical for an adolescent.
“I think that kids are way more exposed to the world, and much more open to the world,” Stewart said. “The things that they’re reading and engaging with, they’re really introspective, thoughtful, and kind of challenging.”
According to Common Sense Media, roughly 40% of American children have access to their own phone by age 10. With the internet and social media at their fingertips, discovery and development that would have once taken place over a long period of adolescence is condensed into only a few short years.
“Students that I talk with, the things that I discovered in college, they know as a 14 year old,” Stewart said.
Although he notes the positive changes that come with this unprecedented shift in access to content, such as increased awareness of world issues and deeper levels of introspection, Stewart believes that it puts increased pressure on teens and tweens to mature at an accelerated rate.
“These existential questions of, how do I have a meaningful life? I didn’t really ask that question until I was in college, but I find that students who I work with are really interested in that question and care about it, and are invested in trying to figure that out,” Stewart said. “I don’t think that’s a good or a bad thing. I think it presents these kids with a lot of challenges.”
Middle school librarian Stephanie Kahn witnesses the effects of this new aspect of the tween experience in her daily interactions with Haven students.
“They’re too mature. They care, or they think they care about things that I didn’t have to care about when I was their age,” Kahn said. “They’re really big subjects and high stress inducing issues for a 12 or 13 year old.”
While the desire to appear older and more grown-up is a staple of the tween experience, middle school faculty members have noticed a definite increase in performative “mature” behaviour in recent years.
“We started seeing a huge uptick in sixth graders coming in already coupled up, already talking about boyfriends, girlfriends,” Kahn said. “All of that’s natural maturation. But we were starting to see it so much younger and more serious.”
Like Stewart, Kahn also believes that increased access to content through social media and the internet is causing an unprecedented source of stress and negative influence. While online resources have the potential to broaden kids’ horizons and understanding of the world, tweens are simply watching and reading about subjects intended for audiences years above their age.
“All these images are in these kids’ heads so early. Things that kids never thought about before, now it’s almost commonplace that they’re thinking about it,” Kahn said. “They’re not ready for it, and it’s causing too much stress.”
It’s easy to feel like the nostalgic tween era is well and truly dead. The closing of iconic tween stores like Justice and Claire’s, the disappearance of teen and tween-specific media such as Teen Vogue, and the unrelenting rise in social media influence over younger audiences — it almost seems like tweens now live in a completely different reality than one the rest of the world is familiar with.
As the gap between childhood and young adulthood shrinks more and more, and as the pressure to grow up faster increases, Stewart would remind students to give themselves grace. Taking time to develop is important, even when it’s awkward, messy, and not at all grown-up.
“I think as a teenager right now, you’re exposed to a lot of different things, a lot of difficult things, and that alone creates a lot of pressure,” Stewart said. “It’s okay to mess up. It’s okay not to be perfect.”
Each opinion represented in The Panther Press is the view and voice of the writer. Opinions, as the selection and curation of content by the editors, do not represent the views of the entire Panther Press staff, the adviser, the school, or the administration.
