Middle School grades 6, 7, and 8. Some of the toughest growing-up years! In 6th grade, most students transition to middle school. They are expected to understand grades and grading even though they are not taught averages until after the semester break sometime around February/March. Lots of them take a semester final for the very first time. That final counts for 10% of their semester average. They are prepubescent, no longer little kids, but not teens either. I like to refer to it as the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde years. Expectations have exponentially increased, but the instruction and knowledge base doesn’t always seem to coincide. So with that being said, how do we help our tweens travel this new road of responsibility and expectations? I’m talking about kids the ages of 11-14 which is generally what we see in grades 6-8.
At home, tweens need lots of sleep. You are entering the years when their bodies go through a ton of changes. They want to stay up all night and sleep all day. Adults are no longer their focus. In previous years, tweens wanted attention from mom and dad. They wanted your approval, your specific positive praise. Not anymore. Tweens operate in an almost pack mentality. Their friends and their peers are the important ones. They have their phones stuck in front of their face 24/7. You walk into their room at 10:30 at night and they are face-timing some kid you have never seen before and you don’t know his/her parents. How do you, as a first-time tween parent traverse the obstacle course that has become your child? Hyperemotional one minute, the devil may care the next, and the mouth, oh that mouth. Where did your sweet loving little angel disappear to? That sweet boy/girl you raised, is still in there. You are just experiencing their first steps toward emotional independence. As parents, we can do a few things to help our tweens.
At home:
Bedtime
As the family schedule becomes increasingly hectic, you can create a family calendar online. I do this by using the family plan through Apple and the calendar feature. Put in their practices, their games, hair appointments, doctor, dentist, and orthodontic appointments. Now they know what is going on in the family. When they ask to go somewhere, have someone over, or have a change in routine, have them consult the calendar. Introducing a family calendar has many benefits. First, most of us have more than one kid, so scheduling truly gets hectic. As a tween, they are old enough to understand that you cannot be in two places at the same time. Now you have an extra set of eyes seeing what is coming for the week. Second, part of becoming an adult is the ability to organize your time and your responsibilities when they can see the calendar, they see you model time management and begin to think of their own schedule and time management.
Tweens still need a bedtime. My rule of thumb is 6th grade, 9 pm. 7th grade 9:30. 8th grade 10 pm. Of course, some nights we have to flex when we attend big sister’s volleyball game out of town, or our band concert runs long, but generally, this is my guide.
Phones need to be turned in to the kitchen or placed on downtime (thank you Apple) but be careful kids hate downtime and they will try to outsmart you and your password…..frequently.
Now that you have a family calendar right there handy for them on their phone, they can also begin to add in their responsibilities from school. “Remember, Mom, my choir concert is”…… even better, they can put it in the family calendar. When they have homework assigned they can set a reminder. Test coming up on Friday? They can put it in. Lots of teachers give out study guides for upcoming tests and give extra credit to students who get their parents to sign the guide. Ooh, now we are improving grades, studying, and communicating with parents!
Chores
Tweens need chores. Some things they need to learn how to do before they go off to their apartment or college. My kids are responsible for their laundry. I do this for a couple of reasons. One, this is a life skill. Two, when they leave their lip gloss or chapstick in their shorts, I don’t want them ruining my clothes. Three, my daughter sleeps with her dogs and I don’t. I cannot stand stray little dog hairs on my clothes. Fourth, my son sweats like a fiend and I don’t want my clothes near his. Finally, I work full-time, run a blog, and am a wife, and a mom of five kids. Why should I be stuck in the laundry room every waking hour? They are their clothes. They can wash them, separate from mine. I hate ironing, so I pull my clothes out of the dryer and get them hung up or folded so I don’t have wrinkles. If my tween wants to walk around looking like a wrinkled mess that is on him/her. Generally, they will realize they look a bit wrinkly and will either make the appropriate correction or their peers will notice and then they will make the correction. Remember as a tween, what mom/dad says is essentially hot air, old-fashioned, or just plain wrong. Ask your tween, he/she knows everything. Each kid has a laundry basket in their room. They are responsible for bringing it downstairs and getting their laundry done. I will admit to being nice (or just being a mom) and throwing their things in the wash or flipping them to the dryer. Sometimes, I might even fold for them, but usually, it looks more like, “Billy, your clothes are in your basket, please take them upstairs.” Really, why can’t a tween be responsible for his/her laundry?
Dinner
Now I am not saying throw the tweens to the wolves in the kitchen. Your kitchen will never be the same. However, if I cook, should I have to clean? If my hubby cooks, should he have to clean? Being able to clean a kitchen is most certainly a life skill. So is being able to cook a meal or two. Choose a simple family meal that your kids eat and is not gourmet. Cook with them, showing them, modeling, and having them place the ingredients. Now, I’m going to say that the tweens should be cooking dinner, so if using the stove when you are not home is not something you are comfortable with, choose a different meal that doesn’t involve stovetop cooking. Crockpots are pretty easy, user-friendly, and generally won’t allow your tween to A. Burn down the house and B. Burn themselves. Once you have selected the dinner, make it with him/her. Do this a couple of times, gradually taking yourself out of the equation. Remember my philosophy of parenting, my job is to put myself out of a job. So the last time you make this meal with your tween, you should be sitting at the counter/kitchen table observing. Even tweens like to be told they did a good job, so don’t forget your specific positive praise (remember I am the creator of Camp Mommy Rocks) I too need praise and reinforcement. Now that your tween is comfortable with a meal or two, add him/her to the weekly cooking rotation. Have to take your little to dance practice? No problem, your tween is home, and rather than camping in front of the Xbox, or having their phone coming out of their ear, they can make dinner. I do have a caveat, if your tween makes dinner, then the same rule applies, he/she shouldn’t have to clean the kitchen.
Cell phones
Having a tween means they either have a phone or are bugging you constantly to have a phone. If you have already given your child a phone, it is very very difficult to put that rabbit back in the box. So how do you A. protect them from child predators B. know with whom they are speaking C. keep them from playing/watching brainless clips 24/7?
I am not going to go into the nitty-gritty of what apps and games you should/should not allow your child to have…that is a different post and many people have already covered that. What I am going to say is this. You do need to know what is going on and who your tween is talking to.
Since you are using his/her phone for the family calendar, let’s assume your family has chosen to give your tween a phone. Honestly, it makes life easier. I do remind my kids that their phone is mine and they have it for me. When I want/need to get in touch with them, that is the phone’s actual purpose. I do have find my iPhone feature turned on. I do have Life 360 turned on and I pay monthly for the premium as I do have teen drivers and I can see where they are and how fast they drove to get there. (that is another post, teens and driving sigh) With my tweens, I have restrictions (all done through Apple in settings) that allow them to delete apps. I do not allow them to add apps without permission. Phones go on downtime at 9 pm for my 6th grader. She is given four hours a day of access during the school week. No negotiation. If she uses up all her time, too bad, she needs to find something else to do. That includes using her phone to listen to music. Interestingly, we have a 25-minute drive to and from school every day. At first, she whined that 4 hours was not enough time. However, she also has practice, homework, and chores. In actuality, she is not using all of that time. When she does, that is when she appears in the family room, wants to know what I am doing, or grabs her laundry and gets started. I also restrict her contacts. She does not have access to anyone but mom, dad, and brothers/sisters during downtime. She also uses her phone as her alarm clock. For Christmas, she got that handy little 3 in 1 charging station for her phone (it is mounted and looks like an alarm clock screen), an Apple watch charger (she doesn’t have an Apple watch), and an Airpod charger (she has permanently borrowed her brothers) her alarm used to go off at 6 am. Now, it goes off at 530 am because she dawdles and moves slowly and wastes time. She does not get to make me late for work. School policy is she can have a phone, but it must be turned off. Honestly, I don’t know if she turns it off or not, she has not had it confiscated and I have not had a problem so whatever she is doing seems to be working. Downtime kicks in at 9 pm. At first, she asked for more time. Now she doesn’t say a word. So I have downtime programmed and I have app limits programmed for four hours. That is how I manage her screen time. No TV in her room. She has the family calendar on her phone, but she does forget to add everything I put in the calendar, so I remind her and add them when I go through her phone. Yes, I go through her phone. She is a tween. She is not an adult. She is not fully matured, she is susceptible to predators, bullies, and making bad choices, and her privacy is earned it is not a right it is also an illusion.
Organizing your tween for school.
Kids don’t carry textbooks or trapper keepers anymore. Generally, their notes stay in their composition book that is kept in their classroom. Why their backpacks weigh a small ton is beyond me. My daughters’ school issues Chromebooks, that they carry around all day, but do not bring home. They brought them home a few years ago and they had a record number of broken Chromebooks. So, in her backpack, we use a folder. A folder for home to school. Absence notes and notes to teachers are put in her folder. When she has homework, she puts it in her folder. A review for a test goes in the folder. When the school sends home the report card, picture day, permission slips, and dates for all the band concerts, and basketball games it goes in the folder. It is a simple management tool. In the brain world, these are called executive functioning skills. Many, many kids struggle with these skills. They do not remember that they were given homework, thus it does not get done. They don’t remember that you gave them an absence note to turn in. Or that you filled out the permission slip for the field trip. Enter the folder. If they put the assignment in the folder, and you have a system at home of what they do with that folder, they can find success (complete and turn in their homework) What this looks like: When the kids come home, they take the folder out of their backpack and place it in a specific location in the house. At our house, it is the kitchen counter. They open it and take a look. This triggers them to do their homework that is right in front of them in the folder, study for the test, etc. They MUST return the paper(s) to the folder. Then when I get home, (or get around to it) I open the folder and take a look. I can look over homework, and see if they have a test, this triggers me to ask them about the test, if have they studied, and go over the guide with them…..When they are at school and the agenda for the day says turn in your homework, or the teacher says, “Turn in their homework” your child knows to go directly to the folder and pull out the homework. It sounds simple, I know, but executive functioning skills are very important and make life very hard for children who struggle with them. Hopefully, with these little tweaks to your daily routine, you have found some extra time. Make sure some of that time is spent on you. Check out my post on Taking Care of me.