Show Notes

THE WHY OF INDEPENDENCE

In the last episode we talked about choice, and WHY giving your middle schoolers choices is one of the best ways to work out their independence muscles.

In this episode, I want to chat with you about what that looks like – the practical, where the rubber meets the road part of choices.

Here’s what I’m talking about when I say “independence.”

We want our middle schoolers to become adults who can:

• Practice good time management, including things like studying, socializing, and self-care
• Utilize necessary life skills like cooking, cleaning, laundry, and money management
• Be resourceful and know how to problem-solve
• Regulate their emotions
• Live out their values, beliefs, and priorities

And like I shared last week, I love how Ph.D. Carl Pickhardt condenses all of that – and more – into 4 key areas. According to him, they are:

Responsibility

Showing up and following through on commitments

Accountability

Resolutely facing consequences when messing up or making a mistake, reconciling and making amends when appropriate

Industriousness

Identifying wants, needs, and goals and working diligently for them

Resourcefulness

Problem-solving and implementing solutions

THE DESTINATION ON THE ROAD TRIP TO INDEPENDENCE

So, that’s the destination for this road trip to independence. The question today is, how do we get there?

Last week I introduced the idea of scaffolding. It’s a word that’s used in education, so if you’re a teacher, you probably know exactly what I’m talking about. If you don’t (like me – I totally had to look it up), here’s what it is:

It is breaking up learning into chunks and providing a tool, or structure, with each chunk.

CHOICES ON THE ROAD TRIP TO INDEPENDENCE

For our purposes today, I thought it captured exactly what we’re talking about – giving our middle schools tools to move incrementally toward full independence.

Choice is one of those tools.

The issue is that as parents and teachers, thinking of ways to offer our middle schoolers can feel overwhelming. Especially right now, when we’re all hanging on by our fingernails during this weird season of the COVID pandemic.

But here’s the thing. Choice doesn’t have to be hard or complicated.

We can start small, by asking ourselves questions.

For teachers, that question might look like:

How can I take small steps in my classroom in the area of student choice that will help my students build their ownership of their learning?”

For parents, it might look like:

How can I take small steps at home in the area of choice that will help my middle schooler build their responsibility, accountability, industriousness, and resourcefulness?

CREATING AUTHENTIC CHOICES

As I mentioned last week, communication is key in the process of creating choice. You have to know and understand your middle schoolers well in order to offer them authentic choices.

That means figuring out learning styles, paying attention to how their energy ebbs and flows throughout the day, and recognizing what their “currency” is – that sometimes elusive thing that motivates them, like being able to have free time to socialize in class or more screen time at home.

But you don’t have to wait until you “know everything” to get started. Like so many other things, when it comes to trying out choices with your middle schoolers, action brings clarity.

Try something out, and if it doesn’t work, back it up a little and try again.

Here are something you can try.

At School

For an assignment, students choose from a menu or checklist of options that align with their interest and learning style (ex reports vs. Youtube videos vs PowerPoint presentations, etc.) Sidenote – check out Episode 75 if you want to know more about learning styles.

And choice doesn’t have to be about academics.

• Flexible seating options at home and school for study
• Handwritten vs/typed projects
• Creating choice boards or checklists to accomplish assignments and home chores
• Letting them choose their work partners or small groups when it makes sense
• Letting them the choose to work independently or with a partner
• Choose what to do first
• Choose which problems on an assigned page to complete

At Home

Start with small changes/choices

Use menus or choice boards – are there jobs that need to be done in the house they can choose from…possibly earn various amounts of money for doing, outside of their everyday family responsibilities?

Checklists. I LOVE ME a good checklist. They’re are a great way to eliminate “nagging”. Because everyday routines are right there for them in black and white. It’s even more powerful to create those checklists together. It’s one more step toward them taking ownership of the things they need to do at home.

• For example, you might try laying out their daily schedules with them so that they can see how many hours they have in their day to complete things like homework, exercising, relaxing with friends, etc. – when I taught MS, it always blew the kids’ minds when the counselor came in and talked to them about time management and pointed out that they had as many hours after school at home as they did at school
• This visual can open discussion and the opportunity to help them make the choices that make sense on a daily basis.
• As they build this skill of making choices about their time, parents will gradually be able to step out of the process.

These are just a few of the possibilities. As you hear this list, what do you think of that you could do with your teens at home or school?

THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE ISN’T LINEAR

So the thread throughout all of this is starting where our middle schoolers are right now, and moving them toward independence. We do this with the full knowledge that the process isn’t linear, it’s super messy, and a lot of it depends on how we first manage ourselves. If you haven’t listened to Episode 141, definitely check that out, because it’s all about our own self-management as we coach our kids to independence.

Ultimately, want them to internalize their ownership of their own lives. Their learning, their home, their choices. Secure parents and teachers are willing to gradually step back and hand over that ownership.

If you’re looking for a map of how to do that, I’ve got you covered.

THE ROAD MAP TO INDEPENDENCE

I’ve created a resource to help you recognize the mile markers along the road to independence.

Understanding what our middle schooler’s “onramp” is (where they are now) can help us figure out the legs of the journey we’re taking to our destination (full independence.)

I’ve taken those 4 key areas from Ph.D. Carl Pickhardt that we talked about earlier – responsibility, accountability, industriousness, and resourcefulness – defined them, and broken them down into 4 segments (or legs, if you will) of our middle schoolers’ journey to independence.

This map will help you understand our middle schooler’s “onramps” (where they are now) for each of those keys, identify 2 legs of the journey, and recognize when your teens have arrived at the destination.

This resource is a great tool to use to assess where your middle schoolers are right now and decide what direction to go in next.

You can purchase these maps individually, or you can get them all in a package that also includes the Self-Management resource I talked about in Episode 141.

ARTICLES

EPISODES REFERENCED