Ah, the tween years. That magical in-between time when your child still loves a midnight hot chocolate but suddenly treats you like a WiFi password they’re embarrassed to share.
Trust is gold dust in this phase—precious, scarce, and liable to vanish with one wrong move.
Busy parents, you’re not alone in feeling like you’re tiptoeing through a minefield of eye rolls and slammed doors. Sometimes, we lose our child’s trust without even realizing.
Here’s how it happens—and how to stop doing it tonight.
1. Over-Promising and Under-Delivering
It starts small. “I’ll pick you up at 4, promise!” or “Yes, we’ll go to the theme park this summer.” You mean well. You want to bring joy, be the reliable parent, the dream granter.
But life happens: meetings, sudden school events, or (let’s be honest) the irresistible pull of a nap. Suddenly, you’re twenty minutes late, or summer’s over and the closest you’ve come to a rollercoaster is the queue at Aldi.
Tweens are sharp. They remember every single pledge, down to the flavour of ice cream you swore you’d get after the dentist.
Disappointment piles up and soon, your “I promise” carries about as much weight as a paper umbrella in a monsoon.
What helps? Get honest about what you can actually do. Don’t promise Paris if you know your budget stretches to Peterborough.
If you do have to change plans, explain—briefly—and apologise.
Research shows that apologising authentically (with no strings attached) helps children feel respected, which, in turn, builds trust. If you set the bar low and over-deliver, you look like a hero.
2. Snooping on Their Privacy
The temptation to check messages, scroll their socials, or read their diary grows as tweens get more secretive. Every parent has worried about online dangers or real-life drama (or the horror of a secret TikTok account).
A little digital vigilance is one thing, but full-blown MI5 surveillance? That’s a shortcut to suspicion on both sides.
Tweens crave privacy like they crave sleep on a school day—not that they’d ever admit it.
When you rifle through their phone or eavesdrop outside the bathroom, the message is loud and clear: “I don’t trust you.” Suddenly, you’re the baddie and your child’s a master in encryption.
There’s a better way. Experts such as Common Sense Media suggest making privacy a mutual deal. Ask before looking, and set reasonable boundaries together.
Framing your concern as wanting to keep them safe—not catch them out—makes a world of difference.
Remind them (and yourself) that privacy isn’t the same as secrecy. Trust them first, check only if you genuinely must.
If you wouldn’t want your own texts read aloud at the next PTA, don’t do it to them.
3. Dismissing Their Feelings
Big emotions come as standard in the tween package. One minute, they’re over the moon about a new video game; the next, they’re sobbing over a friendship drama big enough to rival EastEnders.
It’s tempting (especially when you’re juggling dinner, work calls, and the dog’s latest “gift” on the carpet) to brush off their worries: “You’ll be fine,” or “It’s not that big a deal, love.” Oops.
To a tween, being dismissed feels a lot like being invisible.
If their heartache gets a glib wave or a quick fix (“Have you tried turning it off and on again?”), trust takes a hit. They start thinking, “Why bother telling Mum or Dad anything?”
Research from Harvard’s Parenting Project shows that validating children’s emotions helps them build resilience and keeps communication flowing.
Next time your child opens up (even if it’s just to complain about the latest maths test), listen as if it’s headline news. Nod. Repeat back what you’ve heard. Ask if they want advice, or just a giant biscuit.
4. Gossiping About Their Business
You know the drill: Your tween confides something in you.
You meet up with the other parents at the school gates or have a WhatsApp chat with your own mum, and before you know it, you’re sharing a “funny” story about your child’s crush or the time they got lost on the way to the loo.
It seems harmless, maybe even endearing.
Word travels faster than a Year 7 in a sweet shop. If your child gets wind of it, the fallout can be nuclear. “You told WHO?”
Their secret might be public property before they’ve even had a chance to cringe about it themselves. That sacred inner circle just got downgraded to “everyone except you.”
To keep trust afloat, treat your child’s confessions like state secrets. Ask before sharing anything, even with family. Model the same respect you’d want for your own embarrassing moments (that 90s perm, anyone?).
The Australian eSafety Commissioner recommends talking openly about digital privacy with kids, but the same logic goes for real-life stories. If in doubt, zip it.
5. Failing to Admit When We’re Wrong
Parents are supposed to be the experts, right? Yet, even the best of us have snapped, barked out a rule, or blamed the dog for that odd smell when, let’s face it, we know exactly who ate the leftover curry.
The real hit to trust comes when we double down instead of owning up.
Tweens are allergic to hypocrisy. When we refuse to admit to mistakes, the message is: “I’m right because I’m the adult. End of.”
That’s a fast track to resentment and secrets. They stop coming to us with problems—why bother, if we never admit to our own?
The good news: It’s never too late to fess up. Saying, “I got that wrong,” or, “I overreacted earlier,” does not cause the sky to fall. On the contrary, it teaches kids that everyone messes up sometimes, and fixing mistakes is what matters.
A study in the Journal of Family Psychology found that parents who apologise build stronger, more honest relationships with their children. Plus, a well-timed “Sorry” might just stop the next family row before it even starts.
Small Fixes, Big Impact
Tweens are masters at finding our weak spots—but they’re also quick to forgive, provided we show them the respect they crave.
Trust isn’t built with grand gestures or constant perfection. It’s the sum of all our small day-to-day actions: promises kept, secrets held, apologies made, boundaries respected.
Tonight, it might be as simple as listening to a rant about science class without glancing at your phone, or owning up to finishing the last biscuit. (Sorry, not sorry.)
Trust, after all, is a two-way street—best travelled together, even when the satnav keeps saying, “Recalculating.”
