Tales From The Middle School Trenches

Transitions, Triumphs, and Takeaways - A Mom's Perspective

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Hello, hello dear friends!

I am so happy to be connecting here. I hope your weekend has been a revelation of fun. The school year is coming to a close, graduations are happening, and summer travel is beckoning. It is a fun time indeed. My son is wrapping up 7th grade, my daughter 2nd, and we will be kicking off our travels overseas in a few weeks. I would be delighted to know what you and yours are up to in the coming months, so please share in the comments.

On to this week’s micro issue of my Little Black Book of hot off the press, favorite finds plus tried and true, time tested treasures…

1. Circling, also known as Council, is a transformative practice of connecting, healing, and growing through deep, empathic listening and authentic sharing. The sacred practice is based on ancient indigenous traditions and it is one that I have been engaged in for well over a decade. It has changed my life and born some of my closest friendships. My son and daughter have grown up in the circle. Creating a special space for my family and friends to share in this practice at our new home is incredibly important to me. A custom Earthworks Tipi by Secret Creek will be that space within our future garden as well as a space for Founding Circle Members of A Life Considered to meet from time to time.

2. This Is So Awkward by Cara Patterson and Vanessa Kroll Bennett has been a great resource for me as I talk with my son about the changes he is experiencing in his body and his relationships. This is one of many outstanding books in my arsenal to help me support my growing children. I highly recommend it.

3. A few things that are literally almost always with me are chocolate, my green smoothie, and this Carter Move Mug by Fellow. Out of the dozens I have used over the years, nothing has compared. First of all, aesthetically it is clean and chic, which is important to me as it is a daily accessory. Second, it keeps my tea and coffee incredibly fresh and piping hot for hours and hours. No joke. Third, it is very easy to clean so I never worry about grim or bacteria residing in hard to reach crevices. I truly love it!

Tales From The Middle School Trenches: Transitions, Triumphs, and Takeaways — A Mom’s Perspective

Truth be told, I am thrilled that the school year is coming to a close, especially for my 7th grade son. June 5th will mark his, and dare I say our, last day of his first year of middle school at a wonderful, yet also demanding college prep school. A reprieve from the rush of school mornings and the relentless schedule of homework and tests is welcomed by both of us.

With the culmination of this milestone, I am taking away two overarching lessons I’ve learned over the course of this very big transitional school year.

Lesson 1: Attending Children’s Community School, a true progressive education school for kindergarten through 6th grade, that focuses on the development of the whole child, raising citizens to participate in democracy, and the importance of self determination for their education and their lives was a distinct advantage in my son being prepared to succeed in middle school.

Some people have the misconception that progressive school will not adequately prepare its graduates to successfully hold their own in school after graduation. The fear is that if they send their child to a progressive school, then they might find themselves behind their peers who come from more traditional schools that focus primarily on class curriculum, homework, and testing.

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Having graduated from both UCLA and Fuqua School of Business at Duke, the most valuable lessons I have learned at school were not, in fact, Statistics or Value Chain Innovation in Business Processes, but rather how to find, understand, and integrate what I need to learn, how to critically think and problem solve, how to manage multiple deliverables over a finite period of time, and how to collaboratively work, play and even live together with people of different backgrounds, cultures, perspectives, and ideologies.

School was a safe and practical place to practice learning the critical skills necessary to make my way through this world successfully. Grit, resilience, anti fragility, and curiosity coupled with time management, research, and people skills are all fruits of that labor. I am a devoted life-long learner, comfortable in the inevitability of “falling seven” yet confident in my ability to “rise eight,” in my pursuit to figure out what I don’t yet know but need to. This has served me very well.

Because of my experience, my priority for my son’s primary years of schooling was for his curiosity to be flamed, a love of learning instilled, and strong social-emotional skills facilitated, modeled, and taught. I wanted the innate thirst for knowledge that all children are born with to continue to be ignited via engaging, hands-on experiential instruction. I wanted him to learn systems to move from not knowing something, to figuring out what he needs to learn and how to find those answers, to then making sense of the information and internalizing the knowledge. Basically, alchemizing ignorance, in the true definition of the word, to knowledge, while developing a strong sense of positive self-worth and confidence in his ability. I found all of this, and so much more, at his progressive education primary school.

He had rich years of learning in grade school, including world class programs in human development, music, and art. He then had time outside of school for free play, to pursue his love of music, and to explore many different activities, hobbies, and sports. He tried equestrian riding (and broke his arm), jiu jitsu, climbing, and robotics, to name a few endeavors he found were not so much his jam. He dived into soccer, tennis, surfing, basketball, and music, including songwriting, instrument playing, and music production, all of which he still is very passionate about. He spent time building cities of wooden blocks, Legos, and Magnatiles, outfitted with people, animals, and cars. Most importantly, though, he learned to understand more about who he is and who he is not.

These formative years steeped in self discovery, democratic participation, and social-emotional development helped my son to believe in himself and the value of his worth, his contribution, and his impact.

This internal belief structure intentionally supported by his progressive primary school translated to a successful middle school experience at a highly competitive college prep school in the following ways:

• Being comfortable and confident enough in who he is and what he values in a friend to not glom onto the first group of peers he found himself with, but rather to wait to find “his people” with whom he shares similar values.

• Taking the initiative to advocate for his needs such as seeking clarity on class material and assignments, requesting periodic lunch meetings with his Humanities and Science teachers when needing extra support, and seeking out insight from his athletic coaches on what skills he needs to develop in order to be more competitive.

• Trusting his teachers’ guidance and suggestions, such as moving to the front of the class in Science to better help him focus, because he sees his teachers as partners in his success and wellbeing.

• Believing in himself to try new and even “high risk” social endeavors such as singing original pieces, solo, in front of hundreds of his peers, other local schools, California Senator Henry Stern, NASA scientists, and others. Check it out…

The cultural norm within the U.S. that our kids must do more, more, more, and earlier, earlier, earlier in order to get ahead and succeed is a fallacy. Don’t take my word for it. According to the National Center for Education Statistics’ international comparative study of 15 year old students’ performance in math, reading, and science literacy conducted by PISA (the Program for International Student Assessment) in 2022, the U.S. ranked 28th in math, 6th in reading, and 12th in science out of 37 OECD (the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries. Additionally, the U.S.’s education rankings have fallen by international standards over the past three decades.

In sports there is this idea of letting our kids play while they are young for the love of the game because if we push too hard, too young, they become burnt out prematurely. The love for the game gets drilled or drained out of them. So, too, with our children’s natural instinct to be life long learners. If we are not careful, if we are too heavy handed, if we drain the awe and possibility out of learning, that light can be dimmed or even extinguished before it gets going.

My son’s transition from primary school to that of middle school marked a big transition for me, too, as his mother.

I came to realize that parenting, when children are young, involves invoking “no” often, based on our need to keep them safe, while they are learning about cause and effect. “If I put M&M’s up my nose while my mom is not looking, what will happen?” (Luckily we found out that they just melt.) “If I climb up the closet shelves, what will happen?” “If I pull my sister’s hair, what will happen?” And on and on the experiments go. Over these years we explain, teach, guide, and put a myriad of constraints on our children to keep them safe until their judgement further develops.

Once we have teens, our job needs to shift to saying “yes” as much as we can while keeping them out of jail and the hospital. I say this tongue in cheek, while also holding true to the point that we want to honor and meet our teens in their developmentally appropriate search for more freedom and autonomy, while still committing to our family values and keeping them safe.

Often a paradigm shift in our parenting mindset is more than enough to kickstart this new dynamic between our children and us. Thinking in terms of mentoring versus dictating has made a significant difference in how I show up for my son and has been the glue that has kept us on the same team.

All this to say, the second lesson I learned is…

Lesson 2: Parenting a teenager requires us to meet their developmental need for more autonomy by transitioning to leading with “yes,” while keeping a watchful eye to catch when more guidance is still needed and then pulling back the reigns accordingly.

Lastly, I have found one tool and one truth that most helps me to stay connected to my son during these times of transition and bumps in the road that are par for the course:

The Tool: I take time to really reflect back to my time as a 13 year old teenager. Who was I, what was I struggling with, and what did I want and need from my parents?

The Truth: My relationship with my son, and specifically our strong connection, is more important to me than anything else. So when teen mistakes are made or frustrations arise, I work to align my response to one that will bring us together instead of drive us apart. This usually means talking with him calmly and addressing the opportunity to grow as a supportive coach instead of a nagging, shaming judge.

Both of these tenets help keep me on track in my efforts to do right by my son, by me, and by our relationship.

With love and support as we traverse milestones and transitions, xoxo.