Show Notes

TRANSITIONING TO MIDDLE SCHOOL

The transition from elementary school to middle school can be challenging. It’s another step toward letting go and letting your child be more independent. But where do you start first? How much responsibility is too much? When do you step in? When do you stay out of it?

Not to mention that the sweet 5^th grade you knew last year has vanished. In their place is someone who often changes on a dime – happy-go-lucky one minute, snarly and irritated the next.

WHAT TO EXPECT – AND NOT

You might find that your child wants to cuddle with you on the couch to watch movies one day, and angrily shrugs off your touch the next. They may tell you they never, ever want you to call them ‘baby’ or ‘sweetheart’ in front of people again. Ever.

It’s hard to keep up. And now we’re going to throw in changing schools on top of everything else?

And if you’re like me, one of the hardest parts can be not taking it all personally.

However, everything that’s going on with your middle schooler is perfectly normal and to be expected. In fact, if it wasn’t so darn frustrating, we might even celebrate it.

REMEMBER WHEN?

Here’s the best way I’ve found for explaining why.

I want you to think back to when your darling was a newborn. Remember the little noises they made? The smell of their neck as you held them to your shoulder to burp them?

Once you have that picture in your head, think about your sweet baby as a 3-year-old. Talking, running, climbing, asking ‘why’ incessantly. You know what I’m talking about.

When you compare that 3-year-old to the newborn, it’s ASTOUNDING how much growth happened, isn’t it? Not just physically, but emotionally and intellectually too.

Their language developed exponentially. Their fine and gross motor skills grew. They began to differentiate themselves from you. They started exploring and discovering the world around them and learned how to make friends.

YEAH, THAT’S HAPPENING AGAIN IN YOUR MIDDLE SCHOOL CHILD

You might be wondering why I’m going on and on about babies and toddlers on a website about middle schoolers.

It’s because that same kind of radical change and growth that happened in the first three years of life is very similar to what happens to kids once they hit puberty.

It’s the reason that when I was still a classroom teacher when my former 8th-grade male students came back to visit as 9^th graders, I often didn’t recognize them. They had changed that much!

And that’s what we want for our kids – for them to become responsible, independent, interdependent, compassionate adults.

So, when my kids were in middle school when every conversation felt like a confrontation, and I wanted to curl up and cry, because sometimes they were just plain mean, I tried to remember that their bodies were going through a drastic metamorphosis that’s a normal part of their journey to adulthood.

MIDDLE SCHOOL HURDLES

That metamorphosis meant that we had some hurdles to get past for school, as well. It meant that as we stared into the abyss of 6^th grade, I had no idea how to proceed.

Fortunately, my kids had some amazing teachers, I had some good friends who were a few steps ahead of me in the parenting journey, so we figured it out.

With school starting soon for most of us, I thought I’d share what I learned along the way. So, if you have kids who are about to hit middle school, here are some things I wish I had known.

STRUCTURE, STRUCTURE, STRUCTURE

Middle school is the time to help kids take more steps toward independence – but that doesn’t mean we want to leave them hanging. When creating structure around things, it can actually give your kids the freedom to step into more independence.

I know I’ve used this analogy from Madeleine L’Engle before, but if you look at a haiku – a VERY structured poem with a prescribed number of syllables and lines, you can see that there is infinite possibility for individual creativity within it. In those 3 lines, with their 17 syllables in a 5-7-5 pattern, one has the freedom and power and independence to write anything.

It’s the same for our middle schoolers. Creating structures for them is a great way to help them move toward independence.

Rituals (AKA Routines)

First off, if the word ‘ritual’ is throwing you off, just know that it’s a fancy way of saying ‘routine.’ For your middle schoolers, giving them structures around their routines might look like providing them with the time frame and the tasks.

To give you an example, let’s look at a morning ritual. What time do they need to get up? When do you need to walk out the door? What tasks need to be done in between? Make a list of every little thing, from brushing teeth to picking up a backpack and lunch on the way out the door. You give them the information, they decide in what order to do the tasks. They might even decide to move some tasks to their evening ritual, instead of doing it in the morning, like showering or picking out their clothes.

Schedules

I found that once my kids hit middle school, one of MY biggest challenges was keeping track of ALL the things. From games and performances to meetings and fundraisers, being the Ish Girl that I am, let’s just say we missed some stuff.

I HATE that sinking feeling of realizing I missed something important.

When my kids were in elementary school, I was the calendar queen, a job that wasn’t super challenging, because I could always email my kids’ teachers to confirm or clarify anything.

That changed once they hit middle school. Which made it the perfect time to put them in charge of communicating their important dates.

I bought a flip calendar, a magnetic pencil holder, and colored pencils and put them all on the fridge. Each of us chose a color, and we were all in charge of writing our own stuff. From events to tests and projects, plans with friends to field trips, if it wasn’t in writing, it didn’t exist.

It not only took the pressure off of me (I gladly relinquished my calendar queen crown) but it also had the added benefit of – you guessed it – moving my kids toward being more independent.

Organization

This last one is a little trickier – at least for me – because organization can be so personal. What works for me might not work for my teen, and vice versa. So when it comes to structuring your home organization and your kids’ organization for school, it’s good to be super flexible and to adopt an attitude of curiosity, rather than defaulting to frustration. Trust me, I learned this one the hard way.

At Home

So here are a couple of ideas that have worked for our family, and we continue to tweak things. At home, I try to have designated spots for things. A spot for kids to put any forms or handouts that need to be signed. A place to put backpacks so they’re ready to go in the morning. A place for all of the food that can be used for kids to make their own lunches. That sounds so much more Martha Stewart than our cluttered reality because those places might be on our entryway floor, or the kitchen table. The point is, we all know those spots.

At School

Helping your kids organize their school stuff is a whole different animal. Some of their middle school teachers will tell them exactly what kind of supplies they need for class, and how they want them to organize them. Other teachers will leave it up to the students. Plus, for staying organized overall, your child is probably going to need a little direction.

This can be a great time to create connection with your child, sitting down with them and talking about all the different ways they can keep track of their work, their future projects, and tests, their class notes, etc.

Walking them through different ways to do that, making sure you’re asking lots of questions about what they like and what works for them can go a long way towards building trust and communicating that you see they are growing up.

PROGRESS NOT PERFECTION

Providing structure and giving your middle schooler freedom to choose what to do within it is definitely a balancing act, and you’re not going to get it right every time – and that is OKAY.

Because those times something doesn’t work or falls through the cracks? Those are the time you get to model grace and flexibility and problem-solving. Those are the times you can choose to laugh at the mishaps and move on together, inviting everyone into the process of figuring out what to do next.

WHY RECREATE THE MIDDLE SCHOOL WHEEL?

If your child is starting Middle School this year, and you’re wondering if they – or you! – are 100% ready for it, I’d love for you to check out my newest resource, Is My Child Ready for Middle School?

When you get the resource, instead of starting from scratch and trying to figure out everything as you go, you’ll receive a comprehensive checklist that covers all the structures I talked about today in detail and more. I’ve included suggestions for how to set up morning, afternoon, and evening rituals, how your child can stay organized and on top of their academics, and how you can set things up at home to keep everything running smoothly. I’ve also included some helpful printables to make things easy for you.

Get Is My Child Ready for Middle School here!