ON YOUR MARK, GET SET, GO!
Fasten your seatbelt and get ready because life in your family is about to speed up! The Middle School years involve an explosion of growth and change. Your young teen will experience dramatic bursts in thinking and physical development, intense socialization with peers, and an increased awareness of the world. All of these extraordinary changes mark the first step in a transformative process, one that produces a unique, independent-thinking individual. These few short years are sure to be a dramatic and exciting phase in your child’s life. This multi-media program is designed to help you approach this phase feeling informed, empowered, and knowledgeable about how you can enhance and support your young teen’s progress through this exciting transition.
INTRODUCTION
Whether your child attends a middle school or junior high that begins in 5th, 6th, or 7th grade, this promises to be an exciting and dynamic ride! Your child may be at the head of the curve developmentally or hanging toward the back of the pack. Regardless, there is lots of new growth about to take place. The rate at which your child will develop through the middle school years will be unique to your teen. You can’t hurry up the process, or slow it down, but you can play a vitally important role in how your teen perceives and experiences this time. You can enhance this short and dynamic time by the way you interact, communicate, and support your young teenager, or soon-to-be teen. This requires some learning on your part; your child is changing and so must you.
Parents of middle school kids can feel confused by what seems like conflicting advice. Perhaps you’ve been told things like, “Parents don’t get as involved in middle school as they did in elementary school.” What exactly does that mean? We’ll help you sort that out. Perhaps your young teenager is pushing you away, demonstrating less interest in spending time with you and little regard for your opinion. Does this mean you should back off, and give your teen more space? We’ll help you understand this behavior and how you really do still fit into your teen’s life. Or, maybe your teen is actually still quite young and timid, causing you to worry that he’s not ready to navigate middle school. We’ll help you understand the wide range of “normal” for this age group.
Middle school doesn’t last long, and yet the changes your child experiences are really substantial. A tween enters middle school as a youngster and exits a few short years later as a vastly different person. Some parents view this stage with trepidation and even fear, knowing their child will face new challenges and expectations. It can be scary to watch them striving to become their own person, making serious decisions about academics, relationships, sexual conduct, friends, values and choices around peer pressure and risky behavior. While we understand this response, you should know that fear is not necessary. In actuality, it can undermine your best intentions.
We have prepared this program to inform, guide, and reassure you that you can provide the kind of support your teenager needs to develop into his or her true potential. Before you begin this program, we suggest you read “How to Get the Most out of Parenting Through Middle School,” provided as part of this module. While our goal is to deliver this multi-media program in a fashion that allows you to read, view, and listen to relevant information about middle school in about 30 – 60 minutes, we encourage you to spend as much time as you need to progress through the following three parts:
- Part 1 – Your Changing Child
- Part 2 – How Parenting Changes
- Part 3 – Supporting Your Middle School Student in School
Each unit shares What Parents Can Expect (On Your Mark!), What Parents Need to Know (Get Set!), and What Parents Need to Do (Go!).
You will find that our approach combines our professional credentials and knowledge of the latest evidence-based research, with our personal experience parenting our own teenagers and working with other parents of teens across the country. We speak your language, share your adventures, and don’t tell you how to parent. We encourage you to bring your best self, and your family values, to this important and exciting part of your parenting journey.
Shelly D. Mahon, Ph.D. and Sue Blaney
Co-authors
Thank you for your interest in Parenting Through Middle School. Once you have had a chance to review the tool kit, please take a moment to complete a short survey. Completing this survey gives us your consent to participate in a study designed to gain a better understand of parenting teens. This will help us produce more quality products for parents of teens. Please click here to take the survey.
