Kids and the City
How to Survive Middle School Orientation, aka Shakin’ in my Boots
It was a cold and rainy night . . .
Well, not rainy, but cold? Yes.
There I sat at the 5th-grade parent orientation meeting with all of the other folk who were sharing this horrifying experience with me when it hit me.
My days of sleeping in are over! Finished!
The Principal tried to scare us with tales of how our children were going to be experiencing extreme emotional, academic and social changes during their first year out of elementary school and all I could think about was how much coffee I will need to be drinking in order to get my son up and ready for school at 6:30 a.m.!
That’s preposterous! I thought to myself as I sat there and listened to guidance counselors regale me with examples of actual things they’d heard parents complain about during their child’s first year of middle school.
Just a few of the gems they shared with us:
“My daughter doesn’t talk to me anymore, and we used to be so close! I just KNOW something is going on with her, and I’m worried. Can you talk to her?”
and:
“My son has become disrespectful and rude to me. He REFUSES to do anything I ask. What should I do?”
After one guidance counselor, who has been around since my time, gave parents stern advice about not sending their kids to school with energy drinks of any kind, I thought, yeah, well what about the parents who have to get up at the crack o’ dawn, can they have energy drinks, mainly in the form of strong coffee? I didn’t ask him that though.
The orientation continued. Parents sat, me included, with deer-in-the-headlights looks on their faces as they were informed of the evil of MySpace, texting and peer pressure. We were told by these professionals to “increase your knowledge of adolescent development and peer pressure,” and to “try not to ‘rescue’ your child when he/she is being teased, or is struggling with a teacher.”
More coffee, please.
The evening’s events were really kicking into full swing when the exact execution of the three lunch “hours” were explained. “There will be 15 minutes where the students may eat before heading out to the courtyard area to do a number of things including but not limited to playing frisbee, throwing the football, hanging out or CHASING. Girls chasing girls, boys chasing boys, boys chasing girls, girls chasing boys and groups chasing groups.”
Make that a triple, for me.
Wait, chasing? I thought someone said that the kids weren’t supposed to consume energy drinks at school.
In the end, I left the crowded cafeteria with a sore bottom from sitting so long, a sore back from contorting my body to see around the very tall man sitting in front of me, and a fear bigger than the state of Texas. Hi Texas!
My baby, the one who just turned eleven, will be attending middle school next year. He will have one foot in childhood, one foot in adolescence and a whole brain full of crazy emotions in between. He won’t want to talk to me. He will try to get out of homework. He will be exposed to many things that he wasn’t during the first 6 years of his public school education.
The best advice given to us on this, the last night of our children’s childhood and innocence, was this: Patience is the key!
Patience, really? I’ve got some of that, hopefully enough to last the both of us during this time which, according to the school administrators, is “just the beginning and will last throughout the teenage years.”
Scared, I am.
And coffee, I will need - in extreme amounts.
Cross-posted at Third Time’s A Charm?
Carrie is a stay-at-home mother of three and wife to one busy firefighter. You can read more of Carrie’s mothering meanderings at her personal blog, Third Time’s A Charm? Please send suggestions to carrieb[at]seattlemomblogs.com.
It’s scary isn’t it. There is so much more for an adolescent to get into these days and so much more for the parent to be aware of , to not do, to do, etc etc. Nothing like when I was that age. Geez, by the time the twins are ready for middle school, I’m just going to ask to be instantly committed. I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle it
YES - The mornings are horrid - school itself isn’t so bad. My still-a-kid 5th grader is really enjoying the diversity and challenge of separate classes. And yes, he’s learned to roll his eyes. Another stage in the adventure - they get by with love and laughter.
It’s really not that awful, and it’s really not worse than it “used to be”. I was in middle school back when it was called “junior high”.
During 8th grade, the dances were cancelled because several kids got caught drinking and doing some, let’s say, “heavy petting” out behind the school. And this was a “good school” in a “nice town”.
A couple of years later, my sister at the same school had a classmate who was stoned every single day of the week.
Nothing is different except that the fear of these years seems to have racheted up, just like the fear of everything else has been.
If you have a good relationship with your kid, he or she will make mostly good decisions based on what you’ve taught them. Sure they will stumble and get defiant once in awhile, but that’s because they are on the edge of beginning the long journey to complete independence.
I’ve had two make it through so far-one with a lot of challenges and one with well, zero. She waited until high school for that.
But in the end, they do listen to you, even when they roll their eyes and act snotty. And they come to their senses eventually. You know that old song by Joni Mitchell, The Circle Game? It’s all true. This is just the go-round of the carousel.
Agi you’re so calm! I felt calm just reading your post. I was starting to get scared (I don’t even have kids yet) and then you made me feel better!
Susan,
Believe me, there are days when “calm” isn’t even on my radar! But it helps to realize that unless things have gone very, very wrong, kids WILL be ok, and you as parents WILL live through it.
One thing that I’ve seen change over the years is that kids are actually MORE willing to talk to their parents than in the past. So keeping the lines of communication open helps a lot.
Good luck in the future!