New world awaits in middle school
By Treena Shapiro
Tips for parents
The educational nonprofit Partnership for Learning offers several resources for parents of middle-schoolers at www.part nershipforlearning.org
Among them are these tips for helping students make the transition to middle school. In a nutshell:
Be upbeat about what lies ahead, and focus on the positive rather than recounting your own bad experiences in middle school.
Recognize their fears and give them strategies to cope with them.
Offer support, make sure to spend time with your child and keep the lines of communication open.
Hold your children accountable for their grades and homework assignments.
Give your children the opportunity to make decisions on their own.
Pick your battles.
Give them the tools they need to succeed, such as a dictionary, thesaurus, calculator and academic planner.
Allow them the freedom to make mistakes.
Next week: Helping your child with the transition to high school
Somewhere between fifth and eighth grade, students have to leave the comfort of self-contained classrooms and move to the bigger middle school world of class schedules, showers after gym and locker combinations.
While children worry over whether they will make friends, be bullied by older students or be able to navigate the campus, parents can help ease the transition by providing support.
Dennis Kajikawa, an educational specialist who oversees public school counselors, said one thing parents can do is try to make sure their children participate in transition programs offered by their school.
By the time youths reach middle school, they will be pushing for more independence, but parents should remain involved and really get to know their children.
"Get to know your kid. Get involved. Get to know the teachers," Kajikawa said.
School counselors can help parents keep track of their children's progress. While parent-teacher conferences may no longer be mandatory, Kajikawa points out the conferences can be requested through the counselor's office.
"(Conferences) can validate what you know and what you think you know about your kids," he said.
The National Middle School Association offers these tips to parents to help their children make the transition to middle school:
Advertiser Education Writer
