Becoming the Parent Middle Schoolers Need
This mini-guide offers ten tips for parents, each a way to evolve our parenting to stay connected to, and in best service of, the middle schooler in our lives. These build on and complement the ideas explored in the book Finding the Magic in Middle School. Our children are on a journey of epic transformation — and it turns out that as their parents, so are we.
#1: Expect Transformation
When you were the parent of a newborn, you expected transformation. You knew that the years ahead would be ones of incredible change. You might have asked others for advice, or read a book or two about developmental stages and “what to expect” in the early years of life. Without this guidance, the early years of parenthood would be completely bewildering, and perhaps often frustrating. When we can anticipate and prepare for great change, whether the “terrible twos” or the transformations of puberty, we’re likely to enjoy the experience far more.
The comparison between early childhood and early adolescence is relevant, because these are the two periods of peak brain change in our entire lives. It can hard to be in these stages, not to mention hard to parent someone through these stages. So, just as much as you prepared for the early-childhood years, the same preparation is called for as your child enters middle school and begins the transformation of puberty.
#2: Look For a New Job
It’s understandable to feel like the “boss” of a young child. But when that child enters adolescence, aware of their growing maturity and able to understand much more of the adult world, trying to still act like their boss can be a recipe for conflict.
You can resist this shift—or you can expect it and proactively look for a new “job”, a new way to be a parent. This new role still has authority: you are a parent and your love, boundaries, and consistent role in your child’s life are still essential. But your way of being with them can and should shift.
As a thought experiment to help you define this new role, imagine that you are heading off on a wilderness trek, just you, through beautiful but sometimes dangerous territory. What kind of guide would you want? Probably not someone lecturing you constantly — but perhaps someone who could point out what was essential to keep you safe. They would enjoy the journey with you, patiently supporting the adventures you wanted to have. They would not take your mistakes personally. They would be able to laugh easily with you, to be a trustworthy and dependable presence.
Imagine this guide. These and other qualities that you would want are likely what an adolescent wants too. The journey is theirs. The identity forming is theirs. But their relationship to their guides—and whether they have a genuine guide—will matter greatly in how they discover themselves and how much they enjoy the process. This is your invitation to evolve. It’s the role being offered to you to remain powerful and connected as a child begins the adventure of adolescence.
#3: Look Beneath Behavior
Sooner or later, something your middle school child does will trigger you. You may be swept up in strong emotions or fears, and tempted to punish or react strongly.
In these moments, it is essential to look beneath the behavior. Assuming it’s not an emergency situation, can you trace a line from their outer expression — the words or behavior that troubled you — down to their core developmental needs?
Let’s say that they’ve been teasing a friend, and crossed a line into hurtful words. There was harm done that needs a repair — but to repair it well, ask yourself, what developmental need were they trying to meet when things went wrong?
Perhaps they were trying to connect with a friend, trying to meet the deep need for belonging, and what seemed like playful words turned into something hurtful. Knowing this does not excuse their behavior. But it can give you empathy for what they’re trying to do — to connect and find belonging — and point you toward a deeper response to their behavior. Punishing them is not going to solve their need to connect. In this example, your deeper work, after helping them repair any immediate damage done, is to set the conditions for them to find belonging and learn how to connect positively with others.
This is just one example, but the principle applies across different behaviors. Each time you’re troubled by a behavior, trace it back to one of their core developmental needs. In Part 1 of Finding the Magic in Middle School, you’ll learn about the three developmental drives, as well as three developmental stages, that shape middle schoolers’ experience. Even when they seem like they’re trying to cause trouble, underneath it all, you can be sure that they are sincerely working to meet their developmental needs. They don’t always have the skills or savvy yet to meet them in positive ways. That’s where you come in. If their behavior is causing problems, help them meet those deeper needs in healthier ways.
#4: Take Many Small Leaps of Faith
Adolescents are usually well aware that they’re becoming more sophisticated. At some point, they’ll start asking for more freedom. We adults may share this as a long-term goal, but we usually lag behind. A likely explanation is the anchoring effect, a form of cognitive bias in which we tend to give too much weight to our earlier experiences of someone.
The anchoring effect explains why we often end up in conflict around our child’s growing independence. We’re “anchored” on how they were as a young child. We remember when they couldn’t cross the street by themselves. We know how immature they can be in their least aware moments. But our children, growing rapidly toward adulthood, are aware that they can handle much more. They want to be respected for their highest possible maturity, not their average level, and certainly not how they used to be. This leads to much of the conflict between parents and their adolescent children.
What can you do in response? Give them as much autonomy and responsibility as you are comfortable. Then give them a little more. Remember that your comfort zone is not likely to be their optimal zone of growth. If you’re comfortable, you are likely holding them back.
#5: Find Influence Through Peers
At some point for nearly every adolescent, peers will become more influential than parents. This is not a choice that adolescents make, and it’s not meant to push you away. It’s a response to brain changes. Puberty activates the parts of their brains that orient them to the social world, opening new interests, fears, and fascinations with the world of peers. Adolescents are powerfully motivated to find belonging among peers, and at the same time to individuate, or discover who they are beyond their family of origin.
There is no sense fighting the drive toward peers. We can put some parameters around it, and then most of all, we can work with it. First, remember that adolescents need belonging among peers more than almost anything else. Help them belong to groups of peers whose influence you would be happy with. Try to find ways to observe and be present without being the center – like driving carpool, offering to host a party, bringing snacks over, etc. Take advantage of the fact that if there are both peers and adults around, and the adults are not trying to dominate or observe too overtly, they will gradually fade into the background in the perception of many adolescents.
#6: Offer Freedom of Identity
Adolescents are identity scientists, constantly experimenting to figure out who they are.
They may test out different opinions, styles, groups, activities, even names. All of this is normal and healthy. Our job is to help them be good experimenters. One of the best ways we can do that is by offering them freedom of identity.
That means not reacting strongly to their experiments. Avoid shaming them or shutting them down unless you are certain harm is being done. Stay open to unexpected twists in their identity, knowing that it’s an experiment and not necessarily permanent. Avoid being too effusive with praise, which can feel like pressure to make an experimental identity a permanent identity.
Remember the prize here — this is their time to discover who they are. This is not just a romantic ideal. It’s where their power is. As they tinker toward elements of their identity that feel authentic and natural, they discover interests and passions for which they have enduring motivation. They’ll be more resilient, less prone to give up in these pursuits. They’ll likely bring more creativity, and with that motivation will develop greater levels of skill. With their authentic identity comes their full power.
#7: Accept the Invitation
Being with those in transformation is an invitation to transform yourself. Take up the challenge to work on yourself. Your self-work connects you with the excitement and confusion your child is feeling. Adolescents need adults who are questing for their own vitality and authenticity.
This might mean re-discovering or finding new hobbies. Or testing out new or dormant parts of your identity. As you build new skills, you’ll naturally start off rough and awkward, and those moments are powerful modeling for the middle schooler in your life. And hopefully, fun and enlivening for you.
It may also be an antidote to an effect many parents describe as a form of grief, as our children individuate and begin to focus their identity outside of the family. If we are relying too much on them for our happiness, we may accidentally push them further away, and experience a greater sense of loss. Discovering our own avenues of change adds new energy to our lives, and may create points of connection with the rapid growth our children are experiencing.
The poet Rainer Maria Rilke may have said it best: “You are not too old and it is not too late to dive into your increasing depths where life calmly gives out its own secret.”
#8: Create Healthy Separation
It’s hard to resist projecting your hopes and fears onto your child, even defining success for them. This often becomes more true as they mature, and as you become aware of how few years you have before they’re “on their own.” Yet, if we become more demanding in these years, we may accidentally work directly against their growing need for independence and autonomy.
Remind yourself that they need to wander before they can return home; that the long-term goal of independence is shared; and that it’s normal and healthy for adolescents to seek to understand their identity in the peer world, beyond their family of origin. Parents still hold enormous influence, but less and less control.
If you find yourself having a bigger emotional reaction to something in their lives than they do, it’s a signal that you may need to create a little more psychological distance. At minimum, before you take action, ask yourself which of your needs are at play. Healthy separation means that you do not expect them to be a younger version of you, or to carry your ways of being in the world as their own.
#9: Find Community
For all the reasons described on this list, parenting an adolescent is an intense adventure. It demands profound change from you — perhaps even the biggest changes since you first became a parent. There is no need to face this alone. A journey of transformation, alone, can feel like a nightmare. With a few trusted companions it becomes an adventure, generating meaning and memories through the ups and downs.
If you don’t have a close group of friends with similar-aged children, a group that can be honest and vulnerable with each other, consider how to find or create one. It may be one of your most essential resources to maintain your agility and humor as a parent. And secondarily, do it for the valuable modeling it offers your child. Let them see what close community and friendship look like among adults.
#10: Find Humor
Don’t take any part of this too seriously. It’s so easy to fall into that trap, when such big things are happening. But all the more, that means that the way you live through this time will mark both you and your child for the rest of your lives. It’s natural to hold onto the steering wheel tighter and tighter when the journey is intense. But humor has an almost magical way of releasing that tension and inviting connection.
Having a parent community, those with similar-age children and a non-competitive, open spirit, is especially helpful for our humor. With fellow parents we can notice the strangeness of this journey — and of our own children! We can find the humor in what others might find frustrating or confusing situations.
Watch movies from your own teen years again. See the absurdity in it. Find a photo of your teenage self. Discover the stand-up comedian who speaks to this experience the best — or become one. At heart, remember that adolescence is supposed to be messy. In this series of disasters and revelations, laughter wins out over correctness just about every time.