Like my friend Anjali, I’m thinking a lot about MIDDLE SCHOOL, which my girls will be entering this fall. And yes, something about it just requires all caps, as it proving to be a more terrifying transition than I had expected.
On the rational side, I’m very excited about the middle school my girls will be attending; their new school is a K-12 school, so they won’t be leaving the building they’re currently in, and will use the same dining hall and gym facilities. Since I work in the Upper School there, I know some of their teachers already, and am thrilled to think of my girls getting to work with them. Lucy will start Chinese this fall, and Sophie is already looking forward to trying for the middle school musical and joining middle school chorus. There are plenty of sports teams they can try (all with no-cuts policies, so they can really experiment), and afterschool clubs (free to join) with all kinds of different interests. There are mixers each year to meet other kids (boys) from different schools, and yearly retreats that include outdoor education and leadership training. I’m glad they will be in an advisory program, as I think those are so crucial in the 6-12 grades, and I know and trust the Middle School principal, who is just a fabulous person, as well as being a skilled administrator.
So what’s the problem, right?
In her post, Anjali wrote, there’s something about the term MIDDLE SCHOOL that feels incredibly oppressive and repressive and suppressive and claustrophobic and makes me want to have a drink. Of alcohol. Make that a double. YES. There’s a lot of talk recently about how we never truly leave high school, but middle school brings up much more depressing feelings for me than high school. It just seems like such a maelstrom of feelings and hormones and chemicals, so ripe with bad choices and careless actions, kids who aren’t old enough to drive but are old enough (physically) to make life-altering decisions, old enough to lash out at each other but too immature to see the consequences. It’s also the period of time when kids start pulling away from their families (especially parents) and towards their friends, but when they still need so much guidance and support.
Working with high school kids means I hear all the stories, the good and the bad, and sometimes I wonder if that has made me more cynical, more anxious. But I think it’s also the lingering memories and emotions from my own experiences; I escaped middle school fairly unscathed, but I knew so many girls who suffered some serious traumas, and I felt guilty for years, wondering if I could have been a better friend, if I could have alerted more adults who might had been able to help them. One of the difficult parts of parenting adolescents is keeping your own experience apart from theirs; your daughter is not yourself, and her life is not yours, just as her future will be different from yours. I learned some valuable lessons from those years, but I’d like my own kids to not have to pay such a high emotional cost while learning them.
I don’t anticipate blogging a lot about my kids’ middle school experience, since I’m blogging publicly here and want to respect their privacy as much as possible, but I know it will be a big part of the next few years of my life, so I’m hoping to be able to work out my own feelings in writing (here or privately) as I make the transition right along with them. What I’m also thinking about is when my kids start to pull away, how I will maintain connections with them, and what shared interests can I foster? When they start to pull away, what will I have space for in my own life, and what might I be able to pursue that I hadn’t before?
Related articles
- The Great High/Middle School Tension (youthmin.org)
- Is middle school the most critical time for parental engagement? (schoolcues.wordpress.com)
- Middle Schools CAN Impact High School Dropout Rates! (brightfutures4me.wordpress.com)
- Middle School = Awesome (mastersinteaching.wordpress.com)
- Parent Action Plan: Middle School Students – College Planning (bigfuture.collegeboard.org)
I think you hit the nail on the head– kids not old enough to drive but old enough to make life-threatening decisions…That is key. And like you, I don’t think I’ll be nearly as nervous about high school as I am about middle school!
Glad we’ll be worrying together!
As a middle school teacher, let me just reassure you both that its not always that bad. My daughter is in 8th grade and has made it through with almost no drama. It’s been a good experience for the most part. Now, there are groups of girls where I know there is sniping and cruelty. That happens, but generally, they’re modeling parents. Geeky girl doesn’t tell me everything, but she keeps the communication lines pretty open. I haven’t found it to be that fraught, and I enjoy working with the girls and helping them through their difficulties when they have them.
Laura, your students are lucky to have you–thanks so much for the reassurance–clearly I need it!
Middle school is rough. My almost-grown girl came through it unscathed but she maintains that this was only because she had a really good home life so the misery of the place rolled off (enough to make a mom feel great, but so much is just luck). Certainly, there was a lot of misery there. It’s my experience that a scary majority of kids kind of lose their minds for two or three years in the hormonal haze. Some become so upset, some become so mean – it’s awfully rough, and they need a lot of adult support, which they often don’t get due to beliefs that they should be pulling away at that age. One of the things that can help is not letting them pull away. The longer girls hold on to a family rather than peer orientation, the better they do. Being the parent who does not let them do the things they are not emotionally ready for even though everyone else is doing them and who supervises much more closely than is the norm for that age really pays off.
The hormonal haze can indeed be so destructive–my ninth grader are often so incredulous about they acted in middle school, which is only a year behind them, but they treat like ancient history! That sounds really wise about trying to hang on our family closeness as much as possible, as well as the point about emotional readiness–that is something I see with my students too, and I need to keep in mind with my own girls.
I don’t know quite what to say. This is the hardest year of parenting I’ve had in a long time. By a wide margin. Middle school is really beating the crap out of one of my kids. Two of them regularly dread Sunday nights because it means they’re going back to school in the morning. All three kids are earning excellent grades but the triplet-related social issues have shocked me, mostly having to do with other kids — and one teacher OMG — making relentless comparisons. Elba and Gemma have been in tears more than once because of these things. I have heard “I hate being a triplet” a LOT and one child has campaigned to go to another school by any means necessary (which is not possible, btw). But your school environment will be different. Your kids will handle whatever comes at them in their own ways.
Plus, I’m not sure how many of these problems have to do with middle school and how many of them have to do with puberty (one child grew three inches in two months and I could practically SEE the hormones wreaking their havoc). I don’t know if you read the Yarn Harlot or Swistle but both have written in the last few months about the emotional challenges of parenting adolescents and those posts have rung very true to me. It might be the age and I do feel, most mornings, that it’s better for everyone that they go to school, even when school is difficult.
One thing that makes it hard, I think, is that adolescence by its biological nature is INTENSE. The good things are EXCELLENT and the bad things are TOTAL DISASTERS and so kids this age are on a CONSTANT ROLLER COASTER OF EMOTIONS OMG THERE IS NO TOMORROW EVERYTHING I FEEL TODAY IS HOW I WILL FEEL FOREVER. It’s just exhausting, and I feel especially ill-prepared to ride out the bad moments, the moments when I am THE WORST MOTHER IN THE WORLD I HAVE HATED YOU FOREVER AND I WILL NEVER TALK TO YOU EVER AGAIN. Especially when I’m getting a hug and a long, fascinating conversation about some academic or political issue seven hours later after school is done. The whiplash and inability to anticipate what’s coming at me next is going to kill me, I think some days (because lack of perspective appears to be catching).
On the up side, I don’t feel like the kids having more and more independence has hurt the possibility for intimacy. We can talk about books and movies and TV and politics at a completely different level. Their reports from the front lines of adolescence are much more engaging and nuanced, or so it sees to me. I can’t really remember much before age 10 but my middle-school memories are reasonably vivid, which makes eavesdropping on the kids absolutely fascinating from a purely selfish POV. In our school district at least, adults are actually paying attention and trying to make the experience endurable — it’s not as Lord of the Flies as I remember my teen years being.
I don’t know. I guess I’m saying, I’m not sure it’s middle school per se, it’s adolescence. And adolescence isn’t avoidable. Just try not to let them get you on bedtimes. Lack of sleep makes it all worse.
Jody, thank you for your honesty and strategies. I think you’re absolutely right that puberty/adolescence are one of the major contributing factors to making this time such a tumultuous period. What you said about “lack of perspective” really rings true for me, and it’s helpful to think about how my own role could be, as a anchor and safe harbor, even when I want to shriek and throw things myself!
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