Adolescence Ain’t for the Weak

BY JEN HOLMAN

I grew up in a rural Arkansas town so small, middle school didn’t exist. Two parallel brick buildings housed kindergarten through sixth, and seventh through 12th grades. The entire school shared a library, a cafeteria, a counselor. I know hindsight is 20/20, but I remember very little pre-teen drama. The horror stories about middle school transcend time and towns, though. The years spent in middle school are the worst of many lives; people cringe at the mere mention of the words.

With no experience of my own, I find myself parenting a middle schooler from scratch. It’s not just a new chapter in our lives; it’s a whole new world. I need help, and fast.

Middle school is a time for transition, and by transition I mean big, hairy changes. Our kids are not just dealing with new schools and new friends, but new bodies, new feelings. And right smack in the middle of puberty we uproot them from the safety of their elementary schools, where they’re the kings and queens, and thrust them into an unfamiliar building full of strangers. As if keeping their hormones in check and themselves together isn’t hard enough, now they have to navigate new teachers, social structures and lockers. Literally everything is different, but as parents we expect them to remain the same.

When our happy-go-lucky sidekicks suddenly become prickly hermits who shut their bedroom doors and only surface when forced for dinner, it’s easy to take it personally. But learning this distance is just a casualty of increased independence, of leaving childhood behind, can relieve a worried parent’s mind. It’s just one of many normal developmental milestones.

Navigating change in friendships and social groups can be hard on kids, too. When a handful of small elementary schools are combined to form one big middle school, friend groups and hierarchies are upended. I’ve heard over and over the same story of close friends — boys and girls — leaving elementary together, and one feeling left behind as the other joins a new friend group. It’s a natural, normal time for change, but that doesn’t mean those changes aren’t painful.

Friendships, independence, puberty, bullying, boundaries, bad influences, body images — it’s all so overwhelming and scary. What can we do to help these pre-teen strangers transition from our babies to kind, confident young people? What can we do to help ourselves? No matter how many books we read we can’t protect our children from hardships and conflict. We shouldn’t even want to. They need those experiences as practice at being adults. But there are things we can do to help them weather some of the larger storms. I’ve been reading “Queen Bees and Wannabes,” a New York Times best-selling book by Rosalind Wiseman. The basis for the film (and play) “Mean Girls,” this book is so very enlightening, and I recommend it to any parents of daughters fifth grade and up. I wish I’d read it before my middle schooler took the big leap.

“Queen Bees and Wannabes” not only breaks down the varying roles girls play in cliques and reveals the often-baffling motivations of middle schoolers, it also helps us as parents check our own baggage. To me, it has offered invaluable insight on how to help (or not help) my child navigate social pressures, friendships and boundaries. It offers suggestions, and even scripts, for how to deal with a number of tough situations.

I realize this is beginning to sound like a book review, but I am a parent adrift in the treacherous waters of middle school. I can’t captain this ship without a map and a compass. If you don’t right now, maybe you’ll need help soon, too, and when you do at least you’ll have another tool in your parenting toolbox. While we’re on the topic, “Untangled” by Lisa Damour, Ph.D., is an insightful guide for a girl’s transition to adolescence, and I’ve heard, “Masterminds and Wingmen,” also by Rosalind Wiseman, is a very good book for parents of boys.

My family is only in the beginning of our journey through adolescence. This first foray into middle school has proved a bit of a challenge though, honestly, I don’t know who it’s harder for — my child or me. But by educating myself and taking a step back, I’m realizing all of these changes are normal, healthy milestones on the way to young adulthood. We’ll be OK, but please send positive vibes this way as we deal with all this independence and angst.