I imagine it is partly age and partly personality. So far people tell me my tween is very polite when he is out of my supervision. I sure hope that's true! But he was always pretty polite.

My youngest is a whole different story. She's five, but I can totally imagine her saying things like that. She says them to me! I keep plugging away on good manners and not hurting people's feelings but she's not getting it as well as ds did.

I wish I could say my experience tells 'this too will pass'. I work with high school age girls and this behavior is not exclusive to any age group. It is more about how many raise their children. This is the ENTITLED generation. When children are raised outside of the view of people who KNOW them, their likes, they have no choice but to SPEAK UP and educate the adults around them, and they do!! The only survival trick I have found is to be sure not to take any of it personally, don't let it feel like criticism. The test of a well raised child is how they behave when parents aren't there. Sadly I would bet many of the parents of these girls would be perfectly comfortable with their behavior. That is how they became who they are!!!

Amazingly, I have been asked that same thing---"don't you have anything else?"---by children of MANY different ages.....it is the child, not the age, and they often turn into adults who ask grownup versions of the same thing. For example: "I can't eat that, do you have any non-fat _____?" instead of passing on a dish at a dinner party and choosing from among the many other offerings.

Once we gave an all inclusive kid's birthday party at our house as a silent auction gift to our youngest son's school fundraiser. It was for fifteen girls, a tea party, and lasted two and a half hours. The games prizes were in a little chest and each winner (of course everyone eventually won things) could select her own prize and put it in the party bag to take home. One particular child came to me and whined, "I don't like any of the prizes." I was nonplussed and didn't answer right away, and she pressed, "don't you have anything else?" This was a six year old! There were at least five different types of goodies, from press-on nails to pretty hair ribbons and bows to costume jewelry, and I went through the chest with her, suggestions different things, but she kept on asking if I had anything better to give her. Finally I gave up and said, "no, honey, it's either this or nothing." And she finally chose something, as if at last satisfied that she wasn't being gypped out of anything better!

I knew her family and her aunt pretty well, really lovely people who would never have brought up a child to act that way, and their other daughters certainly didn't. It was just her personality, sad to say.

I get it, I have a 10 year old :-) I think that kids start losing their little kid sweetness in the tween years, and start moving into self-centered demanding awkwardness. It's really quite a sad phase! I don't like it at all.

We are very strict about manners, and people say our child is very polite... but who knows when we're not around? Tweens are extremely rude, I agree.

Glad you survived it, extra mommy points to you! :-)

This age is hard, isn't it? It's a struggle to figure out if the behaviors are age-related, personality, a sense of entitlement, or a combination. We've been having a challenge with this as we moved into a neighborhood full of tween girls. My own tween daughters are finding them very different from their old friends and pretty unpleasant.

Sometimes, I catch one of my girls saying something rude and mean at home. She doesn't enjoy the consequence, but does it again. It's baffling. We've been asking them to practice the golden rule since they were wee. We talk about it all the time.

Daisy, good for you for taking the weekend on. I'm sure the girls had a good time and you got through it, which is all you can ask of yourself with kids this age.

May not be the age. DD told me about a sleep under for her 6 y.o. with terrible behavior. One kid was screaming orders at her -- get me this, give me that. Lots of acting out and drama. She has a fabulous way of dealing with them but said she almost lost it.

I don't remember 10 being bad, other than the hyper kids nobody could stand. For my daughter it was around 8th grade until her senior year in high school. Couldn't stand her. But, manners were never the problem. Pleases and thank-yous are part of our DNA and cannot be denied. :)

Although she was so beastly at home, other parents said she was just fine at their houses. You always hurt the ones you love, unfortunately.

I am using this post as a teaching moment. It was MY kids that were the "bad" ones at a party last week. I was surprised as my girls are usually polite and well behaved (says the naive mom LOL!). However, when they get together with other kids, they can get hyper, silly, and rude.

edited to say: I am not saying that it is the other kid's fault. I think it's the power of the group that emboldens my girls.

I found the middle school/tween years very tough with my daughter, and my son too although to a lesser extent. I think girls especially are going through such a hormonal and developmental storm at this age. And of course their social systems are filled with a set of kids going through the same things. The mean girls attitude, the lack of self awareness, the sheer brattiness..whew. For us, it was a time during which I had to really adjust my parenting style to set some strong and unbreakable standards as to how she would treat others including both friends and family. By high school things had calmed down.

The entitlement issue is separate, I think, and very much part of a newer style of parenting in which many kids are given choices on most of what they experience in their life from clothes to food to outings to you-name-it. I don't necessarily disagree with the principle because authoritarian/inflexible isn't a great way to manage children IMO. However it certainly can lead to the type of rudeness discussed here.

And last but not least, as a mom who is quite a bit further down the road from this, I am here to enlighten all you moms of tweens: your child is just as likely to be nasty, unpleasant, rude and out of control as all those friends about whom you are aghast. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news here, but don't fool yourself that your little angel would NEVER act like that.... she would, she probably does and rest assured that every mom of those brats you are discussing feels just the same about her darling :).

LOL, runningplace! I have no doubt. Especially with my second one. First one is my easy one and that is never a good thing. It makes you think that parenting is easy peasy. I can't imagine how judgemental I'd have been of other parents if I hadn't had my second one and seen that no matter what you do, they are ultimately who they are.

furby, I totally agree about the group mentality thing. Watching mine with her friends is like watching an alien (and she isn't that well-behaved with us!)

Like I said, I think it is just something about that age that gets under my skin. I teach 6/7 year olds and when they act out, I deal with it just fine. Every moment is a learning moment. But give me a tween doing the same thing and I have to take a deep breath and count to ten.

I know part of it is exactly what my DD is having a real problem with right now and that's losing face. A younger kid will usually apologize or give up when they are in the wrong, but right now, I find my DD will never admit fault and you'd think "sorry" was a curse word.

I thought I'd be having more trouble dealing with my 16 year old as everyone was scaring me about the teen years, but we are having a blast and I find her friends really charming (we've known most of them since they were 3 or 4). Although people keep telling me they go through another nasty phase before they leave the nest, but I'm just going to enjoy this now :)

I'm sure it is much worse now, but in the mid seventies, around age 10 or so, I was involved in girl scouts and the local group was the precursor for mean girls.

But I didn't really understand it, I was 10.

Anyway, I went on a weekend GS camping trip, we stayed in cabins, and the girls aligned all the mattresses against the screened in porch wall in a stair step.

One mattress at the bottom, the tallest mattress at the top.

The symbolism was only vaguely understood, except that I understood the number one mattress. The lowest, which I slept on that night.

I was neither ugly, fat, handicapped or disabled in any way. Nothing except height and the ability to make me easily cry, set me apart. Just insecurity and emotionalism.

I identify/help those picked on today so maybe that was a life lesson to benefit others.

The intrinsic nature of people don't change. Look throughout history.

For years I took care of kids when their parents traveled. Obviously, many wanted references for me. The only group I required references for were teenage girls. Some are so toxic that they can be downright dangerous. One, for example, told her mother I had slapped her knees and "held her in a death vulture choke", neither of which was true. When her mother called to tell me this, I saw my life flash before my eyes. I said, "I never laid a hand on any of your children", and the mother said, "Oh, I know." The other two siblings had told their mother the psycho was full of you know what.

That was so scary to me, because there are also the psycho mothers who truly believe their child or children never do wrong, no matter how illogical or sickening the claim is, and will believe the kid. After that, I started requiring references if the parents hiring me had a teenage girl.

My soon to be 5 yr. old granddaughter was over last week for the day. When I was her age I had to ask to be excused from the table. So good manners are ingrained in me. Unfortunately they aren't being taught at her home. :(

I keep a few toys here for the kids to play with, and I bought two little girl dolls about 5" high to go with DGD's My Pretty Ponies. Brand new. She was on the floor playing with the ponies and I brought the new dolls over which she had already looked at when she got here. She took them and THREW them across the room, and said, "No!"

DGD is usually well behaved but that threw me for a loop. All day I had to teach her to say, "No thank you." When it came to lunch or snacks, if she didn't want what I was offering she'd say "No!" By the end of the day, she would smile and say "No thank you." lol

I've hinted to my DS and DIL that manners need to be taught. In fact, when DGS was born and he was about 3, I bought my DIL a really cute book on how to teach children manners. She thought it was a good book too. I don't think she read it. Before anybody says anything, this was before I noticed manners weren't being taught that much. DIL had a ton of books on child rearing so I thought this would be a good one to add to her collection.

But when I'm at their house and one of the kids don't say Please or Thank you, I say something to them immediately in front of their parents hoping they catch a clue.

Saying that, they are well behaved but they do lack in manners. Actually, it's the GD that lacks manners, not the GS.

Watch kids shows or cartoons for an afternoon. Even movies for kids teach bad behavior. Parents try but the bad influences are everywhere else all the time. Rude= funny in the entertainment world.

Agree with daisychain01 and crl_, kids are very different. Our first two are great, well-behaved, manners -- dream students and good guests. We must be such a great parents, right? Then #3. This is the kid who wrote on the walls and floor, flushed things that should not be flushed, climbs whatever is possible, gets into the tools, will not stay in his seat, is too loud, wiggly, whiny, aggressive towards bigger kids, struggles to pay attention; nothing in moderation. On the other hand, he is happy, energetic, enthusiastic, honest, very gentle and caring towards smaller kids. He is 6 and believe me we work on behaviors a lot. I am hoping he "gets it" soon (DS2 "got it" at around 5).

That is a long way of saying, I think it often is not simple and I have a lot more compassion and patience with others now as a result of these experiences.

My daughter turned into a lovely teen, but as a tween she had some really unpleasant behavior towards me. Around here that seems to be the mean girl zenith, and they are on to more productive happier lives by the time they leave middle school. I have no complaints about my children's manners out in the world; I receive compliments about them frequently.

My children have been taught to behave well from the very beginning, and I think it is just sort of ingrained. It's much more difficult to teach good manners once bad habits have taken root.

I wish I could have skipped 7th-9th grades. I remember those mean girls like it was yesterday. If you had the wrong comb in your pocket or the wrong brand of jeans....they made you miserable. I wish I could go back and save myself all the stress and tears.

Very rarely have we had an issue with the manners of our children's friends. When we did, it was usually because we invited entire classes and not just their friends per se. I have no trouble dealing with rude child guests firmly (but politely). Of course I am also the Mom that makes kids eat a fruit or veggie with their meal before they have birthday cake at our house, and put on their suntan lotion.

Generally we very much like my children's actual friends (not simply classmates) and find them to be exceedingly well-mannered, and not just in a perfunctory way. Kudos to the parents. Also to their schools; I think in private schools they are given more leeway to insist on manners, and they do.

We have not had a lot of "mean girl" drama, probably because classes are small and advisors and teachers are right on top of them; they eat lunch at tables with their advisors. Last year two children were texting and discussed one girl's lack of "development", and when word got around about the text the whole class had to meet (separate genders) to talk about body image and social media. I can hardly imagine that kind of involvement and awareness when I was a tween!

All of that said, I feel that my kids are often mean to each other, and that really bothers me. I am trying to teach them to be empathetic toward people, but sometimes we behave the worst to those with whom we are closest.

PS One of my kid fave books was "The Polite Elephant". So cute.