Mom's stress guide: teens and tweens

Accept the fact that there will be times when you are as popular as last year's favourite outfit.
Some moms can find it difficult to cope with another noteworthy shift that occurs during the preteen and teen years -- the fact that friends suddenly move to the forefront and parents tend to get pushed to the side.

"Sometimes moms take it personally when their teens start spending all their time with friends," says Toronto parent and teen coach Dr. Karyn Gordon. "They need to remind themselves that this is a very natural transition."

Dare to open up to other mothers. As children get older, "women don't speak about the darkness of the problems on the 'bad mother days,'" says Andrea O'Reilly, founding president and director of the Association for Research on Mothering at York University.

Breaking the silence can help to ease the stress if you and your teen are going through a rockier-than-average time. Getting together for coffee with one other mom who knows what it's like to have a teenager who is really struggling can give you the mother fuel needed to get through. "And all it takes is one brave woman who is willing to stop censoring," says O'Reilly.