Editor's note: Last month, The Advertiser began its series on passages in a family's life with a package of stories about the stresses of preschool parents. This month, we continue with a look at the middle-school years.

Thirteen-year-old Iopu Brian really doesn't know why, that day in seventh grade, he stayed out so long with friends when he knew good and well he wasn't supposed to.

Arianne Yago, 10, worries that because she has to practically torque her neck to see the rest of the sixth-graders, so much taller than her, she'll be teased.

As public schools start their new session, thousands of adolescents are learning that more than just the challenges of beginning algebra await them in middle school.

While middle-school administrators work to create an environment that fits the needs of this trying time, they also admit there's much more to be done when it comes to addressing the issues of today's middle-schooler.

It helps to think of adolescence like Doctor Dolittle's pushmi-pullyu: On one hand, a middle-schooler wants to act like a child and is told to "grow up"; when he wants to act like a child, he's told to "act his age."

"It is a period of significant developmental change," explained Mike Walker, principal at Punahou's junior school, "perhaps one of most significant we go through in our full life progression.

"That's what's most overlooked: a full range of swings, including cognitive swings. There are great moments of insights, and potentially moments of doubt. We recognize adolescence as significant physical changes. The emotional and cognitive changes are comparable."

With hormones fluctuating as much as the stock market and higher reasoning still a little mushy, adolescents are facing greater societal pressures, too: PG-13 movies that in their parents' day would have been rated R, "hootchie" clothes that are all the rage, parents say.

NEW CROWD, NEW PRESSURES

What awaits the middle-schooler?

Arianne Yago is looking forward to moving from fifth grade over to the middle-school building at Maryknoll this month, but there are some things she's NOT looking forward to.

"It's going to be kinda different," she said. "Like, there's gonna be different people and stuff. There are people who are kinda weird ... "

"Arianne!" interjected her mother, Carmela Marcos-Yago. "That's not nice to say! Do you want people to read that in the paper?"

"But they're going to tease me!" Arianne responded, matching her mother in volume.

What would a pretty, talented, normally confident 10-year-old have to be teased about? Well, let's see. It could be because Arianne stands a head shorter than many of her classmates.

"Normally, I can look at them straight in the eye, now I kind of have to look up," she said. " ... Some of the teachers think I am going to the first grade and I'm lost."

It's a given that middle school is the age when adolescent focus switches from family-centric to peer-centric. Marcos-Yago said that means the words "Hollister" and "Abercrombie & Fitch" suddenly have become part of her daughter's vocabulary.

"Image and appearance are starting to kick in," Marcos-Yago said, adding that Arianne now is more particular about what brand she's wearing and how she does her hair, like her summer school cohorts.

As for being height-challenged, Arianne's adapting a good attitude: "Sometimes they think in a way they're better than me. ... I just let it go in a way, but sometimes it gets to me."

INSTILLING VALUES

How can the school help?

Shana Tong, principal of Yago's school, said a key to Maryknoll's value system is four agreements: mutual respect, no putdowns, appreciation and the right to pass (not volunteer). These allow children to feel safe, said Tong, who also has a son this age.

Maryknoll doesn't think of middle school as mini-high school, but as an animal in and of itself.

"Because of the physical changes they're going through, they're children at heart, but want to be adults," said Tong. "They need a strong, stable, secure school atmosphere, so they feel safe."

She'd much rather attach the middle school to the elementary school campus, as it is at Maryknoll, than across the street at the high school. It helps build a tribe mentality, with older children looking after younger ones.

Indeed, Arianne said none of her friends are yakking at lunch hour about sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.

Marcos-Yago also likes that Maryknoll has uniforms, which cuts down on the chances of anyone showing up wearing inappropriate clothes.

THE RIGHT ATMOSPHERE

Kapolei Middle School implemented uniforms just this year.

"I still don't believe in uniforms, but if it's going to alleviate my stressors, let's go for it," said Annette Nishikawa, principal of Kapolei Middle School, who has seen young girls showing up in spaghetti straps and with their midriffs showing.

Nishikawa was an early convert to what's been heralded as "the middle school movement," taking a whole-child approach to education and a team approach to teaching.

These are the years of building relationships, said Nishikawa, who created a curriculum from the ground up when Kapolei Middle opened in 1999.

With a year-round calendar, she needs a lot of organizational prowess. Kapolei's schedule runs in tracks, so the same core teachers follow the same group through the entire year.

Nishikawa strongly believes in the concept of an advocate for every child on campus.

Punahou's Walker puts it this way: "Everything we know is, (children this age) need a highly attentive and interpersonal middle-school experience," he said. "If you look at the national level, this is where we lose kids, where they become disengaged. Middle schools need to be reorganized, so every child has a close relationship with adults."

FUZZY LOGIC

The importance of good relationships with adults can't be overstated: Imaging studies show connections within the frontal lobe, the brain's reasoning center, are among the last to develop. So having good examples modeling good behavior — and tamping down on bad behavior — helps guide youths during this tenuous time.

Take Iopu Brian, an eighth-grader at Kapolei Middle School. You can tell he is a good boy. Big for his age, he listens politely to his parents and smiles shyly when meeting new people.

But even he doesn't know why he occasionally does stupid things, even with a stepmother who is practically "in his pocket" and a father who can be found in the vicinity during the afternoon.

Asked to remember one of those — the aforementioned time when Iopu stayed out past the time he was supposed to and incurred parental wrath — he showed no malice of forethought when he asked why he did it.

"I don't know."

Middle-schoolers are like that, experts say.

Iopu admits he struggled to acclimate in sixth grade. Once he did — and once he discovered football and girls discovered him — grades fell slightly on the priority list, much to the chagrin of his dad, John Vallejo.

"Our structure is: family, homework, chores," Vallejo stated firmly.

When homework began slipping, Dad had Iopu sit out a few football games — a bigger punch than he ever got on the field. Iopu re-evaluated his priorities, his parents said.

His goals for this year?

"Stay on top of things," Iopu said, adding: "Mom and Dad have to remind me, sometimes. ... And not get in trouble so much."

Part of what's keeping Iopu out of academic trouble is his reliance on an ever-present planner, a spiral notebook that serves as a communication device between home, school and student.

His principal, Nishikawa, continues to look for ways to set up some structure like this, because as she knows, middle-schoolers are quite adept at making bad decisions.

"In middle school, you spend a lot of time raising kids," she said. "You forget that while they're in bigger bodies, these are still kids. You have to show them there are boundaries to what they do, and consequences."

SCHOOLS ADAPTING

The right facilities help. Kapolei's new buildings come with all sorts of bells and whistles. Dry-erase boards that double as movable walls. Single-level buildings. Sixth grade on one side of the campus, eighth grade on the other — all came out of this middle-schooler-centered approach to learning.

Case Middle School at Punahou also serves as a leader here in Hawai'i. About a decade ago, Walker explained, Punahou realized middle-schoolers needed to be taught differently. And today's middle-schooler knows his technology — so, among other initiatives, students get their own laptops to work on.

More can be done, the experts say. Turnover of teachers hampers Nishikawa's efforts, as do some federal guidelines — like when she has a great sixth-grade teacher who isn't allowed to teach upper grades because of No Child Left Behind requirements.

She can't limit enrollment the way Punahou can. But that doesn't mean Punahou breezes through, either: Because private schools often are on different calendars, the interscholastic sports situation gets "complicated," Walker said.

Society keeps serving up hardballs, too. Middle-schoolers are much more comfortable with technology than, perhaps, their parents are, begging the question: Do you really know what they're exposed to?

"What has changed is, the cultural pressures our children come under, and earlier," Walker said. "A lot of that comes from pop culture."

Anthony Jackson, the author of "Turning Points 2000," who lectures around the country and in Hawai'i, said the challenges facing middle-schoolers are both parenting and school issues.

"When we talk about good middle schools, I like to think of it as a force field of adults in positive ways," he said.

Parents must realize it's not easy being a parent when you're being buffeted about by adolescents and their emotions.

"I don't think many parents feel the adolescent years were the best parenting years," Jackson said. "It's a perfect storm of hormonal changes, emotional changes and academic pressures. But it's also our last, best chance. Parents don't realize kids really can't control their wild fluctuations. Parenting has to be about holding on and doing your best."